Well, here is the final version of the cover, by graphic artist/cartoonist John Sherffius.
John also did the ‘toons that adorn each of the 5 Section pages.
Its available for pre-order at Amazon with a May 4 publication date.
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His work is awesome . . .
While yesterday's US stock market close was poor, Asia and Europe didn't follow today as debt in Greece, Spain, Portugal, etc... rallied, their CDS narrowed and stocks bounced. The Greek finance minister said January tax revenues came in above expectations and that spending was below target for the month and said "that means the deficit reduction for January is well within what we have promised." The euro is rising in turn. Also helping is the story that Trichet is headed to the European Union leaders summit a day early in order to address Greece's problems even as the Greek finance...
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March 11th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Congratulations, what is the publishing date?
March 11th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Grrreeaattttt cover! Excellent, Barry. Can’t wait to get my copy.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Barry: I saw that Greenspan was just in the WSJ claiming that the Fed wasn’t responsible for the housing bubble. I figured you might tear apart his historical revision of an editorial.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Brilliant cover Barry! Shake things up.
March 11th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Whats next, Nationalization Nation?
March 11th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
BR: Very nice. You’ll definitely be sneaking into bookstores to turn the front cover outward on the shelves! Does the pig make an appearance on the spine as well?
March 11th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Ha. What a surprise. Several of the independent voices I have read through the years, Roubini, Fleckenstein, etc. show up with BR. Well, well done! I want a copy of the autogrphed board game version; maybe it will be a modern day update of Monopoly?
March 11th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Killer Cover re-do!~
BR,
as you know, “That’s the ol’ Pepper~”
March 11th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Congratulations. Amazon has a May 4th release date. The preordering process at Amazon is a little goofy. Entering “Bailout Nation” by itself produced a dozen or more titles. If I hadn’t already known that Amazon was taking preorders I might have given up. You may want to get someone to check it out. Anyway I expect your book to arrive about the same time as the new Michael Connelly.
Wonder if any heads will roll at McGraw-Hill?
March 11th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
also, as Chief Tomhawk points out..
If I was heading off to the Intellectual battle-fields, I consider myself well-armed w/ Roubini y Fleckenstein in my squad..
March 11th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
I guess the alternate subtitle was scratched…. [You know, "Bailout Nation: The book which made McGraw-Hill Sh*t It's Pants"???]
March 11th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Never considered a taxpayer being screwed by wall street or bull?
March 11th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Pre-ordered my copy @ Wiley’s a week ago. Can’t wait!
March 11th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Congrats Barry.
We’ll have an obscure piece of info tomorrow to see what these bailouts hath wrought…Fed will release Total credit…of course, I’ll take the opportunity to update the famous Total Credit per GDP chart that is the elephant in the room right now at a staggering 359%. In the meantime I have to listen to Bob Froehlich tell us how great things are going to be very soon.
March 11th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
I agree, Mark E Hoffer, those are some great blurbs!
March 11th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Love it. Cover looks great too. Can’t hurt to have Roubini and Fleck plugging it. Will have to get my order in.
March 11th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
also, BR, let it not go unremarked that you gave, in first mention, Credit to the Creator of cover image: “graphic artist/cartoonist John Sherffius.”
it is, simply, another example of why you’re one of the Best..
March 11th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
I’m getting it just to read the section on the ratings agencies.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Very nice cover indeed!
March 11th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
sorry for the multi-posts, though, this, the QOTD, seems to fit, here, too..
All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership. -John Kenneth Galbraith
March 11th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Finally.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Barry great but did you include a chapter on this…
Big Banks Strike Again: Didn’t Pay Their FDIC Premiums For TEN YEARS Hotlist
by dday
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/11/17402/8942/483/707343
Seriously, I am so done with these elites.
outrageous and disgusting !
March 11th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Just pre-ordered mine. Can’t wait! Thanks for doing the good work, Barry.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
veeeeeeery nice
i am looking forward to hearing what you will do with your millions
March 11th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
What about a book signing event?
March 11th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
You should make a poster of the cover! I think people would buy this.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Excellent, I will definitely add it to my growing collection of books about how greed can make people stupid, Infectious Greed, No Logo, BCCI, the smartest guys in the room, Cracking the Value Code (that one is a hoot), and so forth.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Great “Porky the Bull” artistic rendition. Hope the book does well, Barry.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Glad it is being published but there is nothing new under the sun….
The Looting of America’s Coffers
“Sixteen years ago, two economists published a research paper with a delightfully simple title: “Looting.”
The economists were George Akerlof, who would later win a Nobel Prize, and Paul Romer, the renowned expert on economic growth. In the paper, they argued that several financial crises in the 1980s, like the Texas real estate bust, had been the result of private investors taking advantage of the government. The investors had borrowed huge amounts of money, made big profits when times were good and then left the government holding the bag …….”
Bailout nation part deux…..
~~~
BR: I actually mention that study in the Moral Hazard section
March 11th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
The cover is great! I am ever so happy for you!
Can’t wait to read it!
March 11th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
This is great. At least you will be setting the record straight. This was foreseeable and predictable… The cover art is a bit sensational, but full of impact. I just want my copy signed and will fly to NYC if I must. Please do twist my arm. : ) Best of best wishes.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
I like!!!!
March 11th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxqlb1–uKc
March 11th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Great cover. I want to read it now!
March 11th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
How does one refer to that hybrid specie on the cover? A bullpig? A pigbull… a bovine porcine..?
March 11th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
DL… you raise a good point. I’d rather have seen a bull raging from cows in heat. I’m not sure i like that creature; but i suspect it will get what it deserves.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Congratulations!
March 11th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
@Steve Barry
I’m pegging it at a bout 370% could go to 380%. It’s the 1St Qtr where I think the debt to GDP really starts to take off as the fed spends and GDP continues to go down. Took me awhile to build up the first model. The GDP price deflater number…
March 12th, 2009 at 12:02 am
congratulations!
March 12th, 2009 at 12:44 am
They should have drawn a CNBC girl riding that thing. Otherwise, great choice for an image
March 12th, 2009 at 1:10 am
That’s what i was thinking too… get Erin up there riding the porker.
March 12th, 2009 at 1:31 am
Senor Barry,
When do ya go on tour so I can have signed version? Otherwise, what hoops do I jump to have you sign a copy for those (ie me) who are on the Left Coast?
All The Best,
Space Cowboy (from the flight deck)
Btw will this a mandatory case study course for B-schools?
Re: “CNBC girl riding the thing”? (www.girlsofcnbc.blogspot.com vs http://www.foxnewsgirls.com?)……Why Bareback, of course ;>)
My choice is for Meridith Whitney flipping the critter on its back……with a martial arts based kick!
March 12th, 2009 at 1:33 am
Barry, the look on the bull-pig’s face makes it look like it has constipation. Was that intentional?
March 12th, 2009 at 2:18 am
Must read for this weekend!
http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt0812e.pdf
March 12th, 2009 at 2:51 am
Pre-ordered mine, and also a copy for a colleague as a birthday gift.
Barry, I hope this is wildly successful for you.
As common man said; “They should have drawn a CNBC girl riding that thing”. Yes, I agree – that would have been not only completely in context, but hysterically funny to boot. CNBC were up to their thighs in blithely “reporting” [cough] every little piece of this nastily unfolding story with great glee and characteristic breathless (and mostly shouted) anticipation. Oh yes, and absent any kind of intellectual focus. Great “news” outlet that is. [spit].
./Boggie
March 12th, 2009 at 3:21 am
Congrats Barry!
Are you going to sell to your fans some signed copies as Fleck did?
March 12th, 2009 at 3:57 am
That looks great!
March 12th, 2009 at 6:47 am
Thanks for all the kind words –
Yes, there will definitely be signings; NY (obviously) Boston and Philly on the East coast; Chicago; SF and LA are very likely out West.
More to come . . .
March 12th, 2009 at 8:13 am
Rather than a CNBC girl perched on top, I would have had a cartoon drawing of any one of the Bank CEO’s riding the thing, with similar drawings of the rest of them surrounding it, awaiting their turn to ride. Could have used Fuld, Cayne, O’Neal, Mozilo, Thain, just to name a few, and they could all have money stuffed in their suits and kinda spilling out all over the place, and then you could have a drawing of Madoff a little more in the background, picking up all the money that has spilled on the ground. You may have had to make the book coffee table size however.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Speaking of bailouts, have you heard the one about some banks wanting to return free bailout cash from the GWB incarnation of Uncle Stupid because, heaven forfend, they might have to start actually accounting for it and they don’t like the new administration now treating them like real welfare recipients. It looks like Uncle Stupid might be showing the bud of a brain stem that might be growing larger.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Onik, oink. Let the fallout from the bailouts begin.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:43 am
I look forward to reading the book. That said, Thomas Woods’ great book, Meltdown, will be a hard act to follow. In my opinion he got the story right and offers the best explanation so far. Of course, it helps that the Austrian School, of which he is a follower, predicted the crisis based on sound economic principles when others failed to see it coming.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Barry, I second many of the responses above in regards to the pre-ordering process.
I had a pre-order setup for a prior listing and when I saw this post I had to go back and cancel the prior listing and pre-order this listing.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:36 am
That is awesome! Terrific cover.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:02 am
“Barry Ritholtz Says:
March 12th, 2009 at 6:47 am
Thanks for all the kind words –
Yes, there will definitely be signings; NY (obviously) Boston and Philly on the East coast; Chicago; SF and LA are very likely out West.
More to come . . .”
Can you make the journey upto Portland (Powell’s Books would love to have you do a reading & signing…their stock & trade as one of the largest indy book stores in America.) or Seattle?
I’ll pick up your dinner tab at any of the various great stake/seafood joints…..
Space_Cowboy_NW
March 13th, 2009 at 12:53 am
I would like to read this on my kindle….
PLEASE, PLEASE
April 6th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Hi Barry: Any plans for an audio (unabridged) version? I realize the business case may not be great, BUT for those of us with more downtime in transit to “read” by audio than print, it would be appreciated.