home

about the book

what others are saying

conversation with the author

“A supremely useful book …
It’s a fraught time, writes hedge-fund guru
Smick in this timely book.”
—Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2008

About the book

David Smick keeps a low profile, but experts consider him one of the most insightful financial market strategists in the world. For more than two decades, he has conferred with central bankers (Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke) and advised top Wall Street executives and investors, from George Soros to Michael Steinhart to Stan Druckenmiller. Political leaders (from Bill Bradley to Jack Kemp) have regularly sought his policy advice.

The World Is Curved picks up where Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat left off, giving readers the consummate insider’s guide to the back offices of central bankers, finance ministers, even prime ministers.

Smick describes how today’s risky environment came to be—and why the mortgage mess is a symptom of potentially far more devastating trouble. He wrestles with two questions on everyone’s mind: How bad can things really get in today’s volatile economy? And what can we do about it?

Drawing on riveting anecdotes in language anyone can understand, Smick explains:

• How the churning cauldron we call China (the next great bubble to burst) represents a powerful threat to everyone’s pocketbooks.

• How Japanese housewives have taken control of their nation’s savings, and why it matters to us.

• How greed-driven bankers and investment bankers have put everyone’s pensions and 401(k)s at risk.

• How today’s “incredible shrinking central banks” may not be able to save us when the next crisis hits.

• Why the big money Russian, Chinese, Saudi, and Dubai sovereign wealth funds represent a tectonic shift in global financial power away from the United States, Europe, and Japan.

• Why the world desperately needs a “big think” financial doctrine to guide today’s dangerous ocean of money.

The World Is Curved is the rare book that speaks simultaneously to the Wall Street, Washington, and London elite, yet its apt storytelling shows Main Street readers how to survive in these turbulent times.

Publisher: Penguin Portfolio
Publication Date: September 4, 2008
ISBN-13: 9781591842187 hardcover
280 pages
Currently in seventh printing.

Paperback edition: Portfolio Trade
Publication Date: August 25, 2009
ISBN-13: 978-1591842903
336 pages