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Loading... In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtueby Lauren Weber
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I thought this was a self help guide to becoming frugal but that was my mistake, it was really a history of American frugality. Interesting read. ( ) I've read a few others of this sub-genre, and I kinda just skimmed most of the book.. The most value I found was in the last chapter- Cheapskate Psychology. First she reviews the traditional negative psycho-babble about anal retentivity. Then she finds experts who admit that those who can control the impulse to accumulate are mentally healthier and happier than those who can't. ( She mentions the Walter Mischel marshmallow experiment.) And then she pins it down correctly, from page 260 on. A sense of accomplishment and a hatred of waste in all it's forms. People who can live thriftily generally are not fearful of living against the grain, exhibiting more independence. Frugal people are nonconformists.
There’s a lot to like about the book. Weber presents an engaging, if slightly overextended, history of America’s complicated relationship with spending. [Weber] works hard not to moralize (humor is always the best antidote to preachiness) and introduces some fantastic characters along the way, for example, Hetty Green, listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "world's greatest miser."
Considers our hot-and-cold relationship with thrift and offers a colorful ride through its history in America, from Ben Franklin and his famous maxims to the branding of Jews and the Chinese as cheap in order to neutralize the economic competition they represented. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)332.02400973Social sciences Economics Finance Miscellany And Personal Finance Personal FinanceLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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