The Golden Fleece: Why the Stock Market Costs You Money

NON FICTION BOOK REVIEW  

373  words 

Title: The Golden Fleece: Why the Stock Market Costs You Money;  
by Walter Stewart; McClelland & Stewart; 327 pages; Hardcover; $29.99 

Reviewer: A. T . Connellan, "With his journalists jaundiced eye and 
tongue planted firmly in cheek Walter Stewart gives us a history 
lesson full of smiles. If you don't know a put from a call, come along. 
On the way we'll meet an assortment of pitchmen and pirates whose 
chicanery will leave your head spinning."

Stewart explains the stock market

Do you want to get rich ? Are you ready to take charge of your financial 
future? Is it time to play with the "Big Guys?" If the answer is yes, 
here is a book which that will either help you attain that dream, or keep 
you awake nights. 
     
"I'm really not too keen on the stock market," understated Walter Stewart 
in a recent interview. Hah! he hates the stock market. For 327 pages of 
carefully researched analysis, he savages the system, the players, the 
ethics [or lack thereof], and those who offer themselves up ovine, 
to be shorn. 
        
With his journalists jaundiced eye and tongue planted firmly in cheek 
Walter Stewart gives us a history lesson full of smiles. In doing so he 
brings us forward to the present through a circuitous route that detours 
to explore each nook and cranny so if you don't know a put from a call, 
come along. On the way we'll meet an assortment of pitchmen and 
pirates whose chicanery will leave your head spinning. 

The important thing is that at the end we come away with an 
understanding of a section of the economy that directly or, indirectly 
affects our standard of living. The author doesn't disappoint. Aided 
by a comprehensive glossary plus an extensive bibliography and 
index, he teaches, we learn, and we are left without an excuse for ignorance.
         
So the next time some smooth talking scammer wants to "share an 
opportunity with you" to get in on the ground floor  on an obscure gold 
find in the north, a dynamic little company selling batteries from kiosks 
n shopping malls, or a sure fire cure for AIDS made from chicken 
feathers, you'll slap both hands over your wallet and back away, full speed. 

Mr. Stewart claims that he has decided "to give up financial writing 
entirely, once I get another book out of my system, and cover travel 
instead. Sunsets seldom sue." That other book due out in 1993, is 
on Olympia and York, and the litigious brothers Reichmann. 
Go get 'em Walter! 
        
In the meantime don't miss this one, it's a dandy.