I’m not sure I’ve ever met James Adams but his just published book Waffle Street is a great read and makes him seem like an old friend. Not just because Jimmy’s a Durhamster (the affectionate term I coined for myself and other residents of the Bull City) but because it makes a primer on personal finance and economics and the story behind the recent melt-down, as thoroughly entertaining as it is enlightening.
I learned more reading the nearly 300 pages of Waffle Street than I learned ten times over from college macro and micro economics or years of reading WSJ.
I like James partly because he wasn’t above taking a job at Waffle House, a 55 year old chain of 24 hour restaurants in highway friendly locations. No one works harder than folks in foodservice and they really see it all. Thus the name of his book and a play on Wall Street.
James definitely isn’t one of the financiers from whom I recently blogged that we still deserve justice but he makes a great case that serving a year or more working at Waffle House as he did after losing his job in that sector may be just what those yahoos deserve.
In fact, working at Waffle House should be a mandatory dose of true humanity for anyone getting an MBA or rising into management at a bank, investment company or any other element of the financial sector.
Waffle Street is also a great read about how to land on your feet following the crushing disappointment of losing a job.
I highly recommend this down-to-earth, informative and very humerous book. Now I’m hungry and thinking about running the Cross Bones up to Waffle House for some chops and browns and a start on my next book, The Last Boy; Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood!
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