text: This is one of the best business books I've ever read. Mr. Nocera says it took him six years to write this book, and I believe it. The amount of work that went into this book is obvious. This is an excellent piece of business journalism. The annotations and bibliography are thorough, and the overall writing and editing is top notch.
  
  Mr. Nocera covers a rich array of elements important to the development of the financial services industry over the last half of the 20th century:
  
  - Automated Teller Machines (ATMs)
  - The BankAmericard (later VISA)
  - Outdated banking regulations
  - Black Monday, October 19, 1987
  - Jimmy Carter's futile attempts to wrestle runaway inflation in the late 1970's
  - Cash Management Accounts (CMAs)
  - Citibank (later Citicorp)
  - Deregulation of brokers' commissions
  - Growth of American consumer debt as a result of runaway inflation in the late 1970's
  - America's cultural adoption of the plastic credit card from the late 1950's through 1993
  - The direct marketing of credit cards to Americans and its great success
  - America's worship of star mutual fund managers like Peter Lynch during the 1980's
  - The ineptitude of America's elected officials to deregulate the banking industry in the face of dramatic changes in the financial services marketplace
  - The amazing impact money market mutual funds had on Americans' savings strategies given the inflexibility of the banking Regulation Q that capped savings deposit interest at around 5% while interest rates were as high as 16%+ in the early 1980's
  - The significant growth and influence of Fidelity Investments and its leader Ned Johnson on the industry in the 1980's
  - Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and their impact on the growing wealth of Americans
  - The rise of nonbank banks and other non-financial companies getting into the financial services arena during the 1970's and 1980's
  - The pervasive impact and presence that Andrew Kahr had throughout the industry in creating new financial services products
  - The pollyana-ish impact of Marshall Loeb, editor of Money magazine, had on "middle class" Americans and their views of investing in securities
  - The amazing record of Peter Lynch despite the ever-growing size of the Magellan Fund
  - The slowness of Merrill Lynch to change along with the rest of the industry in de-emphasizing commission revenue versus asset management fees
  - The dramatic growth of mutual funds in the later half of the 20th century and all the billions the financial services industry makes from them each year
  - Negotiable Order of Withdrawal (NOW) accounts
  - State laws on usury and how South Dakota became the credit card capital of America
  - Schwab's OneSource as the first 'mutual fund supermarket'
  - The dramatic risks of writing naked put options in 1987 just before Black Monday and how it impacted Charles Schwab & Co.
  - The impact of "Reagonomics" on American wealth-building
  - The 1980's bull market leading up to Black Monday
  - The wild success of First Deposit's First Select card as designed by Andrew Kahr and the adverse reaction to it by consumers and watchdog groups
  - Paul Volcker's anti-inflation policy of ratcheting up interest rates in the early 1980's and his general resistance to deregulation of the banking industry
  - Ted and Nina Wang's amazing margin calls during and after Black Monday
  
  The author does a great job of depicting the very interesting characters that led the money revolution in the later half of the 20th century, including Dee Hock of VISA, Ned Johnson of Fidelity, Peter Lynch of Fidelity, Andrew Kahr the product development consultant, Roger Lawson of Fidelity, Marshall Loeb of Money magazine, Charles Merrill of Merrill Lynch, President Jimmy Carter and his administration, Donald Regan of Merrill Lynch and the Reagan administration, Charles Schwab, Gerald Tsai Jr. of Fidelity, Paul Volcker of the Federal Reserve, and Walter Wriston and John Reed of Citibank.
  
  The writing is crisp, clear, and easy to read. Few books come out like this and Mr. Nocera is to be commended for this first rate work.
  
  If you are even mildly interested in any of the items listed above, you will enjoy this book. If you find the financial services industry fascinating and/or work in the industry, you will love this book. It's a page turner!
  
  The only drawback to this book is that it was published over a decade ago in 1994. So much has happened since then! I encourage Mr. Nocera to pick up where he left off and put out a second edition that takes his readers up through 2005.
  