The book is a dialogue between a money manager and a young man who asks whether or not he should invest. Their conversation explores How for money and not-for-money investment differ; How accounting and economic assets compare with social and natural assets; How time is central to all of investment, building capabilities in the present which can deliver resources in the future; How banks collectively create and destroy money; How the yield curve shows the market interest rates for financial assets of different durations; How competitive advantage is important in determining the returns achieved on real assets; How fundamental value differs from price, or what someone is prepared to pay; How fundamental analysis and technical analysis of price data provide insights into risk; How mean-variance analysis of price data is the conventional approach to risk; How the economic ecosystem creates prices How capitalism may be a lousy system and yet the best available as it adapts continuously to align money prices and human values. The book is for people who want to know how investment works and how they can invest their savings. I think of it as an amalgam of an everyman's guide to business and economics, an introduction to investment, and an apology for 'capitalism'. Ben Paton

The book is a dialogue between a money manager and a young man who asks whether or not he should invest. Their conversation explores How 'for money' and 'not-for-money' investment differ; How accounting and economic assets compare with social and natural assets; How time is central to all of investment, building capabilities in the present which can deliver resources in the future; How banks collectively create and destroy money; How the yield curve shows the market interest rates for financial assets of different durations; How competitive advantage is important in determining the returns achieved on real assets; How 'fundamental value' differs from price, or what someone is prepared to pay; How 'fundamental analysis' and 'technical analysis' of price data provide insights into risk; How mean-variance analysis of price data is the conventional approach to risk; How the economic ecosystem creates prices How capitalism may be a lousy system and yet the best available as it adapts continuously to align money prices and human values.