The Unfair Trade

How Our Broken Global Financial System Destroys the Middle Class

A global financial system that's dangerously skewed by domestic politics is generating unprecedented wealth for a lucky few but forcing the rest of humanity to fight over the crumbs.

A slew of bestsellers emerged after the 2008 financial collapse to the story of that debacle primarily through the lens of one economy—America's. What all failed to address, however, is how the crisis was provoked by by our increasingly interconnected world economy. The Unfair Trade fills that void with a highly readable account that makes the workings of the global economy accessible to ordinary people, those who are most affected by it.

A full understanding of why the American middle class is stuck in its funk must consider factors such as the "China price" and the challenge it poses to U.S. employers, or the failure of banking regulators to control global banks. Until we recognize all the ways our financial system is distorted—how China's undervalued yuan creates new recruits for Mexican drug gangs, for example, or how the Fed's "quantitative easing" leaves Hong Kong storeowners trapped by rising rents—we will remain under threat of another global economic meltdown. The Unfair Trade explains all this and more.

In a  compelling and exhaustively researched narrative reported first-hand from a dozen different countries, seasoned journalist Michael Casey reveals how financial decisions in one region of the world can have outsized, unintended—and sometimes disastrous—impacts on other regions.

Here is but one example: Joe Bonadio, a homeowner in Mt. Vernon, NY, was talked into an interest-only mortgage that ruined him financially. What makes his story so extraordinary is the way Casey connects the dots between Joe, his access to easy credit in the US, and a poorly paid 25-year old Chinese factory worker, all of which are influenced by Chinese government policies that keep its currency undervalued, its exports cheap, and its citizens saving a multitrillion-dollar pool of excess cash.

The sweeping economic shifts provoked by this international financial system are changing the face of Argentina, whose cattle-raising traditions are disappearing as ranchers turn to planting soy beans for a hungry Chinese population; have taken down the economies of Iceland, Ireland, Spain, Greece, and may even decimate the euro; and are driving formerly thriving companies such as a 40 year-old family-owned New Hampshire manufacturer of printed circuit boards to shutter all but the last of its factories.

The Unfair Trade is a wake-up call. It explains how our livelihoods are now, more than ever, beholden to the workings of a vast global system beyond any one country's control, one fraught with inequities and imbalances. America's lagging economic performance is largely caused by policies overseas and at home that discourage global competition and prevent the free market from efficiently allocating resources. Until governments work together to make this system more efficient, the global playing field will remain lopsided, job creation in the West will lag, and our economies will be vulnerable to catastrophe.

Che’s Afterlife

The Legacy of an Image

There are plenty of books about Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s life. This is not one of them. This is the story of what happened to “El Che” after his death, recounted as a biography of the most reproduced photographic image ever: the portrait that Cuban photographer Alberto Korda serendipitously captured at a state funeral on March 5, 1960. Che’s Afterlife tells this iconic graphic’s own remarkable story for the first time. Guevara himself is an important factor in that account. But the book ultimately concerns itself with the people who outlived Che, since they are the ones who most deserve credit (or the blame, some might say) for turning his face into the most enduring political brand of our age.

Parts of journalist Michael Casey’s smooth-flowing, highly readable book are concerned with the famous contributors to the Che myth – Fidel Castro, for example, the Cuban Revolution’s brand-manager-in-chief, and other political figures who have used the Korda symbol to bolster their own appeal. It reveals their efforts to project Che as a lasting standard-bearer of revolutionary zeal even as the economist interests behind promoting the image have changed in the post-Cold War era. The narrative also follows the artists who gave the Che icon life – the photographer Korda, of course, but also the many Andy Warhol-influenced pop artists who embellished his image and turned it into a sexy graphic. Sometimes it seeks out those who’ve contributed negative energy to the icon-building enterprise – the Cuban-American “freedom fighters” of Miami, for example, who vociferously attack the Che icon and in so doing unwittingly lend it more power. Ultimately, however, Che’s Afterlife is about millions of lesser-known souls who’ve invested their often contradictory beliefs and desires into a single, frozen-in-time face, many of them finding a source of empowerment and hope where others see disorder and violence. Casey shows us that although the Che icon has been subject to exploitation for political and commercial gain for four decades – by governments and their dissenters, by publicists and self-serving merchants – at the end of the day, it is a product of society at large, as are all icons. Readers are introduced to the Che icon as a character in a storyline that they themselves helped write. This book, in essence, is about us.

Part travelogue, part historical documentary, part social commentary, Che’s Afterlife traces the Korda image’s passage from casual snapshot to international symbol of rebellion as it evolves inexorably into a copyright-contested brand stamped on everything from T-shirts to condoms. With an eye for detail and for the forgotten moments of history that are all but lost on the cutting room floors of photography studios and newsrooms, Casey unravels the myths behind the image – not so much as an iconoclast unveiling an elusive truth but as a probing investigator who is mapping the icon’s DNA. As he follows it across the Americas and through cyberspace, he shows us why, after so many years, the mercurial Che icon still ignites passions, and then presents the image as a reflection on how we view ourselves. Che’s Afterlife is a unique, insightful commentary on the global capitalist economy and our information age, one that demonstrates the supremacy of images and brands within that system. It is also a thought-provoking examination of the human condition, of the hopes and desires that give power to those same images and brands.

www.chesafterlife.com