What do You think about Dave Barry's Money Secrets: Like: Why Is There A Giant Eyeball On The Dollar? (2006)?
good break."Why are Ivy League schools so expensive? Simple: they hire the smartest professors in the world, and these professors do nothing -- the actual classes are taught be graduate students making $9.50 an hour -- but sit around thinking up ways to jack up tuition.""Yes, medical care has become hideously expensive in this country. Go to any American hospital today to have even a minor surgery such as removal of your tonsils., and you're looking at a minimum cost of $13,000. And that's just for parking. ... Why is medical care so expensive? There is no one simple answer to this question, by which I mean: lawyers."
—Zachary
Personal finance books are my secret passion. So, when I saw a parody of one done by Dave Barry, I picked it right up. His books are usually hilarious, easy-to-read, and immensely quotable. However, this one missed the mark a little. It's not nearly as funny as his other books. His jokes were predictable, and paced in the same manner throughout the book. Every paragraph seems to be two serious comments, followed by a joke. This began to wear on me a little, and I found my self laughing less frequently as the book went on. There were still some great Dave Barry moments though. This passage about the cost of college tuition is one of my favorites:"Unfortunately, college costs money, unless your child is really good at football or basketball, in which case goodhearted knowledge-loving strangers will cover all your child's educational needs, including a sport utility vehicle. But, chances are you'll have to pay for your childs college education. This is a problem if your child wants to go to a top college such as Harvard, where tuition is currently $37,5000 per... ...no, wait, while I was writing that sentence it went up, so now it's $38,928 per... ...no, hold on, it just went up again, and now it's $40,2...Why are Ivy League schools so expensive? Simple: They hire the smartest professors in the world, and these professors do nothing but sit around thinking up new ways to jack up tuition. The pioneer in the effort was Princeton University, which in 1932 hired Albert Einstein to work on the tuition problem. At the time, a semestor at Princeton cost $16.75, which included a class beanie and a manservant. After studying the situation, Einstein developed the General Theory of Relativity, which states :"People in general will pay any amount of money to be able to tell their relatives that their child goes to Princeton."...Dartmouth seems to be proving this with it's Tuition + Organ Program (TOP), which requires that each semester's tuition payment be accompanied by a functional human kidney. "It's amazing," reports a Dartmouth official. "We figure that, between Mom and Dad, each set of parents would be good for a maximum of four kidneys, but darned if they're not coming up with more! God only knows how."
—Jenna
Do not - and I swear I'm not making this up - do not read this book if you're looking for actual financial advice. If you're looking for a couple of laughs, my financial advice is to buy it. Better yet, go to the library, get it for free, save the money you would have spent on the book for a mocha latte grande. Barry's discussion of financial matters goes free range using the stock market, real estate, and saving for a college education, among others, as stepping off points for his usual clever brand of humor. It was worth more than a few LOLs, and who can put a price on that? If you like audiobooks, I highly recommend Dick Hill's narration of this book. It is not so much a narration as an actual performance, and it is brilliant.
—Chris
