Getting by on $100,000 a Year, and Other Sad Tales

This book is a collection of Andrew Tobias' writings during a time when it was believed that only a fool would invest in the stock market or in real estate, when interest rates were expected to go up forever, and when high inflation was considered to be a permanent part of the "new economy". The advice is just as relevant today, since the moral of the book is whatever opinion the public has adopted as a nearly unanimous consensus, is demonstrated by Tobias to be exactly the opposite of what will actually happen. In current times, with everyone crazy about real estate, it is fascinating to learn how Tobias purchases a huge apartment for sixteen thousand dollars in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Everyone he knows thinks he's crazy for doing so, since they all figure that New York real estate will never recover. It is also marvelous to read Tobias describe how, when silver was selling at the insane price of $50 an ounce, he goes to one of the tiny gold and silver shops that sprang up in the late 1970s all across the country. Two hundred people are lined up around the block to enter the store. Tobias surveys the crowd. Only 3 people want to sell their silver; the others are all eager to buy at the top of the market. Replace "silver" with "real estate" and it's completely relevant for today.