Shock exchange : how inner-city kids from brooklyn predicted the great recession and the pain ahead

Shock Exchange explains the stock market and U.S. economy through the eyes of the New York Shock Exchange, a financial literacy program Ralph Baker started in 2006 to share his passion for investing and basketball with his 11-year-old son and other boys his age. The book predicts the "pain ahead" for the U.S. economy, the demise of China, the pending stock market crash and social unrest.The first few chapters describe Mr. Baker’s experience growing up in Prince Edward County, VA which was one of the five lawsuits that made up the Brown v. Board of Education decision; it was also the only case led by high school students. Mr. Baker grew up with stories about the walkout at Robert Russa Moton High School, the public school closings that followed Brown and the five-year fight to get them reopened. Mr. Baker’s parents and other relatives had to attend schools in other counties, in other states or forgo school altogether. Some vowed never to return to the state of Virginia. Shock Exchange takes readers inside the stain of the school closings and that “education speech” Mr. Baker and his high school classmates were browbeat with by their parents.The book’s recommendations on infrastructure investing and how to tamp down the rising cost of college have been trumpeted by President Obama, the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee. However, they conveniently forgot to cite the source. Critics try to make and unmake authors, but the market always decides. President Obama, Senator Orrin Hatch, Congressman Kevin Brady, et al. have spoken. Shock Exchange is the best book on Wall Street in the past 20 years, and on economics, it may be the most important book since the Great Depression. Shock Exchange is also a must read for African Americans. In 2006 I started a youth mentorship program called the New York Shock Exchange (Shock Exchange) as a vehicle to share my passion for investing and basketball with my 11-year-old son and other boys his age. I figured that using basketball as a "carrot" would be a cool way for kids to learn about the stock market and the economy. Besides, just coaching basketball would not have been much fun for me. Somehow I had to make it educational as well. And just as I had suspected, with their ability to spot trends before adults, inner-city kids from Brooklyn knew more about investing than I, Peter Lynch, Bill Miller, and any hedge fund manager or Wall Street analyst on the planet. We not only helped them perform due diligence on their stock picks, but documented how macroeconomic forces were affecting their picks and the market in general. In the process, we noticed how key drivers of the economy were dismal and the U.S. economy was in the midst of stagflation. Since the "Great Recession" that the Shock Exchange foretold, financial literacy has been championed by the Wall Street community. The Shock Exchange's observations on the Great Recession – and the steps needed to address it – have been repeated by politicians, economists, Wall Street analysts, and even the president. But it's not over. The next recession will be more painful than the last. I will take you on a journey of how we came to know this, the progenitors of the financial crisis, and the pain ahead.