In 2004, Barry Golson wrote an award-winning article for AARP magazine about Mexican hot spots for retirees longing for a lifestyle they couldn't afford in the United States. A year later, he and his wife Thia were taking part in the growing trend of retiring abroad. They sold their Manhattan apartment, packed up their SUV, and moved to one of those idyllic hot spots, the surfing and fishing village of Sayulita on Mexico's Pacific coast.

With humor and charm, Golson details the year he and his wife spent settling into their new life and planning and building their dream home. Sayulita -- population 1,500, not including stray dogs or pelicans -- is a never-dull mixture of traditional Mexican customs and new, gringo-influenced change. Before long, the Golsons had been absorbed into the rhythms and routines of village life: they adopted a pair of iguanas named Iggy Pop and Iggy Mom, got sick and got cured by a doctor who charged them sixteen dollars a visit, made lasting friends with Mexicans and fellow expatriates, and discovered the skill and artistry of local craftsmen.

But their daily lives were mostly dedicated to the difficult yet satisfying process of building their house. It took them almost six months to begin building -- nothing is simple (or speedy) in Mexico -- and incredibly, they completed construction in another six. They engaged a Mexican architect, builder, and landscape designer who not only built their home but also changed their lives; encountered uproariously odd bureaucracy; and ultimately experienced a lifetime's worth of education about the challenges and advantages of living in Mexico.

The Golsons lived (and are still living) the dream of many -- not only of going off to a tropical paradise but also of building something beautiful, becoming a part of a new world, making lasting friends, and transforming their lives. As much about family and friendship as about house-building, Gringos in Paradise is an immensely readable and illuminating book about finding a personal paradise and making it a home.

]]> http://www.banks.ca/retirement/gringos-in-paradise-an-american-couple-builds-their-retirement-dream-house-in-a-seaside-village-in-mexico/feed/ 0 http://www.banks.ca/banks/griftopia-a-story-of-bankers-politicians-and-the-most-audacious-power-grab-in-american-history/ http://www.banks.ca/banks/griftopia-a-story-of-bankers-politicians-and-the-most-audacious-power-grab-in-american-history/#comments Sun, 02 Jun 2013 21:29:16 +0000 http://www.banks.ca/banks/griftopia-a-story-of-bankers-politicians-and-the-most-audacious-power-grab-in-american-history/ http://www.banks.ca/banks/griftopia-a-story-of-bankers-politicians-and-the-most-audacious-power-grab-in-american-history/feed/ 0 http://www.banks.ca/investment/fate-of-the-states-the-new-geography-of-american-prosperity/ http://www.banks.ca/investment/fate-of-the-states-the-new-geography-of-american-prosperity/#comments Thu, 23 May 2013 22:23:02 +0000 http://www.banks.ca/investment/fate-of-the-states-the-new-geography-of-american-prosperity/ “Forget everything you think you know about the direction of the American economy, about our grow­ing need for foreign oil, about the rise of the service economy and the decline of American manufacturing. The story of the next thirty years will not be a repeat of the last thirty.”
 
One of the most respected voices on Wall Street, Meredith Whitney shot to global prominence in 2007 when her warnings of a looming crisis in the financial sector proved all too prescient. Now, in her first book, she expands upon her biggest call since the financial crisis.
 
Whitney points out that it wasn’t just consum­ers who binged on debt for the past twenty years but state and local governments too. She explains how the fiscal sins of the past are beginning to transform the U.S. economy along regional lines. And she shows how we are moving into a new era in which wealth, power, and opportunity flow away from the coasts and toward the central corridor.
 
The housing boom was initially great for states such as California, Nevada, and Florida. State and municipal coffers overflowed, unemployment shrank, and local governments spent their tax-revenue windfalls on pay hikes and pension increases for their public employees. But when the boom dried up in those parts of the country, so too did the tax revenues, forcing tax-rate hikes and cuts to essential public services—especially education and infrastructure.
 
In contrast to those doom and gloom head­lines, a much different trend was developing in interior states such as North Dakota, Indiana, and Texas. They survived the housing crisis relatively unscathed, avoiding mass foreclosures and bud­getary chaos. As a result they’ve had the money to retrain workers and offer tax incentives to companies willing to relocate. Coupled with the recent booms in natural gas and oil extraction and a resurgence in manufacturing, these states are poised to become the new powerhouses of the American economy.
 
Whitney offers a sobering vision of the next few decades, with the coastal states continuing to struggle while the central corridor contin­ues to thrive. She explores the consequences of roughly half the country stuck in a vicious cycle of decline while the other half enjoys a virtuous circle of growth.
 
Whitney also offers practical ideas to help the struggling parts of the country—before the fate of the states becomes irreversible.
]]> http://www.banks.ca/investment/fate-of-the-states-the-new-geography-of-american-prosperity/feed/ 0 http://www.banks.ca/banks/the-lost-bank-the-story-of-washington-mutual-the-biggest-bank-failure-in-american-history/ http://www.banks.ca/banks/the-lost-bank-the-story-of-washington-mutual-the-biggest-bank-failure-in-american-history/#comments Fri, 10 May 2013 04:53:20 +0000 http://www.banks.ca/banks/the-lost-bank-the-story-of-washington-mutual-the-biggest-bank-failure-in-american-history/ Kirsten Grind’s The Lost Bank is a magisterial and gripping account of these events, tracing the cultural shifts, the cockamamie financial engineering, and the hubris and avarice that made this incredible story possible. The men and women who become the central players in this tragedy— the regulators and the bankers, the home buyers and the lenders, the number crunchers and the shareholders—are heroes and villains, perpetrators and victims, often switching roles with one another as the drama unfolds.

As a reporter at the time for the Puget Sound Business Journal, Grind covered a story set far from the epicenters of finance and media. It happened largely in places such as the suburban homes of central California and the office buildings of Seattle, but Grind covered the story from the beginning, and the clarity and persistence of her reporting earned her many awards, including being named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Gerald Loeb Award. She takes readers into boardrooms and bedrooms, revealing the power struggles that pitted regulators at the Office of Thrift Supervision and the FDIC against one another and the predatory negotiations of investment bankers and lawyers who enriched themselves during the bank’s rise and then devoured the decimated bank in its final days.

Written as compellingly as the finest fiction, The Lost Bank makes it clear that the collapse of Washington Mutual was not just the largest bank failure in American history. It is a story of talismanic qualities, reflecting the incredible rise and the precipitous collapse of not only an institution but of trust, fortunes, and the marketplaces for risk across the world.]]> http://www.banks.ca/banks/the-lost-bank-the-story-of-washington-mutual-the-biggest-bank-failure-in-american-history/feed/ 0 http://www.banks.ca/investment/fate-of-the-states-the-new-geography-of-american-prosperity-2/ http://www.banks.ca/investment/fate-of-the-states-the-new-geography-of-american-prosperity-2/#comments Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:39:39 +0000 http://www.banks.ca/investment/fate-of-the-states-the-new-geography-of-american-prosperity-2/ http://www.banks.ca/investment/fate-of-the-states-the-new-geography-of-american-prosperity-2/feed/ 0 http://www.banks.ca/banks/the-house-of-morgan-an-american-banking-dynasty-and-the-rise-of-modern-finance/ http://www.banks.ca/banks/the-house-of-morgan-an-american-banking-dynasty-and-the-rise-of-modern-finance/#comments Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:04:47 +0000 http://www.banks.ca/banks/the-house-of-morgan-an-american-banking-dynasty-and-the-rise-of-modern-finance/ http://www.banks.ca/banks/the-house-of-morgan-an-american-banking-dynasty-and-the-rise-of-modern-finance/feed/ 0 http://www.banks.ca/banks/republic-of-debtors-bankruptcy-in-the-age-of-american-independence/ http://www.banks.ca/banks/republic-of-debtors-bankruptcy-in-the-age-of-american-independence/#comments Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:35:19 +0000 http://www.banks.ca/banks/republic-of-debtors-bankruptcy-in-the-age-of-american-independence/ http://www.banks.ca/banks/republic-of-debtors-bankruptcy-in-the-age-of-american-independence/feed/ 0