Book Review: The Money Game, By Adam Smith

The Money Game, by Adam Smith, is a fantastic book that’s filled with terrible investment advice. But that’s the point.

Despite being published in 1968, The Money Game feels incredibly relevant today. This is because many of the investing topics covered here are timeless. Mainly, the book’s examination of how people try to get rich quick through investing and how this leads to a mania of junk assets.

Allow me to explain…

Meme Stocks, Garbage, And How Wall Street Works

From mid-2020 through late-2021, high-flying growth stocks were all the rage and it seemed like anything related to technology or electric vehicles could only go up. Bears compared this to the Dot Com Bubble, but this type of behavior pre-dates that by decades.

In The Money Game, Adam Smith recounts the 1950’s meme bubble.

This is a time when companies like Brunswick Bowling commanded premium stock prices and were investments of the future. Today, it seems weird that everyone would buy stock in a bowling ball company. But in 10 years time, a lot of the recent meme stocks will seem equally strange.

So what causes these types of investments to takeoff?