High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families

Peter Gosselin predicted in High Wire that the American worker would take on an exceedingly high level of risk in the American economy, and would be ever more exposed to the volatility of the market. Today, Gosselins worst fears have been realized. American families are walking a high wire in which a medical crisis, a natural disaster, or the loss of a job could send them into free fall. And as the housing crisis worsens and banks and insurers collapse, many have already fallen. High Wire reveals the quiet corrosion of American living standards and shows how the ownership society has turned into the on-your-own societywith devastating consequences.

About the Author :
Peter Gosselin is national economics correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and a member of the paper's Washington bureau. A visiting fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., he lives with his wife, reporter Robin Toner, and their two children in Washington, D.C.

Review :
"[Peter Gosselin] has done the most convincing job I've seen in capturing the failures of America to deal with a changing, complex and far less generous economy than it has known in the past...The main theme of Gosselin, a veteran reporter for the Los Angeles Times, is the rise of deep-seated financial, health and material risk. He gathers the many pieces of the new economic America together quite beautifully, even elegantly, and brings them alive with interesting and not the usually predictable individual examples. I learned many things in this book, and I've been covering this territory for a long time."--Jeff Madrick, economic analyst on Truthdig.com "Gosselin's spirit of humanity penetrates beyond dry statistics to reveal some of the deepest and most important economic issues facing the country today."--Robert Shiller, Yale finance theorist and author of "Irrational Exuberance." "If you have time to read only two books during this presidential year--about the condition of the country and the challenges together we all face--then please do yourself and all those you care about a favor by reading Peter Gosselin's 'High Wire' twice!"--Mark Shields, PBS Newshour commentator and syndicated columnist "In this alarming and vividly reported book, Gosselin puts to rest the notion that anyone can make it on their own with only a winning plan. This book must be a central part of the discussion on how to cure America's economic ills, before the "high wire" becomes a trip wire for us all."--Barbara Ehrenreich, author of "Nickel and Dimed" and "Bait and Switch" "Incomes and living standards have become more volatile, and many families today are left bearing risks that they simply cannot handle. Peter Gosselin sets out to be the voice of the ordinary family, and he does an eloquent and convincing job of it in this important book."--Bob Solow, Nobel Prize-winning MIT economist "Meticulously researched and written with verve, "High Wire" is a rare masterpiece of chilling logic about mounting economic risks in our families, our homes, and our jobs. All Americans should read this book."--Peter Bernstein, economic consultant and author of "Against The Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk" "Paradoxically, 'the lives of individual Americans have grown simultaneously more prosperous and more precarious, ' writes Peter Gosselin in his new book, 'High Wire.' Gosselin, a reporter at the "Los Angeles Times," has provided the most thorough account of this phenomenon to date." --"Newsweek" "Gosselin, the "Los Angeles Times" economic correspondent in Washington, has got something special going in the pages of "High Wire," He has answered - analytically and lyrically - a question that clogs debate on economic matters in the nation's capital: Why do Americans feel so anxious, even when the U.S. economy, on the whole, is performing quite ably?--John Aloysius Farrell, Robert Emmet Blog