The book's idea is stripped down and simple: we've had decades of stories of people surviving the rise of zombies, trying and sometimes failing to keep from getting bitten and/or eaten by ravening hordes, and so the thesis statement Desjardins and Emerson came up with says
...every skill needed to survive a financial downturn mirrors a skill needed to survive the zombie apocalypse.
In other words, survive and get the chance to do better than survive later. Which I want to do.
A lot of the advice is stuff I already knew, but it's good to reinforce all of it, to be reminded of it. I already live a pretty stripped-down life, financially speaking -- have since at least 2008 when I intentionally, and in a calculated way, left my OHSU job, because my sanity was more important than that paycheck -- but I'm getting reminded of what my financial weak spots are, and adjusting. Always important to do so. And my inner (and often not-so-inner) sicko chuckled at some of the imagery in the fiction section of the book. Zombie Economics alternates between a narrative about someone surviving their zombie-overrun city and straightforward, though still smart-assed, advice sections (like the advice to, if you're ever fired, wallow in the "this sucks" feelings for a bit...BUT ONLY FOR A BIT). Desjardins and Emerson are, after all, smartasses. I've happily dealt with them both. As well as their contributor Todd Werkhoven, who coincidentally? Is nicknamed Todd the Corpse. (He played a corpse in a movie.)
The book will be worth revisiting. It came out last May; within a month, people were already giving it as graduation gifts, which I'm sure delighted the authors.
Anyway. Zombie Economics. Recommended. Would you like to know more? Go to ZombieEconomics.com.
