Ali Velshi - How to Speak Money: The Language and Knowledge You Need Now

Contents

Copyright 2012 by Ali Velshi and Christine Romans. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Velshi, Ali.

How to speak money : the language and knowledge you need now / Ali Velshi and Christine Romans.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-11495-7 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-19337-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-19339-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-19338-9 (ebk)

1. Finance, Personal. 2. Money. I. Romans, Christine, 1971- II. Title.

HG179.V45 2012

332.024dc23

2011033518

To Ed and Lori.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Tom Wynbrandt. Without his collaboration, this book would not have happened. Also to our morning business producer Katy Byron, the excellent staffs of CNNs Your Bottom Line , Your Money , and American Morning , and a special mention to our intelligent, enlightened, and visionary bosses and executive producers (see Chapter 5: How to Speak Jobs) at CNN for giving us the platform on which to Speak Money. Thanks to CNN president Ken Jautz who, 10 years ago, put us together on the anchor desk and sparked a collaboration that led to this book. You have good taste.

The folks at CNNMoney.com inspire and educate us every day. And of course our respective spouses speak money better than we do and have taught us that money is secondary to that other valuable languagecompromise.

Introduction

Why Weve Written This Book

Welcome to How to Speak Money.

Allow us to introduce ourselves. Christine and Ali are colleagues at CNN; both business reporters and anchors. Like many co-workers, we spend more time at work with each other than we do with our spouses. Weve also grown to be friends and confidantspartners in financial (reporting) crimeover the past 10 years. Im not sure looking back to when we met at work 10 years ago that we would have thought wed be this tight a decade later. Back then, our differencesin our backgrounds and in our approaches to moneywere greater than our similarities. Or at least thats what we thought.

The biggest thing we had going for our relationship over the years is that we spoke the same language. Were not talking about English. We were both fluent in the language of money. We understood terms like 12-month trailing revenue and slow stochastics and we relished the latest news about the 200-day moving average. Business geeks, indeed. Truly, there wasnt a ton we had in common other than that we understood very clearly what the other said when we spoke in story meetings and on TV. (We share a love of high-caloric food; but thats for another book.)

Over the years, by force and by choice, we ended up working very closely together; more so than we did with other co-workers. Our perspectives were different, but complimentary. Wed fill in for each other when one of us was sick, wed help each other solve problems. Once in a while, wed grab lunch or an after-work drink.

Like co-workers, or any pair, who spend a lot of time together, we fought. The fight we remember most clearly was years ago when Christine seemed overly excited about the danger of the U.S. credit rating being downgraded. Ali thought it was unimportant. The fight may seem unimportant to you, but back when it was happening, we were pretty passionate about our positions on it. Turns out that Christine was right to be as concerned as she was. Ultimately, years later, the U.S. credit rating was downgraded. Christine remains kind enough not to remind Ali about that fight. Many of our fights turn out that way. Many of yours probably do, too.

And like many good pairsbe they spouses, business partners, roommates, siblings, parents/kidswe learned from each other and about each other, we grew, and we grew to better understand and appreciate each other. And while we always spoke each others language, now we can even write and speak like the other. Can you guess which one of us is writing? Neither can we.

Were writing this because speaking money is like speaking any language. If you dont speak at least a little of it, you cant travel there, and you cant eat the food. You certainly cant do business there. You can fall in love with someone who speaks a different language but, frankly, thats overrated (Ali wrote that!). Ironically, while you may speak the same language as the people closest to you, not speaking money could cause you as much grief as trying to read this book in French (which Christine, ironically, can do).

Speak money, and your world will open up. Youll have fewer fights, fewer fears, and youll catch more opportunities. Youll have less anxiety, and youll be better equipped to make the most of what you have, what you earn, and what you can attain in the future.

Because this is a book about speaking a language, well take you on a tour of the world of money, allowing you to speak it intelligently and confidently. Youll discover how you can build a better future for yourself, even if your present is less than wonderful. Even if youre not disciplined by nature, well teach you how a few simple techniques can keep you on the right track.

Weve organized the book so that it flows logically, in a series of chapters that take you from the personal (your relationships, your gender) to the broader world in which you live. We dont agree on everything, but we both agree that you need to understand and master the language of money to unlock the best opportunities of the coming decade. We also agree that we (society, America, the media) obsess about the domestic economy, when wed be better served to understand it in the context of the global marketplace.