High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families

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High Wire is a great book for two reasons. First, it presents a wealth of statistical and anecdotal evidence documenting the additional risk that many of us have sensed we are shouldering even in the best of times. Second, it does so in a reasoned, even-handed fashion that liberals and conservatives alike should find persuasive.

Among financial journalists, Gosselin stands out as a passionate moderate. He acknowledges the benefits that 25 years of market-focused policy changes have spread across the U.S. economy--faster growth, higher productivity, lower unemployment among them. But he perceives more clearly than most the trade-offs those policy changes have forced upon us--diminished pay and benefits, less secure retirements and a substantially increased risk of individual and familial catastrophe.

It's a scary portrait, but Gosselin has not lost faith. For nearly four centuries, he notes, American have been striving to strike the right balance between personal opportunity and mutual obligation. The past 25 years represent a pendulum swing that appears to have carried us well past the midpoint. Restoring balance to the system will require accurate data, perceptive analysis--and courage to change. In one book, Gosselin has served up plenty of each.

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