Author, journalist, and Wall Street expert Nomi Prins examines the effects of Republican policies, scandals, and blunders by conducting a guided tour of a typical American wallet. Each chapter matches a wallet item to a set of political topics.

The driver’s license leads to a discussion of gasoline prices, energy policy, and Iraq; the Social Security card leads out to the administration’s efforts to “reform” Social Security by weakening it; the credit card points to bankruptcy legislation and credit card company profits; the health insurance card is a reminder of soaring medical and insurance costs, and the cutting of Medicaid and Medicare, and so on.

Crisscrossing the country to gather the personal experiences of a wide variety of Americans, Prins tells their stories, shows them trying to make ends meet, and questions why the government is failing them. Taken together, these lively, accessible chapters link the “conservative” record to its disastrous effects on ordinary people and tell us what we can do about it.

Nomi Prins is a journalist and a senior fellow at Demos, a public policy think tank based in New York City. Before becoming a journalist, she served as a managing director for Goldman Sachs in New York and ran the analytics group at Bear Stearns in London.

Her previous book, Other People’s Money: The Corporate Mugging of America, was chosen as a Best Book of 2004 by The Economist, Barron’s, Library Journal, and The Progressive. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Newsday, Fortune, The Guardian, and The Left Business Observer. Her bi-weekly column appears in La Vanguardia, a Spanish newspaper. She has appeared as a television commentator on CNBC and the BBC, and she is a frequent guest on Marketplace Radio, Air America, CNN Radio, and many NPR affiliates. She lives in New York City.

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