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Cloudmoney
- Author
- Brett Scott
- Narrator
- Coleman Pedigo
- Publisher
- Random House
- Publish Date
- 19 May 2022
- Run Time
- 8 hours 21 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
The reach of corporations into our lives via cards and apps has never been greater; many of us rarely use cash these days. But what we're told is a natural and inevitable move is the work of powerful interests. And the great battle of our time is the battle for ownership of the digital footprints that make up our lives.
In Cloudmoney, Brett Scott tells an urgent and revelatory story about how the fusion of big finance and tech requires 'cloudmoney' - digital money underpinned by the banking sector - to replace physical cash. He dives beneath the surface of the global financial system to uncover a long-established lobbying infrastructure: an alliance of partners waging a covert war on cash. He explains the technical, political, and cultural differences between our different forms of money, and shows how the cash system has been under attack for decades, as banking and tech companies promote a cashless society under the banner of progress.
Cloudmoney takes us to the frontlines of a war for our wallets that is also about our freedom. From marketing strategies against cash, to the weaponization of Covid-19 to push fintech platforms, and the rise of the cryptocurrency rebels and fringe groups pushing back. It asks the most pressing questions:
Who benefits from a cashless society and who gets left behind? Is the end of cash the end of true privacy? And is our cloudmoney future closer than we think it is?
© Brett Scott 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
Critics Review
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If people could see clearly how their money is created, they would rebel - especially now that it is digitised. Brett Scott's highly readable and topical Cloudmoney is, in this sense, a wonderfully revolutionary text
Yanis Varoufakis
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Cloudmoney is a brilliant, fascinating and utterly accessible book - a pioneering and political guide to the fast-evolving web of global finance... If you want to understand what money is - and what it is in danger of becoming - start right here
Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics
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A fascinating and readable guide to the future, and how we can reclaim that future from the clutches of Big Finance and Big Tech
Grace Blakeley
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The rush to a cashless society isn't about convenience. It is about power. Brett Scott cuts through the hype with this brilliant critique of digital money and the rise of fintech empires, while offering a compelling alternative vision. Don't miss this book
Jason Hickel, author of Less Is More
See more reviews See fewer reviews
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Your head has been deliberately filled with falsehoods and confusion about money. This brilliant book helps you understand how that happened, who profits from our collective financial ignorance, and how we might best fight back. Filled with dazzling insight and admirable clarity, this is a book you'll soon be recommending far and wide
Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved
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Cloudmoney does well to map out how the switch away from cash is being spun as natural progress... Scott has struck an important vein, that is vital in a digital age
Financial Times
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An important reflection on the new world of finance. Brett Scott writes with gusto about blockchain, crypto and the power nexus between Big Tech and the banks in a cashless society
Lionel Barber, author of The Powerful and The Damned
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With this wonderful, lucid and urgently important book, Brett Scott is hunting big game. Get a copy - and make sure you pay with cash
Nicholas Shaxson, author of Treasure Islands
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Quietly radical and unexpectedly beautiful, this is so much more than a book about money. Brett Scott propels the reader to a new understanding of today's capitalism through humour, first-hand reportage, patient explanation, deep political analysis and a lot of heart. Let him change the way you see the world - he has for me
Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won't Love You Back
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Arise all data donors from your slumber - and read this book. You - we - have been sucked into the "tech-finance vortex" that is the new, dangerous alliance of Big Finance and Big Tech. Addicted to our apps, we are trapped in a dizzying whirlpool of surveillance, allowing the FinTech vortex to exercise power over, and profit from, every transaction undertaken. Scott, steeped in the sector, guides us through it, and helps readers understand what is happening. He invites us to revolt and jam the Big Fusion. His book is an urgent must-read
Ann Pettifor
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Brett Scott
- Narrator
- Coleman Pedigo
- Duration
- 8 hours 21 minutes
- Release Date
- 19 May 2022
- ISBN
- 9781529193596
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Random House
- Genre
- Popular economics, Monetary economics, Currency / Foreign exchange, Finance and the finance industry, Politics and government, Political economy, Monopolies, Economic theory and philosophy, Algorithms and data structures, Data mining, Economic geography
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.The reach of corporations into our lives via cards and apps has never been greater; many of us rarely use cash these days. But what we're told is a natural and inevitable move is the work of powerful interests. And the great battle of our time is the battle for ownership of the digital footprints that make up our lives.In Cloudmoney, Brett Scott tells an urgent and revelatory story about how the fusion of big finance and tech requires 'cloudmoney' - digital money underpinned by the banking sector - to replace physical cash. He dives beneath the surface of the global financial system to uncover a long-established lobbying infrastructure: an alliance of partners waging a covert war on cash. He explains the technical, political, and cultural differences between our different forms of money, and shows how the cash system has been under attack for decades, as banking and tech companies promote a cashless society under the banner of progress.Cloudmoney takes us to the frontlines of a war for our wallets that is also about our freedom. From marketing strategies against cash, to the weaponization of Covid-19 to push fintech platforms, and the rise of the cryptocurrency rebels and fringe groups pushing back. It asks the most pressing questions:Who benefits from a cashless society and who gets left behind? Is the end of cash the end of true privacy? And is our cloudmoney future closer than we think it is?© Brett Scott 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
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