This is such a loaded question.

Because the fundamentals are basic:

Creating money out of thin air generally creates inflation, because theirs is more currency chasing the same amount of assets.

But the Devil is in the details, because there are hundreds of currencies, one currency can be exchanged for another, and interest rates vary all over the world.

Then once that starts to make sense, you open up a box called “derivatives,” and now the complexity just went off the charts.

I only need to understand it in the context of loans on assets, so I can do the math in my head or in excel. Occasionally I’ll vibe code this stuff in Python.

Because I’m not diving into the deep end of complexity, the books I absolutely LOVE are the cautionary tales of when it all blows up.

In that respect, I think “when genius fails” is an all timer.

Nearly everyone knows about the Great Recession, and the depression and the dot com bubble.

But the collapse of Long Term Capital Management was the canary in the coal mine.

LTCM blew up for all of the most predictable reasons, and as the name implies, nearly everyone involved in LTCM were at the top of their game.

Another book that is more folksy is “a man for all markets“, a book about the dude who revolutionized stock options, largely due to a fascination with Blackjack!

(The LTCM guys were big time gamblers too.)

https://www.google.com/search?q=a+man+for+all+markets+by+ed+...