About the Author

The late Michael Silverstein was probably the only person who ever coveted the title "America's Best-Loved Financial Poet." But, if he thought like other people, we wouldn't have had the joy of reading his unique, insightful, humorous voice. Only a man who combined knowledge and vision with a pathological fear of personal success would be regularly featured as a financial analyst in the New York Times at the same time that he was paying his bills by delivering the New York Times. Only a business writer with the soul of a poet would organize the largest investors' show in New England not to make money, but as a work of performance art. During his varied career, Mike Silverstein served as a Senior Editor for Bloomberg News, and wrote a dozen books, serious and comic, fiction and non-fiction, in poetry and prose, on a variety of subjects ranging from politics, to the financial derivatives market, to the environment, to solar energy, to parking ticketing. His work includes three comic novels and one alternative history novel. Hundreds of his articles and Op Ed pieces have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Atlanta Constitution, and Christian Science Monitor. He was a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and Boston Phoenix, and a regular commentator on National Public Radio. Favorable reviews of his writing appeared in media such as The New York Post, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer and others. He passed away at the age of 75 on September 27, 2016.