Wapshott on Hot Seat at the New York Investing Meetup

Author Nicholas Wapshott has seen the future of book promotion and it happened during an appearance at an investing group in New York.

The bestselling author was interviewed at the New York Investing Meetup on March 22^ndand the standing room only crowd received him enthusiastically. After his talk, the line of people waiting for him to sign his book went out the door.

Daryl Montgomery, the organizer of the 3500 member educational group, stated, “Wapshott was a great interview and one of the best guests we’ve had, so the response was not surprising.” Regular attendee Jack Kemp echoed his comment, adding that Wapshott was, “knowledgeable and entertaining”. Similar comments could be heard throughout the room.

The support of the New York Investing meetup can produce a crowd and really boost an author’s sales because it ranks number one globally in both the Economics and Investing categories on Meetup. It also doesn’t just have a live audience, but people throughout the country listen in via webinar.

Authors don’t just give talks to the group, but are interviewed and that’s where it gets interesting. As a writer of the popular “Helicopter Economics Investing Guide” blog and an author of investing books himself, organizer Montgomery can be a knowledgeable and sharp questioner. He is also not afraid to probe subject areas that just wouldn’t be discussed on TV.

There were a couple of such moments during the Wapshott New York Investing Meetup appearance. When the author made the point that John Maynard Keynes was not just a theoretician, but was a successful stock trader, Montgomery asked whether the well-connected Keynes was trading on inside information.  Wapshott couldn’t say one way or the other. He did note that the normally in-your-face Keynes, who wasn’t shy about expressing his opinion about any subject, didn’t publish or leave records on how he managed to make so much money investing. Montgomery pointed out that Keynes knew all the right people and held a number of key government positions, so he certainly had access to information that could move stocks and markets. It also turns out that insider trading was perfectly legal in Britain at the time.

Wapshott also wouldn’t express an opinion on whether Friedrich Von Hayek may have been manic-depressive. One of the open questions is why Hayek didn’t respond to Keynes “General Theory” after its publication and whether a forceful response would have altered political history. Montgomery pointed out that one reasonable explanation was that Hayek was depressed at the time (there is convincing documentation that he suffered from depression later in life) and may have been a manic-depressive, since he managed to leave behind a prodigious body of work.

The interview also went beyond just the confines of the “Keynes Hayek” as well. The purpose of the New York Investing Meetup is educational and it uses every opportunity to give its members a true picture of what really takes place in economics and investing. After the discussion of Keynes’ seminal “General Theory” and how governments throughout the world have followed his approach since World War II, Montgomery asked the obvious question that no one else thinks to ask, “Does it work?” He then flashed a graph on the screen showing that in the last 50 years every attempt by the U.S. to lower employment using Keynesian methods was followed by a recession. This raised both eyebrows even for author Wapshott, who afterwards described his questioner as “a good and tendentious host.”

Strong opinions and controversy are nothing new for the New York Investing meetup. According to Montgomery, “This is what gets our members interested in certain books and keeps them coming back to our meetings for our investing views.”

For his part, author Wapshott seemed pleased with the large crowd clutching a copy of his book. With brick and mortar bookstores closing down all over the place, this experience is becoming harder to come by for writers. It is not surprising that the New York Investing meetup is becoming a must stop for authors of significant works on economics or investing.