Best financial services industry books according to redditors

If anyone is interested in a deeper understanding of this subject, Bethany McLean who wrote The Smartest Guys in the Room (about Enron) wrote a fantastic book on Fannie and Freddie. She also talks about it on the podcast Invest Like the Best and makes the point that America essentially subsidizes home ownership like Europeans subsidize healthcare.

Book link here.

EDIT (copied from comment below for visibility)

The mortgages that Fannie and Freddie buy are every day person’s mortgages. Yes, they are subsidizing mortgage rates to standardize them across locations, but more to the point, they do not actually benefit the rich. Truly wealthy people buying multi-million dollar houses do not get their mortgages through Fannie and Freddie. Their credit is too good, and they get even lower rates through private lenders. The rich are actually the ONLY group of people who do not benefit from Fannie and Freddie. I would really encourage you to listen to the episode of the podcast Invest Like the Best with the author I referenced above.

Beyond being a subsidized “luxury,” homes in the United States are the average person‘s greatest financial asset and source of borrowing power. This can actually be a beneficial thing to the economy and a stabilizing factor. You can make arguments about the validity of that system and the way it subjects individuals to greater exposure to the real estate markets, but there are arguments to be made for subsidized home ownership. Fannie and Freddie are in the situation they are in now, as a semi-public corporation because the mortgage market failed and taxpayers took the risk of buying the loans which were distressed. Now, the taxpayers are reaping the benefit of the market rebounding. Like in any market, those who take the risk and put up the capital reap the rewards. We would be in a much worse situation had Fannie and Freddie not been backed by the government.

There's a great book that is called Pound Foolish. In it, they interviewed Kiyosaki. Basically, Kiyosaki admits that he made up the entire story (when asked if the story is real, he answered, "Is Harry Potter real?") but that it has important points.

But my point is that he never actually made money on real estate. He made money on giving these seminars. (Similar with other gurus. For example, Suze Orman advocates putting money in stock, but she keeps her money in TIPS, and she makes money by talking and selling her brand.) I would not purchase anything by Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

(I do have some of his books, but those were given to me. And yes, they're inspiring, but they don't give any actual details on how to accomplish it.)

Read Pitch the Perfect Investment by Paul D Sonkin and Paul Johnson. Paul Johnson is a teacher at Columbia Business School and Paul Sonkin is a practitioner. The book covers how to pitch an investment along with other crucial finance concepts.

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How about a list of books/resources in the sidebar for those just starting out?

I heard these are two good books for beginners
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing
www.amazon.com/dp/1118921283/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_W7g3BbGXSD37E

So You Want to Be A Financial Planner www.amazon.com/dp/0985259426/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_P5g3BbMY4M9NP

I believe the outcome will come in favor of the shareholders.

Bethany McLean has a number of great articles:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/20/opinion/fannie-and-freddie-are-back-bigger-and-badder-than-ever.html
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/done-fannie-mae-freddie-mac/
Her book(she not in any way involved in the posting of this link. I'm recommending this on my own, I get nothing out of it):http://www.amazon.com/Shaky-Ground-Strange-Mortgage-Giants/dp/0990976300

To get major raises you have to get promotions, which, yes, takes some planning and forethought. It towers over all your suggestions combined though.

For one most people will not save $100/mo from switching to directtv, or really anywhere close. If you switch and take a feature reduction possibly you'll save a fair bit, but not that much. It is worth doing (in general it is worth optimizing all monthly repeating bills down to about 1/4 hours work, relevant xkcd, here we assume switching costs are about half a day research and action, plus some risk premium), but it isn't repeatable, and it is a fairly minor plus unless you are really badly tiered.

As for moving that has fairly massive costs. As someone looking at a move right now, I can tell you that the loss is generally many times any months rent (for one, one must assume loss of security deposit, plus actual costs of move, plus time spent packing unpacking, plus damage to goods, etc, and it is even worse if you are an owner).

Read Pound foolish