Teetering: How to Bring Stability to the Millions of Americans Living on a Financial Tightrope

by Ken Rees

Nearly half of all American adults live paycheck to paycheck. These misunderstood majority of tightropers spend time, effort, and tons of emotional energy balancing their lack of capital with increasing demands on those limited financial resources. Economic instability is the new normal across all income levels. Teetering: Why So Many Live On A Financial Tightrope And What To Do About It addresses the critical question, what's wrong with American policies and the financial institutions that are failing so many hard-working people today? It merges original research with stories from real-life tightropers and makes the case for urgent action by financial institutions, innovators, investors, regulators, policymakers, and influencers to recognize and change the financial forces that push the American dream out of reach for nearly half of the adult populace. Teetering proposes common-ground solutions that work regardless of political leaning and provides a roadmap for how innovators can serve this growing need and for how banks and others can start saying yes to their customers again.

224 pages, Paperback

Published March 2, 2021

About the author

Wing Commander Henry Kenneth 'Shag' Rees, Royal Air Force

WWII bomber pilot; shot down over Norway, captured by the Germans and sent to the PoW officers' camp Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Germany (now Żagań, Poland) where he helped build the escape tunnel used in what became known as the 'Great Escape' of 24 March 1944 which was the basis for the 1963 film based on Flight Lieutenant Paul Brickhill's 1950 memoir; post-war RAF pilot, instructor, and station commander.

Reviews

[Diana Paul]

Teetering is an account of banking and the over 40% of American workers who can barely survive on their paychecks due to heavy debt, banking indifference, student loan usury, and lack of health insurance. A powerful indictment of gross negligence and structural greed in a system that does not serve the communities we all are part of. A cocktail of data and personal stories woven through Teetering are a scathing, gimlet-eyed account of our financial system and its weaponization against whole generations of "disposable" human beings. Moreover, the banking system and fintech are a reeking urinal cake that the onlooker can't ignore, no matter how much energy is exerted. Teetering compels us to be distressingly aware of a banking system that is provoking crisis. A must-read, especially in the light of the onslaught of international bank failures around the globe!