We all have our opinions on how presidents have handled affairs of state, but how exactly did they handle their own financial affairs? In this delightful and chatty book, Megan Gorman offers plenty of anecdotes: how a president born wealthy died broke (Thomas Jefferson, whose last correspondence was about buying wine on credit), a president born poor died rich (Lyndon Johnson, who used his government connections to build a tiny Texas radio station bought by his wife for $17,500 in 1942 that netted the family $105 million 30 years after L.B.J. died), and a president addicted to get-rich-quick schemes (that would not be the one you might be thinking of but Ulysses S. Grant, who lost money “selling ice, developing farmland, and investing in a social club in San Francisco”). J.F.K. was wealthy but frugal, Lincoln died without a will, and the Clintons … well, let’s just say they are comfortable thanks to post-presidential speeches and books.
Gorman teases out lessons for all of us on what to do (and not to do) to build wealth, the best lesson being the nation’s most famous peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter. That occupation helped polish his Everyman image, but thanks to the financial acumen of Rosalynn, the peanut operation grew into a 3,100-acre behemoth with a side business in fertilizer. No comment on other presidents whose careers profited from slinging manure.
