About Daniel

I have worked as a writer for over 25 years, during which I have contributed to numerous national, specialist and international publications. Ferraris For All, my book defending economic progress, was published in 2010. A paperback edition, including an additional chapter on the inequality debate in the West, was published in 2012. My book on global finance, Cowardly Capitalism (Wiley, 2001), was recommended by the Baker Library of Harvard Business School. To contact me email ferraris AT danielbenami.com.

I am a regular contributor to the Financial Times and spiked .  My work has appeared in many other newspapers and magazines including the American, the Australian, Economist.com, the Guardian, the Independent, New Internationalist, Novo (Germany), the Optimist / Ode (American and Dutch editions). Prospect, Shanghai Daily, the Sunday Telegraph, the Sunday Times and Voltaire (Sweden). I have appeared on numerous radio stations including Australia’s ABC Radio National (Counterpoint programme), Air America Radio (Al Franken Show), BBC Radio 2 (Jeremy Vine Show), BBC Radio 3 (Free Thinking), BBC Radio 4 (In Business, the Moral Maze, Thinking Allowed and the Today programme), BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC World Service (Global Business), Canada’s CBC (the Current), Ireland’s Newstalk and Hungarian public radio. My television appearances include Al Jazeera English language television, BBC1 (The Big Questions), BBC News 24, BBC World, Bloomberg TV, CNBC, CNN, Russia Today (CrossTalk) and Sky News.

My book on global finance, Cowardly Capitalism (Wiley, 2001), argues that the financial markets are characterised by risk aversion rather than the aggressive risk taking generally assumed. Although it was published almost a decade ago it provides a foundation for developing a critique of the way in which the more recent financial crisis is generally understood. It was widely reviewed including by the Financial Times, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Independent. The book can still be bought from online retailers and is available in a Kindle edition from Amazon.com.

I also contributed a chapter on “Is Japan different?” to Cultural Differences, Media Memories (Cassell, 1997). In it I argue that it is not useful to understand Japan in terms of supposed cultural differences with the West. The essay was reprinted in Modern Japanese Culture and Society (Routledge, 2007), a collection edited by DP Martinez.

More recently I have contributed a chapter on London’s financial services to London After Recession (Ashgate 2012).

One of my spiked essays on happiness was reprinted in Prosperity Index, an Indian collection edited by Asha B Joshi. An extract from another spiked essay on “fat Americans” was quoted as an example of good persuasive writing in the fifth edition of Everything’s An Argument (Bedford / St Martin’s, 2010), a popular textbook on composition for American college students.

Please also note that some common biographical claims made about me in recent years are incorrect:

* I have never worked as a Financial Times (FT) correspondent. To my knowledge this mistaken notion first appeared on the entry for Cowardly Capitalism, my book on global finance, on Amazon.co.uk.  I did once work for the FT group, as the editor of a specialist newspaper called Investment Adviser, but not as a correspondent for the FT. I have, however, contributed freelance articles to the FT.

* I am not now nor have I ever been a “professional investment adviser” as also claimed on the Amazon.co.uk site (although I think this originated with Wiley, the publisher of Cowardly Capitalism). I did, as mentioned above, once edit a newspaper called Investment Adviser.

* I am not an economist although I have written extensively about economics. I call myself an economics writer rather than an economist. Strictly speaking Ferraris for All is about the cultural aversion to prosperity rather than an economics text.

* I have never written for the Morning Star – a newspaper once linked to Britain’s official Communist party. In fact I worked as a London-based senior editor for Morningstar; an American company which provides information on investment funds and stocks.