Maybe money isn't everything but, like it or not, Canadians have very distinct, and strong, attitudes towards it. In this provocative and amusing sequel to the bestselling book Sex in the Snow, Michael Adams, president of Environics Research Group, updates his portrait of Canada's "social values tribes"by looking at our attitudes regarding money. In his discussion of making it, spending it, stealing it, investing it, giving it away and losing it to taxes, Adams, one of Canada's most influential pollsters, outlines the changing perceptions and enduring ambivalence of Canadians towards money: they lust after it but resent those who have it, and unlike more garish Americans, those lucky enough to have it are averse to flaunting it.

It seems the era of "a penny saved is a penny earned"is dead. Today's fiscal credo is "live for today."Where cash is concerned, Canadians' attitudes have changed in ways that would make our grandparents cringe. We are becoming more and more spendthrift and focused on instant gratification. Adams explains that changes in our general beliefs and social values can explain why the Canadian savings rate is at a forty year low and why consumer debt and personal bankruptcies are at record levels.

So how do we gauge our own attitudes when it comes to money? Adams groups Canadians into "tribes"based on information gathered from in-depth surveys. These "tribes"include the Thrill-seeking Materialists with their overt consumption, the New Aquarians with their uncompromising idealism, and a new tribe of almost monastic young people with a focus on money not seen since the Great Depression.

Michael Adams is the founding president of the Environics group of research and communications consulting companies, and the author of six books on public attitudes and social values in Canada and the United States. He is a respected commentator on public affairs and the founder of the Environics Institute, a nonprofit organization that works collaboratively to conduct relevant and original research on issues of public importance in Canada. His most popular book to date, Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values, won the Donner Prize for best book on Canadian public policy in 2004 and was named by the Literary Review of Canada as one of the 100 most important books ever published in Canada.

Michael Adams' profile page