John Maynard Keynes: 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman


Robert Skidelsky - 2003
    Here, Skidelsky has revised and abridged his magnum opus into one definitive book, which examines in its entirety the intellectual and ideological journey that led an extraordinarily gifted young man to concern himself with the practical problems of an age overshadowed by war. John Maynard Keynes offers a sympathetic account of the life of a passionate visionary and an invaluable insight into the economic philosophy that still remains at the centre of political and economic thought.ROBERT SKIDELSKY is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. His three volume biography of John Maynard Keynes (1983, 1992, 2000) received numerous prizes, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations. ('This three-volume life of the British economist should be given a Nobel Prize for History if there was such a thing' - Norman Stone.) He was made a life peer in 1991, and a Fellow of the British Academy in 1994.'A masterpiece of biographical and historical analysis' - New York Times

Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power


John Steele Gordon - 2004
    But not the United States. America has dominated the world in a new, peaceful, and pervasive way -- through the continued creation of staggering wealth. In this authoritative, engrossing history, John Steele Gordon captures as never before the true source of our nation's global influence: wealth and the capacity to create more of it.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power


Nomi Prins - 2014
    She unravels the multi-generational blood, intermarriage, and protégé relationships that have confined national influence to a privileged cluster of people. These families and individuals recycle their power through elected office and private channels in Washington, DC.All the Presidents' Bankers sheds new light on pivotal historic events—such as why, after the Panic of 1907, America's dominant bankers convened to fashion the Federal Reserve System; how J. P. Morgan's ambitions motivated President Wilson during World War I; how Chase and National City Bank chairmen worked secretly with President Roosevelt to rescue capitalism during the Great Depression while J.P. Morgan Jr. invited Roosevelt's son yachting; and how American financiers collaborated with President Truman to construct the World Bank and IMF after World War II.Prins divulges how, through the Cold War and Vietnam era, presidents and bankers pushed America's superpower status and expansion abroad, while promoting broadly democratic values and social welfare at home. But from the 1970s, Wall Street's rush to secure Middle East oil profits altered the nature of political-financial alliances. Bankers' profit motive trumped heritage and allegiance to public service, while presidents lost control over the economy—as was dramatically evident in the financial crisis of 2008.This unprecedented history of American power illuminates how the same financiers retained their authoritative position through history, swaying presidents regardless of party affiliation. All the Presidents' Bankers explores the alarming global repercussions of a system lacking barriers between public office and private power. Prins leaves us with an ominous choice: either we break the alliances of the power elite, or they will break us.

A Concise Guide to Macroeconomics


David A. Moss - 2007
    In A Concise Guide to Macroeconomics, David Moss leverages his many years of teaching experience at Harvard Business School to lay out important macroeconomic concepts in engaging, clear, and concise terms. In a simple and intuitive way, he breaks down the ideas into “output,” “money,” and “expectations.” In addition, Moss introduces powerful tools for interpreting the big-picture economic developments that shape events in the contemporary business arena. Detailed examples are also drawn from history to illuminate important concepts.This book is destined to become a staple in MBA courses—as well as the go-to resource for executives and managers at all levels seeking to brush up on their knowledge of macroeconomic dynamics.

I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay


John Lanchester - 2009
    I.O.U. is the story of how we came to experience such a complete and devastating financial implosion, and how the decisions and actions of a select group of individuals had profound consequences for America, Europe, and the global economy overall. John Lanchester begins with "The ATM Moment," that seemingly magical proliferation of cheap credit that led to an explosion of lending, and then deftly outlines the global and local landscapes of banking and finance. Viewing the crisis through the lens of politics, culture, and contemporary history -- from the invention and widespread misuse of financial instruments to the culpability of subprime mortgages -- Lanchester draws perceptive conclusions on the limitations of financial and governmental regulation, capitalism's deepest flaw, and, most important, on the plain and simple facts of human nature where cash is concerned.Weaving together firsthand research and superbly written reportage, Lanchester delivers a shrewd perspective and a digestible, comprehensive analysis that connects the dots for the expert and casual reader alike. I.O.U. is an eye-opener of a book -- it may well provoke anger, amazement, or rueful disbelief -- and, as the author clearly reveals, we've only just begun to get ourselves back on track.

Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit


Charles W. Calomiris - 2014
    The banking systems of Mexico and Brazil have not only been crisis prone but have provided miniscule amounts of credit to business enterprises and households.Analyzing the political and banking history of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil through several centuries, Fragile by Design demonstrates that chronic banking crises and scarce credit are not accidents. Calomiris and Haber combine political history and economics to examine how coalitions of politicians, bankers, and other interest groups form, why they endure, and how they generate policies that determine who gets to be a banker, who has access to credit, and who pays for bank bailouts and rescues.Fragile by Design is a revealing exploration of the ways that politics inevitably intrudes into bank regulation.

The DAO of Capital: Austrian Investing in a Distorted World


Mark Spitznagel - 2013
    We arrive at his central investment methodology of Austrian Investing, where victory comes not from waging the immediate decisive battle, but rather from the roundabout approach of seeking the intermediate positional advantage (what he calls shi), of aiming at the indirect means rather than directly at the ends. The monumental challenge is in seeing time differently, in a whole new intertemporal dimension, one that is so contrary to our wiring.Spitznagel is the first to condense the theories of Ludwig von Mises and his Austrian School of economics into a cohesive and--as Spitznagel has shown--highly effective investment methodology. From identifying the monetary distortions and non-randomness of stock market routs (Spitznagel's bread and butter) to scorned highly-productive assets, in Ron Paul's words from the foreword, Spitznagel "brings Austrian economics from the ivory tower to the investment portfolio."The Dao of Capital provides a rare and accessible look through the lens of one of today's great investors to discover a profound harmony with the market process--a harmony that is so essential today.

The End of Banking: Money, Credit, and the Digital Revolution


Jonathan McMillan - 2014
    He cuts through the complexity of modern finance and explains how banking almost crashed our financial system. Banking is broken, and McMillan reveals why we can no longer fix it.The digital revolution turns out to be the game changer that calls for the end of banking. But McMillan refrains from merely pointing out flaws. Building on economic research and a rigorous analytical approach, he goes on to provide an innovative blueprint for a modern financial system.The End of Banking transforms our understanding of the financial system. It identifies the root cause of today’s problems with banking and presents a solution that stands out against existing reform proposals.What is it about?The End of Banking explains why a financial system without banking is both desirable and possible in the digital age. The first part of the book presents the functions and the mechanics of traditional banking. It discusses how a delicate balance of government guarantees and banking regulation kept the flaws of banking under control in the industrial age. The second part explains how the digital revolution unsettled this balance. The rise of shadow banking is explained, and it is shown how an unsustainable boom in the shadow banking sector led to a banking panic: the financial crisis of 2007-08. The third part shows that the digital revolution has played a dual role. Information technology not only undermined the effectiveness of current banking regulation, but it also rendered banking redundant. An innovative blueprint for a modern financial system is presented and the implications of the end of banking are discussed.Why should I read it?The End of Banking distinguishes itself from other books about the financial crisis of 2007–08 in several ways. First, it reveals the fundamental financial techniques that are common to all forms of banking—whether it is per-formed by medieval goldsmiths or by today’s managers at investment banks. Second, it offers a lucid and accessible account of shadow banking that will enlighten many readers. Third, and most importantly, The End of Banking does not rehash the same old regulatory patches or radical reform proposals from the past. Instead, it elaborates a new and intuitive idea of how to adapt the financial system to the digital age.Where to get the bookYou can order The End of Banking online, please choose your country:- US (amazon.com)[image]- UK (amazon.co.uk)[image]- Deutschland, Österreich, Schweiz (amazon.de)[image]- España (amazon.es)[image]- France (amazon.fr)[image]- Italia (amazon.it)[image]Where to find out more?Please visit http://www.endofbanking.org.

Fiat Money Inflation in France (How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended)


Andrew Dickson White - 1933
    I shall give it in the exact words of that thoughtful historian from whom I have already quoted: "Before the end of the year 1795 the paper money was almost exclusively in the hands of the working classes, employees and men of small means, whose property was not large enough to invest in stores of goods or national lands.

The Fed and Lehman Brothers: Setting the Record Straight on a Financial Disaster


Laurence M. Ball - 2018
    Ever since the bankruptcy, there has been heated debate about why the Federal Reserve did not rescue Lehman in the same way it rescued other financial institutions, such as Bear Stearns and AIG. The Fed's leaders from that time, especially former Chairman Ben Bernanke, have strongly asserted that they lacked the legal authority to save Lehman because it did not have adequate collateral for the loan it needed to survive. Based on a meticulous four-year study of the Lehman case, The Fed and Lehman Brothers debunks the official narrative of the crisis. It shows that in reality, the Fed could have rescued Lehman but officials chose not to because of political pressures and because they underestimated the damage that the bankruptcy would do to the economy. The compelling story of the Lehman collapse will interest anyone who cares about what caused the financial crisis, whether the leaders of the Federal Reserve have given accurate accounts of their actions, and how the Fed can prevent future financial disasters.

The Finance Curse: How Global Finance Is Making Us All Poorer


Nicholas Shaxson - 2013
    He then gained prominence as an expert on tax havens, revealing the dark corners of that world long before the scandals of the Panama and Paradise Papers. Now, in The Finance Curse, revised with chapters exclusive to this American edition, he takes us on a terrifying journey through the world economy, exposing tax havens, monopolists, megabanks, private equity firms, Eurobond traders, lobbyists, and a menagerie of scoundrels quietly financializing our entire society, hurting both business and individuals. Shaxson shows we got here, telling the story of how finance re-engineered the global economic order in the last half-century, with the aim not of creating wealth but extracting it from the underlying economy. Under the twin gospels of "national competitiveness" and "shareholder value," megabanks and financialized corporations have provoked a race to the bottom between states to provide the most subsidized environment for big business, have encouraged a brain drain into finance, and have fostered instability, inequality, and turned a blind eye to the spoils of organized crime. From Ireland to Iowa, Shaxson shows the insidious effects of financialization on our politics and on communities who were promised paradise but got poverty wages instead.We need a strong financial system--but when it grows too big it becomes a monster. The Finance Curse is the explosive story of how finance got a stranglehold on society, and reveals how we might release ourselves from its grasp.

The Passage to Europe


Luuk van Middelaar - 2009
    

A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World


Gregory Clark - 2007
    He argues instead that these institutions gradually led to deep cultural changes by encouraging people to abandon hunter-gatherer instincts-violence, impatience, and economy of effort-and adopt economic habits-hard work, rationality, and education.The problem, Clark says, is that only societies that have long histories of settlement and security seem to develop the cultural characteristics and effective workforces that enable economic growth. For the many societies that have not enjoyed long periods of stability, industrialization has not been a blessing. Clark also dissects the notion, championed by Jared Diamond in "Guns, Germs, and Steel," that natural endowments such as geography account for differences in the wealth of nations.

Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations: A Story of Economic Discovery


David Warsh - 2006
    Giving a glimpse of the essential science of economics, this book tells the story of what has come to be called the new growth theory: the paradox identified by Adam Smith, its disappearance and occasional resurfacing in the 19th century, and the development of various technical tools in the 20th century.

China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa


Howard W. French - 2014
                 A prizewinning foreign correspondent and former New York Times bureau chief in Shanghai and in West and Central Africa, Howard French is uniquely positioned to tell the story of China in Africa. Through meticulous on-the-ground reporting—conducted in Mandarin, French, and Portuguese, among other languages—French crafts a layered investigation of astonishing depth and breadth as he engages not only with policy-shaping moguls and diplomats, but also with the  ordinary men and women navigating the street-level realities of cooperation, prejudice, corruption, and opportunity forged by this seismic geopolitical development. With incisiveness and empathy, French reveals the human face of China’s economic, political, and human presence across the African continent—and in doing so reveals what is at stake for everyone involved.             We meet a broad spectrum of China’s dogged emigrant population, from those singlehandedly reshaping African infrastructure, commerce, and even environment (a self-made tycoon who harnessed Zambia’s now-booming copper trade; a timber entrepreneur determined to harvest the entirety of Liberia’s old-growth redwoods), to those just barely scraping by (a sibling pair running small businesses despite total illiteracy; a karaoke bar owner–cum–brothel madam), still convinced that Africa affords them better opportunities than their homeland. And we encounter an equally panoramic array of African responses: a citizens’ backlash in Senegal against a “Trojan horse” Chinese construction project (a tower complex to be built over a beloved soccer field, which locals thought would lead to overbearing Chinese pressure on their economy); a Zambian political candidate who, having protested China’s intrusiveness during the previous election and lost, now turns accommodating; the ascendant middle class of an industrial boomtown; African mine workers bitterly condemning their foreign employers, citing inadequate safety precautions and wages a fraction of their immigrant counterparts’. French’s nuanced portraits reveal the paradigms forming around this new world order, from the all-too-familiar echoes of colonial ambition—exploitation of resources and labor; cut-rate infrastructure projects; dubious treaties—to new frontiers of cultural and economic exchange, where dichotomies of suspicion and trust, assimilation and isolation, idealism and disillusionment are in dynamic flux.             Part intrepid travelogue, part cultural census, part industrial and political exposé, French’s keenly observed account ultimately offers a fresh perspective on the most pressing unknowns of modern Sino-African relations: why China is making the incursions it is, just how extensive its cultural and economic inroads are, what Africa’s role in the equation is, and just what the ramifications for both parties—and the watching world—will be in the foreseeable future.