Five Brief Book Reviews

Firefighting: The Financial Crisis and Its Lessons Paperback – Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner A review and explanation of the decisions made and success of the radical if unpopular dramatic decisions made.  Concern that the tools at the disposal of the Fed...

Order and Liberty

From Barron’s, Chinese Puzzle by Thomas Donlan: Worldly wise investors and sophisticated geopoliticians sometimes forget that Chinese markets reflect the power of the country’s government more than its economy. The price of stocks in state-owned and state-funded...

Obscuring Our True Condition

Banks do not survive by loaning money to prevent insolvency; they loan money to provide liquidity.  Banks are not loaning money, not because of the lack of liquidity but because there is a lack of prudent loans to make. Small businesses are suffering from an...

Replacing Knowledge with Power

The problem with the financial products division [of AIG] was not that the regulators were absent or inadequately empowered. The problem was that the regulators, like most regulators, lacked relevant information. They were experts on the politics of the situation, but...

Mission Creep at the Fed

The most misunderstood aspect of the success of the Reagan led supply side revolution was the monetary aspect. The idea adapted from Robert Mundell’s theory was that the Fed should focus ONLY on monetary matters and that fiscal policy should focus on policies such as...