Niall Ferguson again here brings us a history that is informative, entertaining and sobering. Being published in the midst of a global economic meltdown, for a book such as this, is a mixed blessing, as a step too far on the bearish side may make the author look like a doommonger, whilst being even slightly bullish might look blinkered. Ferguson, though, seems to manage to pull it off, though that...
Not good: will I finish it? Won't I? Guess I'll have to if I want to assess fairly, but it'll be hard work. Arrogance seeps through every word and, at the end of the day, he's repeatedly hammering home one point that anyone with a degree of critical thinking will be aware of anyway.
Rampant speculation. Record trading volumes. Assets bought not because of their value but because the buyer believes he can sell them for more in a day or two, or an hour or two. Welcome to the late 1920s in the US. There are obvious and absolute parallels to the great bull market of the late 1990s, writes Galbraith in a new introduction dated 1997. Of course, Galbraith notes, every financial bubble...
You'll fly through this book. They give economics a sharp taste, but it's not drivell that they're talking. Indeed much of what they write is witty and convincing at the same time which I'd say is something difficult to achieve with such a subject.
It's not got 5 stars because despite the title 'Rogue Economist' the fellow is a little too PC. You'll see what I mean if you read the book....
What do babysitting coops and liquidity traps have in common? Lots, according to Paul Krugman. In The Return of Depression Economics, the MIT professor looks at the alarming string of financial crises that plagued various economies around the globe in the 1990s, especially the Asian contagion, and sees an "eerie resemblance to the Great Depression." Instead of the "new world order" promised...
I got the impression that Peston was urged to put out a book quickly, so he used a lot of his old archive material (Green, M and S etc). But it's worth it as there are some good chapters on hedge funds, and a reminder that our banks were actually borrowing to buy all that toxic waste, which somehow drove home the stupidity of it all.
Not as good as his scoops!
Readable, passionate, but... if true, the latest financial crash would have seen another swift extension of market power. But does govt control or ownership of the banks, talk of aggressive new regulation or the 'end of capitalism' sound like capitalism making hay? Are we really seeing a retreat from govt or state activity in the face of recession?
Alice Schroeder’s The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life might well be one of the most important books you will ever read -- particularly in a period when the world's various economies appear to be entering freefall. This arm-straining (at nearly a thousand pages) but utterly fascinating book has already -- against all the odds -- achieved an astonishing level of success, given...
Although only 40 pages long, you get an insight into the way that both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels felt about the world they lived in and how it could change for the greater good (in their opinion anyway). I do encourage anyone with even a minor interest in European politics, to give this book a try.
Even though I was fascinated by the two authors ideology (Ultimately, the hope that...
