Download or read book Surprised Again The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble written by Alex J. Pollock and published by Paul Dry Books. This book was released on 2022-11-15 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “What will not surprise you is the wisdom, wit, and insight that Alex Pollock and Howard Adler bring to this indispensable guide to financial prophecy. The future may be a closed book, but you must open—and read—this one.”—James Grant, Grant’s Interest Rate Observer “Surprised Again! will demystify finance for students and give experts a deeper understanding of things they thought they knew.”—Christopher DeMuth, Distinguished Fellow, Hudson Institute and former President, American Enterprise Institute “A masterful survey of the financial sector and its post-COVID dependence on easy money from the Federal Reserve. This book is the first place to turn for a clear exposition of key financial topics—housing, municipal debt, pension funds, student loans, cryptocurrencies, and more. The reader will be surprised yet again at the extent of financial problems lurking below the surface.”—Thomas H. Stanton, Johns Hopkins University About every ten years, we are surprised by a financial crisis. In 2020, we were Surprised Again! by the financial panic of the spring triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Not one of the 30 official systemic risk studies developed in 2019 had even hinted at this financial crisis as a possibility, or at the frightening economic contraction which resulted from the political responses to control the virus. In response came the unprecedented government fiscal and monetary expansions and bailouts. Later 2020 brought a second big surprise: the appearance of an amazing boom in asset prices, including stocks, houses, and cryptocurrencies. Alex Pollock and Howard Adler lived through this historic instability while serving as senior officials of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Their book lays out the many elements of the panic and its aftermath, from the massive elastic currency operations which rode to the rescue by financing the bust with unprecedented government debt, to the consequent asset price boom, which included a renewed bubble in house prices financed by government guarantees. It considers key leveraged sectors such as commercial real estate, student loans, pension funds, banks, and the government itself. It reflects on how to understand these events both in retrospect and prospect.
Download or read book Finance and Philosophy written by Alex J. Pollock and published by Paul Dry Books. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking the 2008 financial crisis as his jumping off point, Alex Pollock deftly illustrates how private firms and governments alike have failed to understand the shifting risks that financial systems create. With candor, clarity, and wit, he uncovers the persistent uncertainties inherent in banking, central banking, and economics. “At the height of the 2008 financial panic, Queen Elizabeth plaintively asked why nobody saw it coming. In the winning pages of Finance and Philosophy, Her Majesty can find the answer. With a lightness of touch that belies the complexity of his subject, Alex Pollock shows why the financial future is now, why it has been and always must be a closed book. A successful banker and gifted writer, Pollock tells us all we need to know about money and banking, risk and uncertainty, debt and temptation, and science and economics. He delights as he instructs.”—James Grant, founder and editor, Grant’s Interest Rate Observer “Why can’t human beings take the lessons of boom and bust, bubbles and crashes that are clearly described in history books—and learn from experience? That’s where Mr. Pollock’s wry humor and philosophic bent help understand the hubris that makes every generation believe that not only can it predict the markets, but control them . . . [Finance and Philosophy] should be required reading in economics classes, or before opening an investment account—and by every member of Congress.”—The Washington Times Alex J. Pollock is a distinguished senior fellow at the R Street Institute in Washington, DC. He was a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute from 2004 to 2015, and President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004.
Download or read book Boom and Bust written by Alex J. Pollock and published by Government Institutes. This book was released on 2010-11-16 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the recent economic crisis was a painful period for many Americans, the panic surrounding the downturn was fueled by an incomplete understanding of economic history. Economic hysteria made for riveting journalism and effective political theater, but the politicians and members of the media who declared that America was in the midst of the greatest financial calamity since the Great Depression were as wrong and misguided as the expansionists of the Roosevelt era. In reality the cyclical nature of market economies is as old as the markets themselves. In a free market system, financial downturns inevitably accompany economic prosperity-but the overall trend is upward progress in living standards and national wealth. While it is helpful to understand what caused the recent crisis, the more important questions to consider are 'What makes the 'boom and bust' cycle so predictable?' and 'What are the ethical responsibilities of the citizens of a free market economy?' In Boom and Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity, Alex J. Pollock argues that while economic downturns can be frightening and difficult, people living in free market economies enjoy greater health, better access to basic necessities, better education, work less arduous jobs, and have more choices and wider horizons than people at any other point in history. This wonderful reality would not exist in the absence of financial cycles. This book explains why.
Download or read book A Guide to Good Money written by Brendan Brown and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-08-31 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern money, having now become a key tool of government economic policy and a source of massive tax revenues, has strayed far from its original purpose. This is doubly regrettable, as the better money functions at an individual level in satisfying demand for quality, the better it is for economic prosperity and freedom. This book presents how modern money works both in the domestic economy and globally, outlining the essence of what makes good money. How does modern money differ from this ideal? By focusing on the dichotomy between globalization on the one hand and modern money’s base in the nation state (or group of states) on the other hand, the book demonstrates how US dominance in determining monetary conditions globally has grown since the mid-1990s. The book then discusses the adverse consequences, many of which are camouflaged, of present money doctrines now so widely and radically applied, presenting novel research on how the US by pursuing bad monetary policies has been the catalyst to deepening geo-political danger. The book continues by setting out how the illusions of asset inflation will fade, most likely in the midst of economic and financial tumult. The forces which bring about that income emanate in part from the long-run costs of growing mal-investment and monopolization which occur under monetary inflation especially in the context of a digitalization revolution. Apologists for the present monetary regime rest much of their case on these illusions and on the contention that the bill for the costs comes only in the long run. This book dismantles that case. A Guide to Good Money provides readers with the sight of a pathway to a promised land of real prosperity founded on sound money beyond those lost illusions, and will be of interest to academics, students, practitioners, and central bankers.
Download or read book The Great Demographic Reversal written by Charles Goodhart and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-08-08 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This original and panoramic book proposes that the underlying forces of demography and globalisation will shortly reverse three multi-decade global trends – it will raise inflation and interest rates, but lead to a pullback in inequality. “Whatever the future holds”, the authors argue, “it will be nothing like the past”. Deflationary headwinds over the last three decades have been primarily due to an enormous surge in the world’s available labour supply, owing to very favourable demographic trends and the entry of China and Eastern Europe into the world’s trading system. This book demonstrates how these demographic trends are on the point of reversing sharply, coinciding with a retreat from globalisation. The result? Ageing can be expected to raise inflation and interest rates, bringing a slew of problems for an over-indebted world economy, but is also anticipated to increase the share of labour, so that inequality falls. Covering many social and political factors, as well as those that are more purely macroeconomic, the authors address topics including ageing, dementia, inequality, populism, retirement and debt finance, among others. This book will be of interest and understandable to anyone with an interest on where the world’s economy may be going.
Download or read book Apropos of Nothing written by Woody Allen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-03-23 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Long-Awaited, Enormously Entertaining Memoir by One of the Great Artists of Our Time—Now a New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller. In this candid and often hilarious memoir, the celebrated director, comedian, writer, and actor offers a comprehensive, personal look at his tumultuous life. Beginning with his Brooklyn childhood and his stint as a writer for the Sid Caesar variety show in the early days of television, working alongside comedy greats, Allen tells of his difficult early days doing standup before he achieved recognition and success. With his unique storytelling pizzazz, he recounts his departure into moviemaking, with such slapstick comedies as Take the Money and Run, and revisits his entire, sixty-year-long, and enormously productive career as a writer and director, from his classics Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Annie and Her Sisters to his most recent films, including Midnight in Paris. Along the way, he discusses his marriages, his romances and famous friendships, his jazz playing, and his books and plays. We learn about his demons, his mistakes, his successes, and those he loved, worked with, and learned from in equal measure. This is a hugely entertaining, deeply honest, rich and brilliant self-portrait of a celebrated artist who is ranked among the greatest filmmakers of our time.
Download or read book The Pandemic Paradox written by Scott Fulford and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-05-16 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why most Americans’ finances improved during the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression—and the policy choices that made this possible In March 2020, economic and social life across the United States came to an abrupt halt as the country tried to slow the spread of COVID-19. In the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression, twenty-two million people lost their jobs between mid-March and mid-April of 2020. And yet somehow the finances of most Americans improved during the pandemic—savings went up, debts went down, and fewer people had trouble paying their bills. In The Pandemic Paradox, economist Scott Fulford explains this seeming contradiction, describing how the pandemic reshaped the American economy. As Americans grappled with remote work, “essential” work, and closed schools, three massive pandemic relief bills, starting with the CARES Act on March 27, 2020, managed to protect many of America’s most vulnerable. Fulford draws from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's “Making Ends Meet” surveys—which he helped design—to interweave macroeconomic trends in spending, saving, and debt with stories of individual Americans’ economic lives during the pandemic. We meet Winona, who quit her job to take care of her children; Marvin, who retired early and worried that his savings wouldn’t last; Lisa, whose expenses went up after her grown kids (and their dog) moved back home; and many others. What the statistics and the stories show, Fulford argues, is that a better, fairer, more productive economy is still possible. The success of pandemic relief policy proves that Americans’ economic fragility is not an unsolvable problem. But we have to choose to solve it.
Download or read book Meltdown written by Thomas E. Woods and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-02-09 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a foreword from Ron Paul, Meltdown is the free-market answer to the Fed-created economic crisis. As the new Obama administration inevitably calls for more regulations, Woods argues that the only way to rebuild our economy is by returning to the fundamentals of capitalism and letting the free market work.
Download or read book The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report written by Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and published by Cosimo, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, published by the U.S. Government and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in early 2011, is the official government report on the United States financial collapse and the review of major financial institutions that bankrupted and failed, or would have without help from the government. The commission and the report were implemented after Congress passed an act in 2009 to review and prevent fraudulent activity. The report details, among other things, the periods before, during, and after the crisis, what led up to it, and analyses of subprime mortgage lending, credit expansion and banking policies, the collapse of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal bailouts of Lehman and AIG. It also discusses the aftermath of the fallout and our current state. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned about the financial situation in the U.S. and around the world.THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION is an independent, bi-partisan, government-appointed panel of 10 people that was created to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." It was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. The commission consisted of private citizens with expertise in economics and finance, banking, housing, market regulation, and consumer protection. They examined and reported on "the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government."News Dissector DANNY SCHECHTER is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker. He has been reporting on economic crises since the 1980's when he was with ABC News. His film In Debt We Trust warned of the economic meltdown in 2006. He has since written three books on the subject including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books, 2008), and The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail (Disinfo Books, 2011), a companion to his latest film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time. He can be reached online at www.newsdissector.com.
Download or read book Making a Modern Central Bank written by Harold James and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This authoritative guide to the transformation of the Bank of England into a modern inflation-targeting independent central bank examines a revolution in monetary and economic policy and the modernization of British institutions in the late twentieth century.
Download or read book The Fearful Rise of Markets written by John Authers and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This enjoyable, fast-moving book is concise, relevant, and perceptive. My bottom line is a simple one: This book should be read by all those interested in the way markets operate, be they investors, analysts, or policy makers." From the Foreword by Mohamed A. El-Erian , CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO, and author of When Markets Collide "This book is a must-read for anyone concerned about how we can avoid recurring debt-induced busts in the years ahead, or anyone who wonders how to invest if (when!) the crisis returns. Authers' insights on the global financial crisis are profound." Robert D. Arnott , Chairman, Research Affiliates, LLC, and author of The Fundamental Index: A Better Way to Invest "This book illustrates the dangers to investors who fail to recognize that global asset markets have become more synchronized over time. In a crowded field of works on the financial crisis, Authers' work is unique in both its insight and style." Robert R. Johnson , Ph.D., CFA, Senior Managing Director of the CFA Institute "John Authers has combined his journalistically honed FT skills with great insights. Serious investors and policymakers should read this book." David R. Kotok , Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Cumberland Advisors "John masterfully drives a stake through the myth of global economic decoupling one chapter and example at a time. A must-read in today's economy." Vitaliy Katsenelson , Director of Research at Investment Management Associates, Inc, author of Active Value Investing: Making Money in Range-Bound Markets Are we barreling toward another massive global financial catastrophe? How can so many bubbles form all at once? Why are so many "disconnected" markets now capable of collapsing in unison? In this remarkably readable book, award-winning Financial Times columnist John Authers takes on these critical questions and offers deeply sobering answers. Authers reveals how the first truly global super bubble was inflated--and might now be inflating again. He illuminates the multiple roots of repeated financial crises: a massive shift in investing power from individuals to big institutions; the migration of key decisions from banks to capital markets; the wholesale financialization of many asset classes; and fundamental failures of both theory and policy. The Fearful Rise of Markets presents a truly global view, avoiding oversimplifications and ideology as it outlines how we got here and where we stand. Even more valuable, it offers realis...
Download or read book The Age of Oversupply written by Daniel Alpert and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-08-26 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Governments and central banks across the developed world have tried every policy tool imaginable, yet our economies remain sluggish or worse. How did we get here, and how can we compete and prosper once more? Daniel Alpert argues that a global labor glut, excess productive capacity, and a rising ocean of cheap capital have kept the Western economies mired in underemployment and anemic growth. We failed to anticipate the impact of the torrent of labor and capital unleashed by formerly socialist economies. Many policymakers miss the connection between global oversupply and the lack of domestic investment and growth. But Alpert shows how they are intertwined and offers a bold, fresh approach to fixing our economic woes. Twitter: @DanielAlpert
Download or read book The Price We Pay written by Marty Makary and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestseller Business Book of the Year--Association of Business Journalists From the New York Times bestselling author comes an eye-opening, urgent look at America's broken health care system--and the people who are saving it--now with a new Afterword by the author. "A must-read for every American." --Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief, FORBES One in five Americans now has medical debt in collections and rising health care costs today threaten every small business in America. Dr. Makary, one of the nation's leading health care experts, travels across America and details why health care has become a bubble. Drawing from on-the-ground stories, his research, and his own experience, The Price We Pay paints a vivid picture of the business of medicine and its elusive money games in need of a serious shake-up. Dr. Makary shows how so much of health care spending goes to things that have nothing to do with health and what you can do about it. Dr. Makary challenges the medical establishment to remember medicine's noble heritage of caring for people when they are vulnerable. The Price We Pay offers a road map for everyday Americans and business leaders to get a better deal on their health care, and profiles the disruptors who are innovating medical care. The movement to restore medicine to its mission, Makary argues, is alive and well--a mission that can rebuild the public trust and save our country from the crushing cost of health care.
Download or read book Post Corona written by Scott Galloway and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestseller! "Few are better positioned to illuminate the vagaries of this transformation than Galloway, a tech entrepreneur, author and professor at New York University’s Stern School. In brisk prose and catchy illustrations, he vividly demonstrates how the largest technology companies turned the crisis of the pandemic into the market-share-grabbing opportunity of a lifetime." --The New York Times "As good an analysis as you could wish to read." --The Financial Times From bestselling author and NYU Business School professor Scott Galloway comes a keenly insightful, urgent analysis of who stands to win and who's at risk to lose in a post-pandemic world The COVID-19 outbreak has turned bedrooms into offices, pitted young against old, and widened the gaps between rich and poor, red and blue, the mask wearers and the mask haters. Some businesses--like home exercise company Peloton, video conference software maker Zoom, and Amazon--woke up to find themselves crushed under an avalanche of consumer demand. Others--like the restaurant, travel, hospitality, and live entertainment industries--scrambled to escape obliteration. But as New York Times bestselling author Scott Galloway argues, the pandemic has not been a change agent so much as an accelerant of trends already well underway. In Post Corona, he outlines the contours of the crisis and the opportunities that lie ahead. Some businesses, like the powerful tech monopolies, will thrive as a result of the disruption. Other industries, like higher education, will struggle to maintain a value proposition that no longer makes sense when we can't stand shoulder to shoulder. And the pandemic has accelerated deeper trends in government and society, exposing a widening gap between our vision of America as a land of opportunity, and the troubling realities of our declining wellbeing. Combining his signature humor and brash style with sharp business insights and the occasional dose of righteous anger, Galloway offers both warning and hope in equal measure. As he writes, "Our commonwealth didn't just happen, it was shaped. We chose this path--no trend is permanent and can't be made worse or corrected."
Download or read book The Great Deformation written by David Stockman and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2013-04-02 with total page 770 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A former Michigan congressman and member of the Reagan administration describes how interference in the financial markets has contributed to the national debt and has damaging and lasting repercussions.
Download or read book The Coming Collapse of China written by Gordon G. Chang and published by Random House. This book was released on 2001-09-15 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China is hot. The world sees a glorious future for this sleeping giant, three times larger than the United States, predicting it will blossom into the world's biggest economy by 2010. According to Chang, however, a Chinese-American lawyer and China specialist, the People's Republic is a paper dragon. Peer beneath the veneer of modernization since Mao's death, and the symptoms of decay are everywhere: Deflation grips the economy, state-owned enterprises are failing, banks are hopelessly insolvent, foreign investment continues to decline, and Communist party corruption eats away at the fabric of society. Beijing's cautious reforms have left the country stuck midway between communism and capitalism, Chang writes. With its impending World Trade Organization membership, for the first time China will be forced to open itself to foreign competition, which will shake the country to its foundations. Economic failure will be followed by government collapse. Covering subjects from party politics to the Falun Gong to the government's insupportable position on Taiwan, Chang presents a thorough and very chilling overview of China's present and not-so-distant future.
Download or read book The Revolution That Wasn t written by Spencer Jakab and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The saga of GameStop and other meme stocks is revealed with the skill of a thrilling whodunit. Jakab writes with an anti-Midas touch. If he touched gold, he would bring it to life." --Burton G. Malkiel, author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street From Wall Street Journal columnist Spencer Jakab, the real story of the GameStop squeeze—and the surprising winners of a rigged game. During one crazy week in January 2021, a motley crew of retail traders on Reddit’s r/wallstreetbets forum had seemingly done the impossible—they had brought some of the biggest, richest players on Wall Street to their knees. Their weapon was GameStop, a failing retailer whose shares briefly became the most-traded security on the planet and the subject of intense media coverage. The Revolution That Wasn’t is the riveting story of how the meme stock squeeze unfolded, and of the real architects (and winners) of the GameStop rally. Drawing on his years as a stock analyst at a major bank, Jakab exposes technological and financial innovations such as Robinhood’s habit-forming smartphone app as ploys to get our dollars within the larger story of evolving social and economic pressures. The surprising truth? What appeared to be a watershed moment—a revolution that stripped the ultra-powerful hedge funds of their market influence, placing power back in the hands of everyday investors—only tilted the odds further in the house’s favor. Online brokerages love to talk about empowerment and “democratizing finance” while profiting from the mistakes and volatility created by novice investors. In this nuanced analysis, Jakab shines a light on the often-misunderstood profit motives and financial mechanisms to show how this so-called revolution is, on balance, a bonanza for Wall Street. But, Jakab argues, there really is a way for ordinary investors to beat the pros: by refusing to play their game.
