Arrived Lausanne

"Great look at how Wall Street and Washington insiders lobbied to blunt new rules on derivatives. The lack of such rules ultimately led to the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. Now, the newly installed GOP wants to blunt or repeal any attempts to restrict derivative trading and speculation in this toxic instruments. Hold on to your hat" ( )

While there have been many books written about the immediate events that brought about the recent economic crash that we are still striving to recover from, economic correspondent Michael Hirsh provides the reader with the long view of how the crash came about. In clear and engaging prose, Hirsh traces the financial history of the United States back to the Great Depression. He explains how changing economic ideologies led us on a path to the most serious financial crisis since the Depression. Hirsh’s book provides a great lesson on the importance of paying attention to history. If we had, we might have avoided our current crisis. Hirsh also illustrates the tension between various economic models and how they influenced the thinking and actions of our financial and political leaders. Hirsh takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the complex world of finance and provides us with many lessons to ponder. ( )

Very good analysis of the economic crisis of 2008 - 2011. Starts back with the failure of Keynesianism that lead to fascist capitalism during 1980's growing into partial deregulation up through Clinton. His explanations were a little left leaning, but very good non partisan analysis of the economic crisis. ( )