Finance as a Positive Force
Robert J. Schiller. Finance and the Good Society. Princeton University Press, 2012, pp. 288, $24.95 The financial sector has gotten a bad rap of late. Indeed, as referenced in this recent work, the emergence of both the Tea Party, which argued against the massive taxpayer bailouts of large financial institutions, and the Occupy Wall Street [...]
The Banking Dead
Zombie Banks: How Broken Banks And Debtor Nations Are Crippling the Global Economy. Yalman Onaran. Bloomberg Press, 2012, pp. 184, $34.95 Over the past several years, both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street (OWS) have been at the forefront of criticizing the federal government’s bailout of large financial institutions. While their criticism is generally [...]
The Legacy of the Crash: How the Financial Crisis Changed America and Britain. Edited by Terrence Casey. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 291, $32.00 Historians, when studying economic or political events, often focus on whether a particular historical occurrence represents a break from, or continuity with, the past. There is, for instance, a general consensus that [...]
Engineering the Financial Crisis: Systemic Risk and the Failure of Regulation. Jeffrey Friedman and Wladimir Kraus. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, pp.212, $45.00 The majority of individuals involved in the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement tend to blame Wall Street bankers for the financial crisis and the ensuing recession and high unemployment rates. By contrast, [...]
Uncle Sam in Pinstripes: Evaluating U.S. Federal Credit Programs. Douglas J. Elliott. Brookings Institution Press, 2011, pp. 147, $19.95 Of all the demands of the Occupy Wall Street movement, none probably has more resonance to many underemployed young Americans than their call for student debt relief. Indeed, according to The Federal Reserve Bank of New [...]