63 of 89 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
This is MISINFORMATION, February 6, 2009
This review is from: Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover (Paperback)
The "Meltdown" book to read is called:
Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse
"A new New Deal?" Jesse Jackson is a credible economist now? (Civil rights activist sure, but no, not an economist.) Please, give us a break from this insanity. Even if you read this terrible book (which simply rehashes all the fuzzy economics on the TV news anyway), at least read Thomas Woods' "Meltdown" book as well to get the competing view.
It wasn't simply "greed"--the Fed and the government caused the so called "meltdown".
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fine studies of the ongoing crisis, August 31, 2010
This collection of articles from the US journal The Nation gives fascinating insights into capitalism's continuing crisis. The Clinton administration and the Federal Reserve Bank together blocked efforts to regulate credit derivatives. They created a debt casino. The Fed, under `maestro' Alan Greenspan, never saw the bubble coming, yet The Nation's Dean Baker warned in August 2004 of a housing bubble, as did William Greider in September 2005, forecasting `dramatic price inflation in real estate'.
Wall Street is no better than a criminal conspiracy against the American people. As Steve Fraser writes, "Wall Street, after all, had been convicted in the court of public opinion of reckless, incompetent, self-interested, even felonious behavior, with consequences so devastating for the rest of the country that government was licensed to make sure it didn't happen again."
But the government has failed to make sure it won't happen again. Its spending cuts will only deepen the slump. The IMF said that balancing the US budget would cut its current account deficit only slightly, but would cut output by more than $300 billion over five years.
The ruling class wants slow or no growth, high unemployment and low inflation, because these bring high profits. Trade unions in the USA are calling this the `job-loss recovery'. Laws protecting capital are mandatory; laws protecting labour are nugatory. Low inflation boosts the prices of financial assets, pumping up the financial bubble.
Faced with static or falling wages, price rises and job cuts, too many workers have chosen not to fight for wages and for jobs but instead to run up debts, dig into their savings and pensions, and remortgage their homes. So they have become dependent on building societies and banks.
Aggressive private firms have taken advantage of this weakness and pushed their dodgy financial products in order to loot the savings, mortgages and pensions of the working class majority. Predatory lending pumps $9 billion a year from the poorest to the richest.
The ideology of de-regulation and freedom for capital is bankrupt. We need controls on capital, the re-regulation of finance, public investment and higher wages.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
43 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Wrong diagnosis, wrong cure, March 19, 2009
This review is from: Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover (Paperback)
The authors fail to mention that all of the 'greed' and 'corruption' cited in the book was completely enabled (and even encouraged) by our government and Federal Reserve. This enablement was not a result of a lack of regulation and oversight, but rather the easy-money policies increasingly promoted by both Republicans and Democrats over the past thirty years. As the authors do not understand this, they fail to identify the solution to our current crisis, which is a return to sound monetary and fiscal policies.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
