Customer Reviews

Wall Street Speculation: Its Tricks and Its Tragedies

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Keyes's book is an excellent analysis of the Wall Street speculator dominance of Wall Street,be it in 1900 or 2010 .It is as relevant today as it was when it was first published over 100 years ago.Like Adam Smith and J M Keynes,Keyes points out that it matters tremendously who dominates on Wall Street-the Captains of Industry or the Captains of Finance (Keyes refers to the Captains of Industry when he means the Captains of Finance).Smith identified and described the Captains of Finance correctly in 1776 in The Wealth of Nations as projectors,prodigals and imprudent risk takers.J M Keynes identified them in 1936 in his General Theory as speculators and rentiers.
The important point made by Keyes is that the general public will always end up losing in the aggregate because they will always end up being the ones bailing out the speculators in one way or another,be it by direct government funded bailouts as in the 1980's,1990's,and 2000's or by the costs of deflation and inflation imposed on the general public in both the panic-crash -recession stage (deflation) or the bubble -mania stage (inflation).

I highly recommend this book for the general citizen who does not have the time or inclination to study the work of Adam Smith or J M Keynes.Of course,the general reader will not have a complete understanding of the technical manner in which speculation damages the macroeconomy over time.However,he will quickly be able to conclude that all American Presidents since Jimmy Carter have been dominated by Wall Street.One only need look at Obama's economic advisors to see this today.