Friends and colleagues have been asking me repeatedly what is going on. This book helped me give reasonable answers, and I have recommended it to everyone who has asked. Mr. Morris speaks with the authority of an insider and conveys his knowledge in clear, direct language. Don't expect the juicy gossip and anecdotes that some other recent books on this topic have used to entice readers. This book is hard-nosed and business-like. And yet, still eminently readable.
I was trained as an economist and have sustained a reverence (religious tone intended) for free markets and deregulation for most of my professional career. As a professional economist, I have some quibbles with some of Mr. Morris's explanations. They feel oversimplified and supported more by conviction than by a subtle analysis of the facts at hand. That said, taken as a whole, his analysis is much more sophisticated than that which any economist could offer if he stayed within his own discipline's boundaries. Mr. Morris points out things that I would not even think to look for. And at the end of the day, common sense favors most of his broader explanations. He brings us the kind of book you always hope to write, in which the reader reacts in an a-ha! moment: of course he's right--how else could it be?! But few readers will have grasped how obvious the answers are before reading Mr. Morris's book. With great disappointment, I bow to his verdict that free markets have not policed themselves as I would have expected and that, as a result, increased regulatory oversight will be required, despite the risks it brings.
I am not saying that I endorse all his explanations. And the book sort of comes apart at the end, in a series of asides that have little to do with his core messages and his core concerns. But this book has helped me understand today's financial crisis far better than anything else I have encountered. As I read it a second time, I am getting still more. Each of us has to build his own understanding; Mr. Morris has made that immeasurably easier for me.
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