Review of Money for Nothing: Real Wealth, Financial Fantasies and the Economy of the Future (Hardcover)

A decade ago, economist Roger Bootle won respect for correctly predicting a long period of low inflation. In this wide-ranging look at the world economy, Bootle trades on that credibility to explain the origins of the dot-com bubble and to argue that the economy is in the midst of a housing bubble. He makes the convincing argument that stock-market gains are often little more than ephemera and he explores the idea of a knowledge-based economy. Bullish readers will be put off by Bootle's gloom and doom. Deflation has yet to occur, and the housing bubble he harps on has yet to burst in the time span since this work's publication. Still, we recommend this intriguing title to investors interested in a contrarian view of the markets and the economy.



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Review of Corporate Governance in Banking (Hardcover)

Corporate Governance in Banking: A Global Perspective is an assembly of essays by learned authors discussing international laws and recommendations concerning corporate governance in banking, as seen from a global perspective. In an era of expanding globalization and corporations of ever-increasing power, the need for effective but not overstifling regulation of corporate banking and accounting is more pronounced than ever. Individual essays in Corporate Governance in Banking include "Corporate Governance in Banks: Does the Board Structure Matter?", "A Survey of Corporate Governance in Banking: Characteristics of the Top 100 World Banks", "Bank Mergers and Insider Trading", and much more. Corporate governance and banking is scrutinized in the setting of a number of different nations, including the United States, Australia, Germany, Hungary, and Korea. A heavily researched text especially for advanced students, scholars, and professionals in the field, highly recommended for the economic studies shelves of college libraries.



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Review of High Rollers: Inside the Savings and Loan Debacle (Hardcover)

This book rather rigoursly breaks down how the S&L crisis occured. It also breaks down some rather technical points and tries to present them in a manner understandable for the reader. I would admit that it may come across as a little dry and detailed for some. On the other hand, those familiar with the technical aspects of the lending and financing topics may find that same material a bit remedial. I do think that this is the best book I have read that addresses the crisis from a policy perspective. It starts with the foundation of the S&L industry and the policies put in place (and in some cases the lack thereof) that lead to its crippling collapse. It does an excellent job of detailing blame/cause but also suggests inevitability at the same time. The author does present, at various stages of the crisis, what-ifs? This presentation was done well as it was 'salted' with the feasibility of implementing these what-ifs at the time.

The author has a gift of constantly putting the various topics and issues into their proper perspective. As an example, the author noted that the outright fraud committed by institutions prior to insolvency was comparatively small compared to the overall number of institutions that were failing and ultimately did fail. I would strongly urge all of those in the policy and regulatory aspect of the financial services industry (even those outside of banking and lending) to read this book as a good primer on causes of financial crises and policy (and political) steps that can exacerbate rather than resolve a situation. As the author points out repeatedly (and with well supported and sounded arguments), the crisis may not have been avoided altogether, however it could have been minimized substantially. Unfortunately, because of lack of political will, lack of technical understanding and a fundamental failure to truly appreciate human nature, the outcome was not inevitable, but doubtless.

I would argue this is a must-read for congressional staffers, policy makers, regulators and any law enforcement agencies whose work involves them in the financial services sector as well as those in middle to upper level management of financial services companies.



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Review of High Rollers: Inside the Savings and Loan Debacle (Hardcover)

This book rather rigoursly breaks down how the S&L crisis occured. It also breaks down some rather technical points and tries to present them in a manner understandable for the reader. I would admit that it may come across as a little dry and detailed for some. On the other hand, those familiar with the technical aspects of the lending and financing topics may find that same material a bit remedial. I do think that this is the best book I have read that addresses the crisis from a policy perspective. It starts with the foundation of the S&L industry and the policies put in place (and in some cases the lack thereof) that lead to its crippling collapse. It does an excellent job of detailing blame/cause but also suggests inevitability at the same time. The author does present, at various stages of the crisis, what-ifs? This presentation was done well as it was 'salted' with the feasibility of implementing these what-ifs at the time.

The author has a gift of constantly putting the various topics and issues into their proper perspective. As an example, the author noted that the outright fraud committed by institutions prior to insolvency was comparatively small compared to the overall number of institutions that were failing and ultimately did fail. I would strongly urge all of those in the policy and regulatory aspect of the financial services industry (even those outside of banking and lending) to read this book as a good primer on causes of financial crises and policy (and political) steps that can exacerbate rather than resolve a situation. As the author points out repeatedly (and with well supported and sounded arguments), the crisis may not have been avoided altogether, however it could have been minimized substantially. Unfortunately, because of lack of political will, lack of technical understanding and a fundamental failure to truly appreciate human nature, the outcome was not inevitable, but doubtless.

I would argue this is a must-read for congressional staffers, policy makers, regulators and any law enforcement agencies whose work involves them in the financial services sector as well as those in middle to upper level management of financial services companies.



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Review of The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures (Hardcover)

This book presents a fact and chart filled analysis of the recent history of the U.S. economic big picture, and how this fits into the global scenario.From this, Mr. Duncan explains his conclusions on why and when the U.S. dollar will plumment.

He must be commended for all the research and the way the many charts and explanations build a solid case that there IS a considerable long term risk to the dollar, unless the current overall trends (public and private) in the U.S. economy change.

As a layman student of the markets and economics, I found this a very interesting read, and believe that the information presented is valuable to everyone who has a lot of dollar denominated investments.

My main concern, is the author makes the all too common mistake in assuming:

a. His scenario is absolutely certain.
b. His timing (e.g. in our face) of the coming event is certain.
c. His solutions would work, and are a must.

Having read maybe 100 investment books in the last 25 years and having gained a fair amount of experience and perspective, I'll opine that this is vastly overstating his case.More realistically, he makes a strong case for why there are serious risks in a dollar-dominated portfolio, and therefore implicitly makes a strong case for a significant diversification to a global or asset (i.e. real estate, art, etc) segment of a prudent investor's portfolio.

If Mr. Duncan had invested solid effort at the end of the book in providing cogent information about what the typical American investor could do to protect him/herself, instead of trying to convince his audience that he's absolutely right and the problem is imminent -- then this book would have earned 5 stars.

As it is, the reader is forced to come up with the (balanced portfolio) advice on their own, which may well require more investment experience than the average reader can be expected to have.



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Review of The Keynes Solution: The Path to Global Economic Prosperity (Hardcover)

Paul Davidson has done a remarkable job of explaining John Maynard Keynes' key insights, most of which he first introduced to the world in his seminal 1936 "General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money."Unfortunately, for Keynes, that book is fairly impenetrable, so the general public is essentially unaware that the economics movement that bore his name (i.e., "Keynesian") is, in fact, a synthesis of the classical economics that Keynes rejected and Keynes' less controversial ideas.In other words, Keynes' own name was hijacked by what were, essentially, classical economists.

This book is an easy read and easy to understand because it uses the recent economic crisis to compare and contrast neoclassical economics (best exemplified by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School) to true Keynesian economics.If you really want to understand Keynes' insights in detail, pick up a used copy of Anatol Murad's "What Keynes Means," which is a fantastic primer.

If you are interested in reading other accessible economics books by heterodox economists, check out Steve Keen's "Debunking Economics."Like Davidson, Keen is a Post Keynesian economist.



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Review of Gold: The Once and Future Money (Hardcover)

Let me start of by saying that it seems the last reviewer didn't even read the book!This book pushes a "type" of psuedo-gold standard, not the original gold standard.That said, the problems laid out by the reviewer don't even make sense under a true gold standard.A true gold standard does not mean that people use gold coins to purchase groceries or even homes.A gold standard, in the classical sense, means that there is no Federal Reserve or Central bank, at least not in its current form, and the dollar is DEFINED as a certain weight in gold.The monetary act of 1792 actually defined the dollar as 1 ounce of silver and then fixed the weights and measures of silver vs gold at 15 to 1.This was their error, so to speak.

Even under a true gold standard, where no central bank exists, paper dollars do exist, as do checking accounts, savings accounts, et al.The process would work much like it does today with the exception that a paper dollar would be in the form of a receipt on gold.Private banks would hold your gold (some percentage of it) on reserve at the bank while issing you a deposit or savings account with the right to draw on the account in question.But I'm digressing --i don't have time to outline the true classical gold standard.This book espouses no such thing as the classical gold standard ---it pushes a psuedo gold standard which I describe below:

It is a gold peg.Peg the dollar at a certain value of gold --say the current price of $660 per ounce.Currently the FED is responsible for setting interest rates, the discount rate directly and the FED funds rate indirectly through money supply adjustments.The authors of this book want the market to set the rate of interest, and the FED to be replaced with a currency board which has only one directive ---adjust the money supply in order to keep a constant value of dollar/gold ---at our $660 target.Interest rates would then be set by the market and money supply would be set by gold itself ---a much more stable form of money.This would be a pseudo gold standard ----as long as the market is open and free for gold exchange internationally, then there would be an automatical gold convertability for all people.The government would need to hold $0 gold because people could simply go out and convert their dollars into gold on the open market ---if they did on balance, the currency board would then need to decrease the supply of money in circulation in order to keep the peg (assuming all else stayed constant).If the USA went first, then all countries would follow ---this would create a one world currency, gold with dollar/yen/pound/euro simply representing different quantities of the same currency, as pennies, quarters, dimes, dollars, represent different quantities of the same currency now, the US dollar.This would provide automatic adjustment to imbalances of trade ---long discussion here.

I recommend this book because of the history aspect and the understanding of gold/monetary issues.These authors understand the classical economist theories very thoroughly --with one great misunderstanding.This is the only downfall in the book ---they don't quite understand how inflation of the money supply creates bubbles or misallocated resources.Thus, they don't understand the boom/bust process as outlined by the Austrian school very well.They correctly understand taxes but do not have the same understanding with government spending.They understand free trade.

I would give this book a 5 out of 5 even though there is a big mistake of not understanding other causes of the business cycle --namely the boom bust cycle brought on by monetary inflation and misallocations of capital.



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Review of Exchange Rate Regimes: Fixed, Flexible or Something in Between (Hardcover)

A wonderful guide with all the basics to understand the different kinds of exchange rate regimes and the challenges they pose to different economies.



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Review of Managing Global Financial and Foreign Exchange Rate Risk (Hardcover)

This is a decent enough book and will provide a good introduction to those who want to understand the basics of the foreign exchange market and, in particular, the details of financial instruments that can be used. To me, that is the problem though; the title alludes to managing risk, but this is really mostly (but not entirely) just yet another book explaining all the instruments that can be used. These are a dime a dozen and the reader would have been better served if the author focused on what the title promised. Still, if you are a corporate treasurer without much experience this book will be helpful.



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