WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM THE FINANCIAL CRISIS?
NOTHING.
The informative bestseller that shows us where our economy went wrong-and what we can do about it-with a timely new introduction.
One of the most important books to emerge from the 2008 economic crisis, this powerful wake-up call from financial expert John Allison has become a classic in the field. Now, in light of emerging global trends and shakeups in the stock market, the book's message is more timely than ever: The government should stop trying to fix our economy. The free market is our best and only hope. In this eye-opening book, Allison reveals:
.How the Federal Reserve has even more power than before the Great Recession-and why this is a problem.
.How Wall Street has been wrongly blamed for our slow economic recovery-and why it's Washington's fault.
.How government regulations like Dodd Frank have burdened banks-and stifled growth.
.How socialized medicine and entitlements drive up costs-and how government policies exacerbate unemployment and income inequality.
.Why free market capitalism offers a proven cure for our economy-and how to make it work for all Americans.
List of contents
Introduction to the Paperback Edition
Introduction
1: Fundamental Themes
2: What Happened?
3: Government Monetary Policy: The Fed as the Primary Cause
4: FDIC Insurance: The Background Cause
5: Government Housing Policy: The Proximate Cause
6: The Essential Role of Banks in a Complex Economy: The Liquidity Challenge
7: The Residential Real-Estate-Market Bubble and Financial-Market Stress
8: Failure of the Rating Agencies: The Subprime Mortgage Market and Its Impact on Capital Markets
9: Pick-a-Payment Mortgages: A Toxic Product of FDIC Insurance Coverage
10: How Freddie and Fannie Grew to Dominate the Home Mortgage Lending Business
11: Fair-Value Accounting and Wealth Destruction
12: Derivatives and Shadow Banking: A Misunderstanding
13: The Myth that "Deregulation" Caused the Financial Crisis
14: How the SEC Made Matters Worse
15: Market Corrections Are Necessary, but Panics Are Destructive and Avoidable
16: TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program)
17: What We Could Have--and Should Have--Done
18: The Cure for the Banking Industry: Systematically Move Toward Pure Capitalism
19: Some Political Cures: Government Policy
20: Our Short-Term Path and How to End Unemployment
21: The Deepest Cause Is Philosophical
22: The Cure Is Also Philosophical
23: How the United States Could Go Broke
24: The Need for Principled Action
25: Conclusion
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
About the author
John Allison is the retired President and CEO of the Cato Institute and retired Chairman and CEO of BB&T. He was named one of the decade's most successful CEOs by the Harvard Business Review.
