After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response,

After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead
- Used Book in Good Condition
New York TimesÂ Bestseller

One of our wisest and most clear-eyed economic thinkers offers a masterful narrative of the crisis and its lessons.

Many fine books on the financial crisis were first drafts of historyâ‚¬"books written to fill the need for immediate understanding. Alan S. Blinder, esteemed Princeton professor,Â Wall Street JournalÂ columnist, and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, held off, taking the time to understand the crisis and to think his way through to a truly comprehensive and coherent narrative of how the worst economic crisis in postwar American history happened, what the government did to fight it, and what we can do from hereâ‚¬"mired as we still are in its wreckage.

With bracing clarity, Blinder shows us how the U.S. financial system, which had grown far too complex for its own goodâ‚¬"and too unregulated for the public goodâ‚¬"experienced a perfect storm beginning in 2007. Things started unraveling when the much-chronicled housing bubble burst, but the ensuing implosion of what Blinder calls the â‚¬Å“bond bubbleâ‚¬Â was larger and more devastating. Some people think of the financial industry as a sideshow with little relevance to the real economyâ‚¬"where the jobs, factories, and shops are. But finance is more like the circulatory system of the economic body: if the blood stops flowing, the body goes into cardiac arrest. When Americaâ‚¬s financial structure crumbled, the damage proved to be not only deep, but wide. It took the crisis for the world to discover, to its horror, just how truly interconnectedâ‚¬"and fragileâ‚¬"the global financial system is. Some observers argue that large global forces were the major culprits of the crisis. Blinder disagrees, arguing that the problem started in the U.S. and was pushed abroad, as complex, opaque, and overrated investment products were exported to a hungry world, which was nearly poisoned by them.

The second part of the story explains how American and international government intervention kept us from a total meltdown. Many of the U.S. governmentâ‚¬s actions, particularly the Fedâ‚¬s, were previously unimaginable. And to an amazingâ‚¬"and certainly misunderstoodâ‚¬"extent, they worked. The worst did not happen. Blinder offers clear-eyed answers to the questions still before us, even if some of the choices ahead are as divisive as they are unavoidable.Â After the Music StoppedÂ is an essential history that we cannot afford to forget, because one thing history teaches is that it will happen again.
Country USA
Brand Penguin
Manufacturer Penguin Publishing Group
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 38620940
Color White
ReleaseDate 2013-12-18
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780143124481

Country	USA
Brand	Penguin
Manufacturer	Penguin Publishing Group
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	38620940
Color	White
ReleaseDate	2013-12-18
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780143124481

After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead

Customers who purchased this also purchased....