The Violence of Financial Capitalism (Semiotext(e) Intervention Series) by Christian Marazzi, Kristina Lebedeva and Jason_1 docx

[...]... learned the lessons of the 1930s • 1 • 2 • THE COST OF CAPITALISM When faced with a collapse of the financial system, any and all steps are taken to stabilize the situation But policies leading up to the crisis of 2008, enacted over the past 25 years, make it abundantly clear that economists, elected of cials, and central bankers did not learn the lessons of the 1920s The record of the U.S economy over the. .. on Main Street and the Boom and Bust Cycle of the Past 25 Years In years to come a casual reader of economic history may find it hard to piece together how things so quickly went from serenity to panic as the first decade of the new millennium came to a close Paradoxically, the seeds of the 2008 crisis can be found in the widespread acceptance of the notion that the U.S economy, over the previous decades,... legal access to the safety nets put in place for commercial banks in the aftermath of the Great Depression It is not hyperbole, therefore, to lay the multi-trillion-dollar bill for the 2008 financial system bailout, and the deep recession of 2008-2009, at the doorstep of misguided confidence in the infallibility of free markets Is this book, therefore, simply an indictment of Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke?... winter of 1990, on the eve of the first U.S war with Iraq, I lunched with a close friend and colleague, Paul DeRosa, a fellow economist Over the course of the meal I explained that I intended to publish a radical forecast for the U.S economy The centerpiece of my outlook was the S&L crisis and the high debt levels of U.S households Oil prices and the Mideast, I was convinced, were sideshows The headline for... in the pages that follow, mainstream policy makers, economists, and central bankers spent the past 25 years willfully denying these two self-evident truths The global financial crisis of 2008 and the 2008-2009 worldwide recession, this book will make clear, can be laid at the doorstep of these painful omissions of economic fact Amidst the wreckage of the recent crisis, calls for expansive retooling of. .. recession was baked in the cake, and that the snowballing problems in the financial system would require both dramatic additional Fed ease and some form of direct federal intervention Just as in 1990, it turned out, my understanding of Hy Minsky’s work put me lightyears ahead of the consensus thinkers in the months leading up to the 2008 crisis But by the summer of 2008, as the world flirted with an economic... Crisis, and End of the Great Moderation Part | IV 149 Recasting Economic Theory for the TwentyFirst Century Chapter | 13 Economic Orthodoxy on the Eve of the Crisis Chapter | 14 Minsky and Monetary Policy 161 177 Chapter | 15 One Practitioner’s Professional Journey 191 Chapter | 16 Global Policy Risks in the Aftermath of the 2008 Crisis 205 Notes 217 References 225 Index 233 PREFACE In the winter of 1990,... chuckling Banks around the world were near insolvency The U.S stock market fell by 18 percent in one week—one of its worst weeks ever! By mid-October, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson held a meeting with the presidents of all major U.S banks wherein he compelled them to sign documents accepting de facto, partial ownership of their banks by the government And there were signs of deep economic decline... times that grip the world as the first decade of the new millennium comes to a close But the book is aimed at economists, investors, and the inquisitive general reader In writing the book, therefore, I struggled to keep it both serious and simple My strategy to bridge that gulf? I tortured family, friends, and professional and academic colleagues for a good six months as I wrote the text In other words,... Part | I xvii The Postcrisis Case for a New Paradigm 1 Financial Markets and Monetary Policy in Perspective Chapter | 2 The Markets Stoke the Boom and Bust Cycle 15 Chapter | 3 The ABCs of Risky Finance 25 Chapter | 4 Financial Markets as a Source of Instability Chapter | 5 Free Market Capitalism: Still the Superior Strategy Chapter | 6 Chapter | 7 55 Monetary Policy: Not the Wrong Men, the Wrong Model . Orthodoxy on the Eve of the Crisis 16 1 Chapter | 14 Minsky and Monetary Policy 17 7 Chapter | 15 One Practitioner’s Professional Journey 19 1 Chapter | 16 Global Policy Risks in the Aftermath of the 2008. The 19 90s Technology Bubble 10 7 Part | III Emerging Realities: 2007-2008 Chapter | 10 Greenspan’s Conundrum Fosters the Housing Bubble 12 3 Chapter | 11 Bernanke’s Calamity and the Onset of. xvii Chapter | 1 The Postcrisis Case for a New Paradigm 1 Part | I Financial Markets and Monetary Policy in Perspective Chapter | 2 The Markets Stoke the Boom and Bust Cycle 15 Chapter | 3 The ABCs of