false 37019401 1504420 2321788 0670019070 9780670019076 87 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2321788.Bad_Money_Reckless_Finance_Failed_Politics_and_the_Global_Crisis_of_American_Capitalism 3.62 224
In American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips warned us of the perilous interaction of debt, financial recklessness, and the increasing cost of scarce oil. The current housing and mortgage debacle is proof once more of Phillips's prescience, and only the first harbinger of a national crisis. In Bad Money, Phillips describes the consequences of our misguided economic policies, our mounting debt, our collapsing housing market, our threatened oil, and the end of American domination of world markets. America's current challenges (and failures) run striking parallels to the decline of previous leading world economic powers--especially the Dutch and British. Global overreach, worn-out politics, excessive debt, and exhausted energy regimes are all chilling signals that the United States is crumbling as the world superpower.

"Bad money" refers to a new phenomenon in wayward megafinance--the emergence of a U.S. economy that is globally dependent and dominated by hubris-driven financial services. Also "bad" are the risk miscalculations and strategic abuses of new multitrillion-dollar products such as asset-backed securities and the lure of buccaneering vehicles like hedge funds. Finally, the U.S. dollar has been turned into bad money as it has weakened and become vulnerable to the world's other currencies. In all these ways, "bad" finance has failed the American people and pointed U.S. capitalism toward a global crisis. Bad Money is the perfect follow- up to Phillips's last book, whose dire warnings are now proving frighteningly accurate.]]> 48255 3.72 988 252 2008 4 0 false Fri Oct 24 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 06 04:59:30 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 06 05:03:39 -0800 2008 1 cool sights traveling from Madrid to Bilbao to Barcelona, with lots of small towns in between.

Kevin Phillips covers much more than just how Wall Street went crazy packaging American private debt with structured finance innovati...more...]]>