“The obvious place to start is the financial crisis and the clearest guide to it that I’ve read is Financial Shock by Mark Zandi. ... it is an impressively lucid guide to the big issues.” – The New York Times “In Financial Shock, Mr. Zandi provides a concise and lucid account of the economic, political and regulatory forces behind this binge.” – The Wall Street Journal “Aggressive builders, greedy lenders, optimistic home buyers: Zandi succinctly dissects the mortgage mess from start to (one hopes) finish.” – U.S. News and World Report “A more detailed look at the crisis comes from economist Mark Zandi, co-founder of Moody's Economy.com. His “Financial Shock” delves deeply into the history of the mortgage market, the bad loans, the globalization of trashy subprime paper and how homebuilders ran amok. Zandi's analysis is eye-opening. ... he paints an impressive, more nuanced picture.” – Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine “If you wonder how it could be possible for a subprime mortgage loan to bring the global financial system and the U.S. economy to its knees, you should read this book. No one is better qualified to provide this insight and advice than Mark Zandi.” –Larry Kudlow, Host, CNBC’s Kudlow & Company “Every once in a while a book comes along that’s so important, it commands recognition. This is one of them. Zandi provides a rilliant blow-by-blow account of how greed, stupidity, and recklessness brought the first major economic crises of the 21st entury and the most serious since the Great Depression.” –Bernard Baumohl,Managing Director, The Economic Outlook Group and best-selling author, The Secrets of Economic Indicators “Throughout the financial crisis Mark Zandi has played two important roles. He has insightfully analyzed its causes and thoughtfully recommended steps to alleviate it. This book continues those tasks and adds a third–providing a comprehensive and comprehensible explanation of the issues that is accessible to the general public and extremely useful to those who specialize in the area.” –Barney Frank, Chairman, House Financial Services Committee The subprime crisis created a gigantic financial catastrophe. What happened? How did it happen? How can we prevent similar crises from happening again? Mark Zandi answers all these critical questions–systematically, carefully, and in plain English. Zandi begins with a fast-paced overview and then illuminates the deepest causes, from the psychology of homeownership to Alan Greenspan’s missteps. You’ll see the home “flippers” at work and the real estate agents who cheered them on. You’ll learn how Internet technology and access to global capital transformed the mortgage industry, helping irresponsible lenders drive out good ones. Zandi demystifies the complex financial engineering that enabled lenders to hide deepening risks, shows how global investors eagerly bought in, and explains how flummoxed regulators failed to prevent disaster, despite crucial warning signs. Most important, Zandi offers indispensable advice for investors who must recognize emerging bubbles, policymakers who must improve oversight, and citizens who must survive whatever comes next. Liar’s loans, flippers, predatory lenders, delusional homebuilders How the housing market came unhinged, and the whirlwind came together Alan Greenspan’s trillion-dollar bet Betting on the boom, ignoring the bubble The subprime market goes global Worldwide investors get a piece of the action–and reap the results Wall Street’s alchemists: conjuring up Frankenstein New financial instruments and their hidden contents Back to the future: risk management for the 21st century Respecting the “animal spirits” that drive even the most sophisticated markets

How the financial crisis really happened, and what it really meant: 3 books packed with lessons for investors and policymakers! These three books offer unsurpassed insight into the causes and implications of the global financial crisis: information every investor and policy-maker needs to prepare for an extraordinarily uncertain future. In Financial Shock, Updated Edition, renowned economist Mark Zandi provides the most concise, lucid account of the economic, political, and regulatory causes of the collapse, plus new insights into the continuing impact of the Obama administration’s policies. Zandi doesn’t just illuminate the roles of mortgage lenders, investment bankers, speculators, regulators, and the Fed: he offers sensible recommendations for preventing the next collapse. In Extreme Money, best-selling author and global finance expert Satyajit Das reveals the spectacular, dangerous money games that are generating increasingly massive bubbles of fake growth, prosperity, and wealth, while endangering the jobs, possessions, and futures of everyone outside finance. Das explains how everything from home mortgages to climate change have become fully financialized… how “voodoo banking” keeps generating massive phony profits even now… and how a new generation of “Masters of the Universe” has come to own the world. Finally, in The Fearful Rise of Markets, top Financial Times global finance journalist John Authers reveals how the first truly global super bubble was inflated, and may now be inflating again. He illuminates the multiple roots of repeated financial crises, presenting a truly global view that avoids both oversimplification and ideology. Most valuable of all, Authers offers realistic solutions: for decision-makers who want to prevent disaster, and investors who want to survive it. From world-renowned leaders and experts, including Dr. Mark Zandi, Satyajit Das, and John Authers

The global economy is yet to recover from the aftershocks of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). In particular many national economies are struggling to adjust to austerity programs that are a direct result of the toxic effects of the crisis. Governments, regulatory agencies, international organisations, media commentators, finance industry organisations and professionals, academics and affected citizens have offered partial explanations for what has occurred. Some of these actors have sought to introduce legislative and other regulatory initiatives to improve operational standards in capital markets. However, the exposure post-GFC of the scandal surrounding the manipulation over many years of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) highlighted that the most important obstacles to counter the destructive potential of our global finance system are normative not technical. Regulating the culture of the finance sector is one of the greatest challenges facing contemporary society. This edited volume brings together leading professionals, regulators and academics with knowledge of how cultural forces shape integrity, risk and accountability in capital markets. The book will be of benefit not only to industry, regulatory and academic communities whose focus is upon financial markets and professionals. It is of value to any person or organisation interested in how the cultural underpinnings of the finance sector shape how capital markets actually operate and are regulated. It is a stark lesson of history that financial crises will occur. As national economies become ever more inter-connected and inter-dependent under conditions of global financial capitalism, it becomes ever more important to know how cultural and other normative forces might be adjusted to militate against the effects of future disasters.

A wise investment. Revised and updated, this new edition of The Complete Idiot's Guide® to Personal Finance in Your 20s and 30s explains all the basic information anyone in this age group will need to manage their personal finances or enhance their financial plan to yield better returns on their investments. *Covers 401(k) and retirement planning plus investment strategies for the next decade *Budgeting tips forspiraling food and fuel costs, as well as the financial impacts of changing jobs and growing families *Homeownership options from building from scratch to townhouses and Condos *Up-to-date information on internetbanking and online mortgage brokers Download a sample chapter.

The financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 is the most alarming of our lifetime because of the warp-speed at which it is occurring. How could it have happened, especially after all that we’ve learned from the Great Depression? Why wasn’t it anticipated so that remedial steps could be taken to avoid or mitigate it? What can be done to reverse a slide into a full-blown depression? Why have the responses to date of the government and the economics profession been so lackluster? Richard Posner presents a concise and non-technical examination of this mother of all financial disasters and of the, as yet, stumbling efforts to cope with it. No previous acquaintance on the part of the reader with macroeconomics or the theory of finance is presupposed. This is a book for intelligent generalists that will interest specialists as well. Among the facts and causes Posner identifies are: excess savings flowing in from Asia and the reckless lowering of interest rates by the Federal Reserve Board; the relation between executive compensation, short-term profit goals, and risky lending; the housing bubble fueled by low interest rates, aggressive mortgage marketing, and loose regulations; the low savings rate of American people; and the highly leveraged balance sheets of large financial institutions. Posner analyzes the two basic remedial approaches to the crisis, which correspond to the two theories of the cause of the Great Depression: the monetarist—that the Federal Reserve Board allowed the money supply to shrink, thus failing to prevent a disastrous deflation—and the Keynesian—that the depression was the product of a credit binge in the 1920s, a stock-market crash, and the ensuing downward spiral in economic activity. Posner concludes that the pendulum swung too far and that our financial markets need to be more heavily regulated.

"Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA)" provides academic and business economists, government officials, and members of the financial and business communities with timely research on current economic issues. Contents: Editors' Summary Financial Crash, Commodity Prices, and Global Imbalances, By Ricardo J. Caballero, Emmanuel Farhi, and Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas Making Sense of the Subprime Crisis, By Kristopher Gerardi, Andreas Lehnert, Shane M. Sherlund, and Paul Willen The Central Role of Home Prices in the Current Financial Crisis: How Will the Market Clear? By Karl E. Case Beyond Leveraged Losses: The Balance Sheet Effects of the Home Price Downturn, By Jan Hatzius Financial Regulation in a System Context, By Stephen Morris and Hyun Song Shin The Unofficial Economy and Economic Development, By Rafael La Porta and Andrei Shleifer The Real Exchange Rate and Economic Growth, By Dani Rodrik

How did we get to where we are? John Cassidy shows that the roots of our most recent financial failure lie not with individuals, but with an idea - the idea that markets are inherently rational. He gives us the big picture behind the financial headlines, tracing the rise and fall of free market ideology from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan. Full of wit, sense and, above all, a deeper understanding, How Markets Fail argues for the end of 'utopian' economics, and the beginning of a pragmatic, reality-based way of thinking. A very good history of economic thought Economist How Markets Fail offers a brilliant intellectual framework . . . fine work New York Times An essential, grittily intellectual, yet compelling guide to the financial debacle of 2009 Geordie Greig, Evening Standard A powerful argument . . . Cassidy makes a compelling case that a return to hands-off economics would be a disaster BusinessWeek This book is a well constructed, thoughtful and cogent account of how capitalism evolved to its current form Telegraph Books of the Year recommendation John Cassidy ... describe[s] that mix of insight and madness that brought the world's system to its knees FT, Book of the Year recommendation Anyone who enjoys a good read can safely embark on this tour with Cassidy as their guide . . . Like his colleague Malcolm Gladwell [at the New Yorker], Cassidy is able to lead us with beguiling lucidity through unfamiliar territory New Statesman John Cassidy has covered economics and finance at The New Yorker magazine since 1995, writing on topics ranging from Alan Greenspan to the Iraqi oil industry and English journalism. He is also now a Contributing Editor at Portfolio where he writes the monthly Economics column. Two of his articles have been nominated for National Magazine Awards: an essay on Karl Marx, which appeared in October, 1997, and an account of the death of the British weapons scientist David Kelly, which was published in December, 2003. He has previously written for Sunday Times in as well as the New York Post, where he edited the Business section and then served as the deputy editor. In 2002, Cassidy published his first book, Dot.Con. He lives in New York.