The New York Times bestseller "Blinder's book deserves its likely place near the top of reading lists about the crisis. It is the best comprehensive history of the episode... A riveting tale." - Financial Times 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 history—books written to fill the need for immediate understanding. Alan S. Blinder, esteemed Princeton professor, Wall Street Journal 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 here—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 good—and too unregulated for the public good—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 “bond bubble” was larger and more devastating. Some people think of the financial industry as a sideshow with little relevance to the real economy—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 America’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 interconnected—and fragile—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. government’s actions, particularly the Fed’s, were previously unimaginable. And to an amazing—and certainly misunderstood—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. After the Music Stopped is an essential history that we cannot afford to forget, because one thing history teaches is that it will happen again.

A bestselling economist tells us what both politicians and economists must learn to fix America's failing economic policies American economic policy ranks as something between bad and disgraceful. As leading economist Alan S. Blinder argues, a crucial cultural divide separates economic and political civilizations. Economists and politicians often talk -- and act -- at cross purposes: politicians typically seek economists' "advice" only to support preconceived notions, not to learn what economists actually know or believe. Politicians naturally worry about keeping constituents happy and winning elections. Some are devoted to an ideology. Economists sometimes overlook the real human costs of what may seem to be the obviously best policy -- to a calculating machine. In Advice and Dissent, Blinder shows how both sides can shrink the yawning gap between good politics and good economics and encourage the hardheaded but softhearted policies our country so desperately needs.

Mike Blinder is a sales trainer and consultant for some of the most widely respected media companies in the world. In this book he reviews the fundamentals of sales and shows how essential a B2B (back-to-basics) approach is to B2B (business-to-business) sales, even in a down economy ... especially in a down economy.

Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, 2nd Edition provides an accessible, fully updated introduction to the principles of quantum mechanics. It outlines the fundamental concepts of quantum theory, discusses how these arose from classic experiments in chemistry and physics, and presents the quantum-mechanical foundations of current scientific developments.Beginning with a solid introduction to the key principles underpinning quantum mechanics in Part 1, the book goes on to expand upon these in Part 2, where fundamental concepts such as molecular structure and chemical bonding are discussed. Finally, Part 3 discusses applications of this quantum theory across some newly developing applications, including chapters on Density Functional Theory, Statistical Thermodynamics and Quantum Computing.Drawing on the extensive experience of its expert author, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, 2nd Edition is a lucid introduction to the principles of quantum mechanics for anyone new to the field, and a useful refresher on fundamental knowledge and latest developments for those varying degrees of background. - Presents a fully updated accounting that reflects the most recent developments in Quantum Theory and its applications - Includes new chapters on Special Functions, Density Functional Theory, Statistical Thermodynamics and Quantum Computers - Presents additional problems and exercises to further support learning

Alan S. Blinder offers the dual perspective of a leading academic macroeconomist who served a stint as Vice-Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board—one who practiced what he had long preached and then returned to academia to write about it. He tells central bankers how they might better incorporate academic knowledge and thinking into the conduct of monetary policy, and he tells scholars how they might reorient their research to be more attuned to reality and thus more useful to central bankers. Based on the 1996 Lionel Robbins Lectures, this readable book deals succinctly, in a nontechnical manner, with a wide variety of issues in monetary policy. The book also includes the author's suggested solution to an age-old problem in monetary theory: what it means for monetary policy to be "neutral."

Although "using both medications and psychotherapy in all patients may not necessarily be most cost-efficient or most effective," according to Beitman (psychiatry, U. of Missouri-Columbia) and his collaborators, it seems important to determine when monotreatment, combined therapy, or integrated treatment may be the best choice. They overview the issues involved in such therapies, and then focus in on research perspectives and understandings of psychodynamic neurobiology. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Why do consumer prices and wages adjust so slowly to changes in market conditions? The rigidity or stickiness of price setting in business is central to Keynesian economic theory and a key to understanding how monetary policy works, yet economists have made little headway in determining why it occurs. Asking About Prices offers a groundbreaking empirical approach to a puzzle for which theories abound but facts are scarce. Leading economist Alan Blinder, along with co-authors Elie Canetti, David Lebow, and Jeremy B. Rudd, interviewed a national, multi-industry sample of 200 CEOs, company heads, and other corporate price setters to test the validity of twelve prominent theories of price stickiness. Using everyday language and pertinent scenarios, the carefully designed survey asked decisionmakers how prominently these theoretical concerns entered into their own attitudes and thought processes. Do businesses tend to view the costs of changing prices as prohibitive? Do they worry that lower prices will be equated with poorer quality goods? Are firms more likely to try alternate strategies to changing prices, such as warehousing excess inventory or improving their quality of service? To what extent are prices held in place by contractual agreements, or by invisible handshakes? Asking About Prices offers a gold mine of previously unavailable information. It affirms the widespread presence of price stickiness in American industry, and offers the only available guide to such business details as what fraction of goods are sold by fixed price contract, how often transactions involve repeat customers, and how and when firms review their prices. Some results are surprising: contrary to popular wisdom, prices do not increase more easily than they decrease, and firms do not appear to practice anticipatory pricing, even when they can foresee cost increases. Asking About Prices also offers a chapter-by-chapter review of the survey findings for each of the twelve theories of price stickiness. The authors determine which theories are most popular with actual price setters, how practices vary within different business sectors, across firms of different sizes, and so on. They also direct economists' attention toward a rationale for price stickiness that does not stem from conventional theory, namely a strong reluctance by firms to antagonize or inconvenience their customers. By illuminating how company executives actually think about price setting, Asking About Prices provides an elegant model of a valuable new approach to conducting economic research.