Accompanying videodisc titled 'An evening with Dr. Deming' contains a play with Mike Micklewright portraying Dr. W. Edwards Deming at an ASQ section meeting.
The Great Financial Crash had cataclysmic effects on the global economy, and took conventional economists completely by surprise. Many leading commentators declared shortly before the crisis that the magical recipe for eternal stability had been found. Less than a year later, the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression erupted. In this explosive book, Steve Keen, one of the very few economists who anticipated the crash, shows why the self-declared experts were wrong and how ever–rising levels of private debt make another financial crisis almost inevitable unless politicians tackle the real dynamics causing financial instability. He also identifies the economies that have become 'The Walking Dead of Debt', and those that are next in line – including Australia, Belgium, China, Canada and South Korea. A major intervention by a fearlessly iconoclastic figure, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the true nature of the global economic system.
In this groundbreaking study of the financial meltdown, renowned radical political economists lay bare the roots of the crisis in the inner logic of capitalism itself. Objective and detailed, this account provocatively challenges the call for a return to a largely mythical golden age of economic regulation as a check on finance capital. In addition, it deftly illuminates how the era of neoliberal free markets has been, in practice, under-girded by state intervention on a massive scale. Arguing for genuinely transformative alternatives to capitalism, and discussing how to build the collective capacity to realize these goals, this record is a critique of the crisis and an indispensable springboard for a renewed political left.
WINNER OF THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK "An intelligent explanation of the mechanisms that produced the crisis and the response to it...One of the great strengths of Tooze's book is to demonstrate the deeply intertwined nature of the European and American financial systems."--The New York Times Book Review From the prizewinning economic historian and author of Shutdown and The Deluge, an eye-opening reinterpretation of the 2008 economic crisis (and its ten-year aftermath) as a global event that directly led to the shockwaves being felt around the world today. We live in a world where dramatic shifts in the domestic and global economy command the headlines, from rollbacks in US banking regulations to tariffs that may ignite international trade wars. But current events have deep roots, and the key to navigating today’s roiling policies lies in the events that started it all—the 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath. Despite initial attempts to downplay the crisis as a local incident, what happened on Wall Street beginning in 2008 was, in fact, a dramatic caesura of global significance that spiraled around the world, from the financial markets of the UK and Europe to the factories and dockyards of Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, forcing a rearrangement of global governance. With a historian’s eye for detail, connection, and consequence, Adam Tooze brings the story right up to today’s negotiations, actions, and threats—a much-needed perspective on a global catastrophe and its long-term consequences.
The 2008 financial crisis—like the Great Depression—was a world-historical event. What caused it will be debated for years, if not generations. The conventional narrative is that the financial crisis was caused by Wall Street greed and insufficient regulation of the financial system. That narrative produced the Dodd-Frank Act, the most comprehensive financial-system regulation since the New Deal. There is evidence, however, that the Dodd-Frank Act has slowed the recovery from the recession. If insufficient regulation caused the financial crisis, then the Dodd-Frank Act will never be modified or repealed; proponents will argue that doing so will cause another crisis. A competing narrative about what caused the financial crisis has received little attention. This view, which is accepted by almost all Republicans in Congress and most conservatives, contends that the crisis was caused by government housing policies. This book extensively documents this view. For example, it shows that in June 2008, before the crisis, 58 percent of all US mortgages were subprime or other low-quality mortgages. Of these, 76 percent were on the books of government agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When these mortgages defaulted in 2007 and 2008, they drove down housing prices and weakened banks and other mortgage holders, causing the crisis. After this book is published, no one will be able to claim that the financial crisis was caused by insufficient regulation, or defend Dodd-Frank, without coming to terms with the data this book contains.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Governor Andrew Cuomo tells the riveting story of how he took charge in the fight against COVID-19 as New York became the epicenter of the pandemic, offering hard-won lessons in leadership and his vision for the path forward. “An impressive road map to dealing with a crisis as serious as any we have faced.”—The Washington Post When COVID-19 besieged the United States, New York State emerged as the global “ground zero” for a deadly contagion that threatened the lives and livelihoods of millions. Quickly, Governor Andrew Cuomo provided the leadership to address the threat, becoming the standard-bearer of the organized response the country desperately needed. With infection rates spiking and more people dying every day, the systems and functions necessary to combat the pandemic in New York—and America—did not exist. So Cuomo undertook the impossible. He unified people to rise to the challenge and was relentless in his pursuit of scientific facts and data. He quelled fear while implementing an extraordinary plan for flattening the curve of infection. He and his team worked day and night to protect the people of New York, despite roadblocks presented by a president incapable of leadership and addicted to transactional politics. Taking readers beyond the candid daily briefings that became must-see TV across the globe, and providing a dramatic, day-by-day account of the catastrophe as it unfolded, American Crisis presents the intimate and inspiring thoughts of a leader at an unprecedented historical moment. In his own voice, Andrew Cuomo chronicles the ingenuity and sacrifice required of so many to fight the pandemic, sharing the decision-making that shaped his policy as well as his frank accounting and assessment of his interactions with the federal government, the White House, and other state and local political and health officials. Real leadership, he shows, requires clear communication, compassion for others, and a commitment to truth-telling—no matter how frightening the facts may be. Including a game plan for what we as individuals—and as a nation—need to do to protect ourselves against this disaster and those to come, American Crisis is a remarkable portrait of selfless leadership and a gritty story of difficult choices that points the way to a safer future for all of us.
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST An epic, riveting history of New York City on the edge of disaster—and an anatomy of the austerity politics that continue to shape the world today When the news broke in 1975 that New York City was on the brink of fiscal collapse, few believed it was possible. How could the country’s largest metropolis fail? How could the capital of the financial world go bankrupt? Yet the city was indeed billions of dollars in the red, with no way to pay back its debts. Bankers and politicians alike seized upon the situation as evidence that social liberalism, which New York famously exemplified, was unworkable. The city had to slash services, freeze wages, and fire thousands of workers, they insisted, or financial apocalypse would ensue. In this vivid account, historian Kim Phillips-Fein tells the remarkable story of the crisis that engulfed the city. With unions and ordinary citizens refusing to accept retrenchment, the budget crunch became a struggle over the soul of New York, pitting fundamentally opposing visions of the city against each other. Drawing on never-before-used archival sources and interviews with key players in the crisis, Fear City shows how the brush with bankruptcy permanently transformed New York—and reshaped ideas about government across America. At once a sweeping history of some of the most tumultuous times in New York's past, a gripping narrative of last-minute machinations and backroom deals, and an origin story of the politics of austerity, Fear City is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the resurgent fiscal conservatism of today.
Throughout the Western world, governments and financial elites responded to the financial crisis of 2008 by trying to restore the conditions of business as usual, but the economic, social and human damage inflicted by the crisis has given rise to a reconsideration of the inevitability of unfettered capitalism as a fact of life. A number of economic practices and organizations emerged in Europe and the United States that embodied alternative values: the value of life over the value of money; the effectiveness of cooperation over cut-throat competition; the social responsibility of corporations and responsible regulation by governments over the short-term speculative strategies that brought the economy to the brink of catastrophe. This book examines the blossoming of innovative new experiments in organizing work and life that emerged in the wake of the financial crisis: cooperatives, barter networks, ethical banking, community currencies, shared time banks, solidarity networks, sharing of goods, non-monetary transactions, etc., experiments that paved the way for the emergence of a sharing economy in all domains of activity oriented toward the satisfaction of human needs. Other innovations included the creation of cryptographic virtual currencies, epitomized by bitcoin, which blended a libertarian, entrepreneurial spirit with information technology to provide an alternative to standard forms of currency. On the basis of a cross-cultural analysis of alternative economic practices, this book develops an important theoretical argument: that the economy, as a human practice, is shaped by culture, and that the diversity of cultures, as revealed in a time of crisis, implies the possibility of different economies depending on the values and power relations that define economic institutions. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, economics and the social sciences generally, and to anyone who wishes to understand how our societies and economies are changing today.
The classic and deeply influential work on business management, leadership, problem solving, and quality control—based on Denning’s famous 14 Points for Management. Now reissued for the managers and leaders of today! Translated into 12 languages and continuously in print since its original publication in 1982, this highly influential framework presents the foundations for a completely transformational way to lead and manage people, processes, and resources. According to Deming, American company management’s failure to plan for the future brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to: • Stay in business • Protect investment • Ensure future dividends • Provide more jobs through improved product and service In simple, direct language, Deming explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them. This edition includes a foreword by Deming’s grandson, Kevin Edwards Cahill, and Kelly Allan, business consultant and Deming expert.
A rare analytical look at the financial crisis using simple analysis The economic crisis that began in 2008 revealed the numerous problems in our financial system, from the way mortgage loans were produced to the way Wall Street banks leveraged themselves. Curiously enough, however, most of the reasons for the banking collapse are very similar to the reasons that Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), the largest hedge fund to date, collapsed in 1998. The Crisis of Crowding looks at LTCM in greater detail, with new information, for a more accurate perspective, examining how the subsequent hedge funds started by Meriwether and former partners were destroyed again by the lapse of judgement in allowing Lehman Brothers to fail. Covering the lessons that were ignored during LTCM's collapse but eventually connected to the financial crisis of 2008, the book presents a series of lessons for hedge funds and financial markets, including touching upon the circle of greed from homeowners to real estate agents to politicians to Wall Street. Guides the reader through the real story of Long-Term Capital Management with accurate descriptions, previously unpublished data, and interviews Describes the lessons that hedge funds, as well as the market, should have learned from LTCM's collapse Explores how the financial crisis and LTCM are a global phenomena rooted in failures to account for risk in crowded spaces with leverage Explains why quantitative finance is essential for every financial institution from risk management to valuation modeling to algorithmic trading Is filled with simple quantitative analysis about the financial crisis, from the Quant Crisis of 2007 to the failure of Lehman Brothers to the Flash Crash of 2010 A unique blend of storytelling and sound quantitative analysis, The Crisis of Crowding is one of the first books to offer an analytical look at the financial crisis rather than just an account of what happened. Also included are a layman's guide to the Dodd-Frank rules and what it means for the future, as well as an evaluation of the Fed's reaction to the crisis, QE1, QE2, and QE3.