We are living in the most uncertain financial environment in recent history. A quarter - century of reckless lending, asset stripping, free - market zealotry and hedge - fund secrecy has ended with a dramatic collapse. And, according to Charles R. Morris, an even more profound economic and political restructuring is on its way. In The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown, Morris explains how we got here and what we can expect next. With insight and clarity, he cuts through the guff to provide an indispensable guide to confusing times. ''''''''How we got into the mess we're in, explained briefly and brilliantly.'''''''' - New York Times Book Review Charles R. Morris is a lawyer and former banker. He is the author of ten books, including The Cost of Good Intentions, Money, Greed and Risk and The Tycoons. He has written for the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
For more than a decade, Japan's dismal economy - which has bounced from deflationary collapse to fitful recovery and back to collapse - has been the biggest obstacle to economic growth. Why has the world's second largest economy been unable to save itself? Why has a country, whose financial might in the 1980s was the most feared force on the globe, become the sick man of the world economy? Saving the Sun answers these questions and more in the riveting and remarkable story of Long Term Credit Bank, one of the world's most respected financial institutions, and its attempts to transform itself into a Western-style bank and reconcile the cultural gulf that still exists between Japan and the international banking community.'Smart and engaging-it's a riveting tale with important insights into Japan's culture and its sclerotic system.' BusinessWeek'Saving the Sun is not simply about the fate of one Japanese bank. It is about the clash of two visions of finance-and how hard it is to reconcile them.' The Wall Street Journal Europe
In spite of its key role in creating the ruinous financial crisis of 2008, the American banking industry has grown bigger, more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever. Anchored by six megabanks whose assets amount to more than 60 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, this oligarchy proved it could first hold the global economy hostage and then use its political muscle to fight off meaningful reform. 13 Bankers brilliantly charts the rise to power of the financial sector and forcefully argues that we must break up the big banks if we want to avoid future financial catastrophes. Updated, with additional analysis of the government’s recent attempt to reform the banking industry, this is a timely and expert account of our troubled political economy.
Charles R. Morris's The Trillion Dollar Meltdown (2008) was the first book to warn of the impending financial crash in all its horrific scale and speed. Now, with Comeback, Morris reveals that the United States is on the brink of a strong recovery that could last for twenty years or more. The great economic boom times in American history have come because of fortuitous discoveries. Natural resources (coal first, then oil) fueled vast economic and industrial expansions, which in turn helped create and supply new markets. The last genuine economic game changer was the technology boom of the 1990s, which gave the U.S. a global competitive advantage for a while based on electronics and silicon. One of the first writers and analysts in the U.S. to predict that the tech boom would lead to a period of sustained economic growth was Charles Morris. In defiance of the recessionary times (in 1990), he saw the coming boom. Now, in 2013, he sees the threshold of another. This time the gift is natural gas. The amount and distribution of gas in American shale is so vast that it has the potential to transform the manufacturing economy, creating jobs across the country, and requiring a new infrastructure that will benefit the nation as a whole. Because of fracking, jobs that once would have been outsourced abroad will return home, America can become a net exporter of energy, and cheap energy will provide the opportunity for innovation and competition. In light of this new opportunity, and other complementary developments Morris explores in this book, the U.S. ought to be approaching the future with a robust self-confidence it has not experienced in a while. But we could fumble it away. The gold-rush style of shale boom companies does not make them good neighbors. A counter-reaction could put their industry, and the new era of national prosperity, at risk. We also have a political system that has the capacity to spoil the benefits of this huge boon. If the wealth locked in the continental shelf is not shared for the general economic good, but is instead exploited in short-term profiteering, then many of the opportunities that exist will be choked off by a few very rich corporations. Managing the great bonus of the vast store of cheap energy is going to become a defining political challenge in the years ahead. At the threshold of a thrilling opportunity, Morris is a brilliantly perceptive guide.
The Great Crash of 1929 profoundly disrupted the United States' confident march toward becoming the world's superpower. The breakneck growth of 1920s America -- with its boom in automobiles, electricity, credit lines, radio, and movies -- certainly presaged a serious recession by the decade's end, but not a depression. The totality of the collapse shocked the nation, and its duration scarred generations to come. In this lucid and fast-paced account of the cataclysm, award-winning writer Charles R. Morris pulls together the intricate threads of policy, ideology, international hatreds, and sheer individual cantankerousness that finally pushed the world economy over the brink and into a depression. While Morris anchors his narrative in the United States, he also fully investigates the poisonous political atmosphere of postwar Europe to reveal how treacherous the environment of the global economy was. It took heroic financial mismanagement, a glut-induced global collapse in agricultural prices, and a self-inflicted crash in world trade to cause the Great Depression. Deeply researched and vividly told, A Rabble of Dead Money anatomizes history's greatest economic catastrophe -- while noting the uncanny echoes for the present.
For the first time, Joe Tibman pulls back the kimono to share intriguing information and detail about Lehman Brothers and the economic meltdown that has never before been revealed:
The next economic storm and how to prepare for it--from a top decision-maker at BlackRock An economic calamity is already looming on the horizon, and it's going hit the U.S. on a scale equal to the recent mortgage meltdown and liquidity crisis of 2008-2009. In February, President Obama announced that the 2010 budget deficit would surpass $1.5 trillion, an amount greater than the total debt of our nation in its first 200 years of its existence. And things only get worse from here: between 2010 and 2019, America will add one trillion of additional debt every year. In The Ten Trillion Dollar Gamble, Russ Koesterich, who manages over $100 billion for the world's largest money management company, offers compelling evidence supporting his prediction that the global economy is on the verge of more, even greater upheaval and provides his unique insight into: The structural weaknesses underlying the economic meltdown Why commodities will be so important in the next economic climate Likely ramifications to the real estate market The best stocks to buy and which ones to avoid Today's investing strategies will be rendered useless in the next storm's wake. Written by one of the most qualified people in the business, The Ten Trillion Dollar Gamble offers a plan for protecting your wealth and preserving the power of your savings. Table of Contents Chapter 1. Why Worry About the Deficit? Chapter 2. Why the Deficit Will matter to You Chapter 3. What to Watch Chapter 4. How to Manage Your Cash and Debts Chapter 5. Investing in Bonds in a Rising Rate Environment Chapter 6. Stocks to Buy and Avoid Chapter 7. Why You May Need Commodities Chapter 8. What to do with Real Estate Chapter 9. Putting it All Together Chapter 10. Conclusion: Can We avoid the budget debacle?
Everything from home mortgages to climate change has become financialized, as vast fortunes are generated by individuals who build nothing of lasting value. Das shows how "extreme money" has become ever more unreal; how "voodoo banking" continues to generate massive phony profits even now; and how a new generation of "Masters of the Universe" has come to domiinate the world.
This volume chronicles the evolution of modern financial markets against the backdrop of some of the finance world's most infamous crises. Financial periods are intricately and historically examined, simplifying the financial instruments and techniques so that even the non-financial reader can identify the pattern that Morris uncovers in the lead up to a crisis.
"Makes a reader feel like a time traveler plopped down among men who were by turns vicious and visionary."—The Christian Science Monitor The modern American economy was the creation of four men: Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan. They were the giants of the Gilded Age, a moment of riotous growth that established America as the richest, most inventive, and most productive country on the planet. Acclaimed author Charles R. Morris vividly brings the men and their times to life. The ruthlessly competitive Carnegie, the imperial Rockefeller, and the provocateur Gould were obsessed with progress, experiment, and speed. They were balanced by Morgan, the gentleman businessman, who fought, instead, for a global trust in American business. Through their antagonism and their verve, they built an industrial behemoth—and a country of middle-class consumers. The Tycoons tells the incredible story of how these four determined men wrenched the economy into the modern age, inventing a nation of full economic participation that could not have been imagined only a few decades earlier.
