|  | Author: Gerald F. Davis
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $17.42
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Seller: Florida Panhandlers
Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 108613
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0199216614
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.0410973
EAN: 9780199216611
ASIN: 0199216614
Publication Date: June 15, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: brand new hard cover with dust sleeve as arrived from publisher - ships with tracking #
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 21-25 of 38
Managed by the Markets, or by the Financial Oligarchs? June 18, 2009
Patrick M. Hussey (Baltimore, MD, United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Managed by the Markets is an exquisite overview of modern finance-based "capitalism" as defined by most mainstream observers. The author shines when discussing corporate governance, as he has specialized in this area. The author also provides a strong overview of securitization, although his coverage of derivatives was weaker than hoped. The author covers a bit of the dot.com bubble as well, which would make this a useful text for younger students who missed that era, though older observers might skip it. The author flirts with mentioning the Money Trust that created the Fed, by citing Brandeis' classic "Other People's Money, and How the Bankers Use it". However, he dismisses the conspiratorial view that financial elites may have deliberately imploded the economy in order to own a larger portion of it.
"From Sovereign to Vendor-State" was a useful chapter, but the following chapter, "From Employee and Citizen to Investor" was not. Although people may have defined themselves in such terms circa 2005 or even 2007, the vast loss of wealth since then has introduced a new frugality. People are reconsidering their status as financial cogs, and rediscovering the human element. I have noticed this in previous recessions as well - perhaps the personal empire building reverses when one's financial coliseum collapses.
For this reason, and a few others too detailed to cover here, the Conclusion seems inaccurate and premature. The pervasiveness of finance has not created a portfolio society, but rather has been revealed as tremendously destructive force when coupled with extremely loose monetary policy. Modern cowboy finance as practised by the large banks has become a wealth destroyer and a parasite, not a wealth enhancer. The author seems to have a Keynesian bias, which may be why agrees with the bailouts and does not seem to foresee the imminent demise of the present monetary order. From an Austrian perspective, it seems obvious that the cost structure of the US economy has become bloated from inflation and over-taxation, and has to contract consumption to remain competitive at the international level. This will require a devaluation of the dollar, and possibly a loss of reserve status.
In spite of a few minor shortcomings at the analytical level, Managed by the Markets is a wonderful title with a very good summary of events up to November 2008. Consequently, it deserves a strong four stars.
Informative June 18, 2009
L. XIAO (Cerritos, CA, USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book in general is very well written, very informative if you are interested in the way the financial system operates here in the US and all the history behind it. I didn't give it a 5-star because it was not a fun read.
Not an easy book to read June 18, 2009
George P. Wood (Santa Barbara, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The thesis of this book is that "the shift from a manufacturing to a service (or post-industrial) economy in the United States has been decisively shaped by finance." People, labor, houses, and bank accounts are now treated as commodities to be bought and sold in the marketplace, which is itself increasingly free of governmental control. In the final chapter, the author outlines several deleterious effects of this shift: "less mobility, more inequality"; "educational insecurity"; "the end of the corporate safety net"; "dangerous financial services"; and "the brain drain from government to contractors." The author believes that New Deal-like policies are needed to fulfill the state's obligations to its citizens.
To be perfectly honest, this book was a hard slog reading, not because the author is clear and precise, but because many of the financial concepts and sociological observations are a bit out of my ken. It was also hard to read because I'm politically on the right while this book is center-left or left. So, to me at any rate, some of the diagnosis and prognosis seems wrong, although I don't know that I could argue against it.
At any rate, given the deep mess our country is in economically, and despite my reservations about this book, I think it's worth reading.
Nice history of finance in America June 18, 2009
Jesse D. Walker (Logan, UT)
If you're at all curious about how we got "where we are" in the corporate and finance worlds, this book does a great job of explaining the history of these fields, at least in the United States (there's brief commentary on other countries as well). It's filled with interesting factoids, and while it's not an "I couldn't put it down" book, the author does a reasonable job of holding the reader's interest. The author's main point (pg. 236) is that "...the shift from manufacturing to a service (post-industrial) economy in the United States has been decisively shaped by finance." How that happened, and how it's influenced us, is what the author directs his (and the reader's) attention towards, viewing a different aspect of the relevant changes in each chapter. It's somewhat academic in tone (expected from a book from Oxford University Press), and there's nice lists of notes and references in the back for more information on any of the topics discussed. While this book is timely, it isn't overly focused on our recent economic crises, and will be useful as a reference well into the future.
As fascinating as finance gets June 18, 2009
Edward Durney (San Francisco)
Of all topics for a nonfiction book, finance may be the least appealing. Diet, exercise, even personal finance -- these often lead the best seller lists. But financial policy tends to be dry. Finance rarely fascinates.
Managed by the Markets may be as fascinating as finance gets. Gerald Davis writes about topics that have soared in importance for Americans -- mortgages packaged and sold as securities, insurance against debt default, meltdown of the credit markets. As he says, "finance hit America like a tornado hits a trailer park."
Important as these issues have become to us Americans, understanding them takes more than listening to sound bites on the news. Gerald Davis delves into them in the detail they deserve. At times, that's tedious. But for the most part, this book does a good job in presenting hard material in a soft, easy to understand, way.
It's all a bit unsettling. Gerald Davis points out that even the good times may not have been so good. Even before the recent credit crisis, "Pollyanna creep" made basic numbers like unemployment figures, inflation, and gross domestic product look better than they were. Policy makers adjusted figures to make them look better, so that 9 to 12% unemployment became 4%, 7 to 10% inflation became 3%, and what was really a recession became economic growth. Even before we became sick with the credit crisis flu, our underlying health was not all that great.
What can we do to get better, with our underlying health as well as our more recent acute illness? Gerald Davis gives the five most pressing problems we need to fix in the next decade:
-- Less mobility, more inequality
(it's hard now to start at the entry-level and climb the ladder to success; only the rich get richer)
-- Educational insecurity
(as white-collar jobs disappear off-shore, what kind of education is best to build a foundation for a good life?)
-- The end of the corporate safety net
(pensions and health care used to come from corporations, but who will hold out the safety net as corporations fail to do so?)
-- Dangerous financial services
(financial regulation needs to stop the excesses of the financial services industry, but not stifle the economy)
-- The brain drain from government to contractors
(many of the best government workers use government service as a stepping stone to better-paying contract work doing the same thing, as seen in Iraq)
Showing reviews 21-25 of 38
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