International Monetary and Financial Economics (with Printed Access Card)

Book Description

This text covers the full range of topics in international money and finance, giving solid attention to 3 key areas - international finance, open-economy macroeconomics, and international money and banking. It consistently connects theory to real-world policy and business applications (and strikes a balance between business relevance and policy relevance), demonstrating to readers the contemporary applications that can be explored, and that international monetary and financial economics is a dynamic and interesting subject area that has become of great importance for international affairs and business.

Customer Reviews:

unorganised, simplistic, full of errors.......2005-10-20

This text is definately not an 'upper level' text. It is poorly organized, essential theoretical information is left out, there are abundant, unexcusable errors, and the middle third of the book is essentially a waste of paper.

The text starts off rather well, but the decision to move to derivatives, etc at the point they do and then back to a general reading on international organizations and then back again to more mathematical models is a bit odd.

The information on different world events and world institutions, primarily in the middle third of the book, is written to an audience that could easily be a principles macro class.

There are better books out there.

An econ book with real world uses!.......1998-12-17

Daniels and VanHoose have put together an easy to read, real world applicable textbook. The topics covered are upper level collegiate international finance, but it's presented in a down to earth, orderly fashion. While I would have wanted color graphs, the full examples of complex operations (derivatives hedging, theoretical currency exchange rates and the like) more than made up the difference. They separate the elitist mathematics from that which students want and need. As a college student without a lot of time, that's a huge help. The most important teaching tool used extensively throughout the book is historical data. Being able to show why in theory, give evidence, and then present the deviations takes effort. There is no easy way to explain how the central banks around the world use different tactics in thier policies, but they got through it.

Foreign Exchange: A Practical Guide to the FX Markets (Wiley Finance)

Average customer rating:

Foreign Exchange is foreign no longer
Very informative, very readable
Heavy
Basic FX knowledge

Foreign Exchange: A Practical Guide to the FX Markets (Wiley Finance)
Tim Weithers
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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A Foreign Exchange Primer
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ASIN: 0471732036

Book Description

Praise for Foreign Exchange

"Tim Weithers starts by telling the reader that foreign exchange is not difficult, just confusing, but Foreign Exchange: A Practical Guide to the FX Markets proves that money is much more exciting than anything it buys. This useful book is a whirlwind tour of the world's largest market, and the tour guide is an expert storyteller, inserting numerous fascinating insights and quirky facts throughout the book."
-John R. Taylor, Chairman, CEO and CIO, FX Concepts

"The book reflects the author's doctorate from the University of Chicago, several years' experience as an economics professor, and, most recently, a very successful decade as an executive at a huge international bank. These fundamental ingredients are seasoned with bits of wisdom and experience. What results is a very tasty intellectual stew."
-Professor Jack Clark Francis, PhD, Professor of Economics and Finance, Bernard Baruch College

"In this book, Tim Weithers clearly explains a very complicated subject. Foreign Exchange is full of jargon and conventions that make it very hard for non-professionals to gain a good understanding. Weither's book is a must for any student or professional who wants to learn the secrets of FX."
-Niels O. Nygaard, Director of Financial Mathematics, The University of Chicago

"An excellent text for students and practitioners who want to become acquainted with the arcane world of the foreign exchange market."
-David DeRosa, PhD, founder, DeRosa Research and Trading, Inc., and Adjunct Professor of Finance, Yale School of Management

"Tim Weithers provides a superb introduction to the arcana of foreign exchange markets. While primarily intended for practitioners, the book would be a valuable introduction for students with some knowledge of economics. The text is exceptionally clear with numeric examples and exercises that reinforce concepts. Frequent references are made to the economic theory behind the trading practices."
-John F. O'Connell, Professor of Economics, College of the Holy Cross

Customer Reviews:

Foreign Exchange is foreign no longer.......2007-09-05

The esteemed Dr. Weithers explains the foreign exchange market nuances with elan, wit and clarity. I would be very much suprised if this book is not considered the definitive work on the topic in the very near future. Brilliant, bold and insightful.
Kevin J. O'Mara

Very informative, very readable.......2007-03-09

This book was exactly what I needed. I was familiar with forex futures, and I wanted to break into the cash forex market and possibly into currency options. This book gave me a clear explanation of the markets, including the conventions, the mechanics, the spot market, forex swaps, forex options, etc., and some of the factors which drive exchange rates (e.g., interest rates).

The book is very readable. Usually, this sort of thing puts me to sleep. But I knocked off a chapter per day, no problem. The author is a member of the UBS training department, and he clearly has experience explaining this topic to the uninitiated.

The math is quite light. Nothing more complicated than algebra, which is necessary to explain some pricing logic.

The book does not contain trading secrets. It is not a system for trading forex. It does not explain How I Made $1,000,000 Trading Forex. It will not help you pick a broker. It is not an exposition on the stochastic theory of forex pricing. It is, however, a clear explanation of the FX markets.

Heavy.......2007-02-22

This is not a practical guide to the FX markets. It is written by an academic and sounds like it. Overly complicated.

Basic FX knowledge.......2006-11-10

The book is good for someone with no exposure to FX markets and for those who want to get a handle on things like how rates are quoted, why digital options make sense etc. The only gripe I have about this book is that it is an introduction to the topic, and not an advanced exposition on FX models, etc. Otherwise it is well written.

Currency Derivatives: Pricing Theory, Exotic Options, and Hedging Applications (Wiley Series in Financial Engineering)

Average customer rating:

Excellent choice of papers!
Comprehensive

Currency Derivatives: Pricing Theory, Exotic Options, and Hedging Applications (Wiley Series in Financial Engineering)

Manufacturer: Wiley
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Binding: Hardcover

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mastering foreign exchange & currency options: a practical guide to the new marketplace (2nd Edition) (Financial Times Series)

ASIN: 0471252670

Book Description

A groundbreaking collection on currency derivatives, including pricing theory and hedging applications.

"David DeRosa has assembled an outstanding collection of works on foreign exchange derivatives. It surely will become required reading for both students and option traders."-Mark B. Garman President, Financial Engineering Associates, Inc. Emeritus Professor, University of California, Berkeley.

"A comprehensive selection of the major references in currency option pricing."-Nassim Taleb. Senior trading advisor, Paribas Author, Dynamic Hedging: Managing Vanilla and Exotic Options.

"A useful compilation of articles on currency derivatives, going from the essential to the esoteric."-Philippe Jorion Professor of Finance, University of California, Irvine Author, Value at Risk: The New Benchmark for Controlling Market Risk.

Every investment practitioner knows of the enormous impact that the Black-Scholes option pricing model has had on investment and derivatives markets. The success of the theory in understanding options on equity, equity index, and fixed- income markets is common knowledge. Yet, comparatively few professionals are aware that the theory's greatest successes may have been in the derivatives market for foreign exchange. Perhaps this is not surprising because the foreign exchange market is a professional trading arena that is closed virtually to all but institutional participants. Nevertheless, the world's currency markets have proven to be an almost ideal testing and development ground for new derivative instruments.

This book contains many of the most important scientific papers that collectively constitute the core of modern currency derivatives theory. What is remarkable is that each and every one of these papers has found its place in the real world of currency derivatives trading. As such, the contributing authors to this volume can properly claim to have been codevelopers of this new derivatives market, having worked in de facto partnership with the professional traders in the dealing rooms of London, New York, Tokyo, and Singapore.

The articles in this book span the entire currency derivatives field: forward and futures contracts, vanilla currency puts and calls, models for American exercise currency options, options on currencies with bounded exchange rate regimes, currency futures options, the term and strike structure of implied volatility, jump and stochastic volatility option pricing models, barrier options, Asian options, and various sorts of quanto options.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent choice of papers!.......2001-08-18

DeRosa has picked excellent papers. If one reads the papers in detail, the currency derivatives literature, as well as related derivatives literature, becomes very easy to understand.

Comprehensive.......1999-06-19

This book presents highly technical papers on diverse topics from variuous academics. It would be very helpful to anyone looking to understand theoretical aspects of FX derivatives. Since most papers are written by different authors, notation is not consistent. In addition, academics do not always write like Hemingway. Nevertheless, the book covers everyhting from vanillas to exotics very well.

Average customer rating:

The best
Outstanding!

The Economics of Exchange Rates
Lucio Sarno , and Mark P. Taylor
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Exchange Rate Determination (Irwin Library of Investment & Finance.)
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ASIN: 0521485843

Book Description

This book is a survey of exchange-rate economics. Using the latest econometric techniques, it covers the main theories that explain the determination of exchange rates and utilizes recent empirical data on exchange rate behavior.

Download Description

In the last few decades exchange rate economics has seen a number of developments, with substantial contributions to both the theory and empirics of exchange rate determination. Important developments in econometrics and the increasingly large availability of high-quality data have also been responsible for stimulating the large amount of empirical work on exchange rates in this period. Nonetheless, while our understanding of exchange rates has significantly improved, a number of challenges and open questions remain in the exchange rate debate, enhanced by events including the launch of the Euro and the large number of recent currency crises. This volume provides a selective coverage of the literature on exchange rates, focusing on developments from within the last fifteen years. Clear explanations of theories are offered, alongside an appraisal of the literature and suggestions for further research and analysis.

Customer Reviews:

The best.......2006-07-26

Sarno and Taylor placed different approachs of the Exchange Rate teory in this book.

Outstanding!.......2003-09-09

This is a well-written and comprehensive survey of the modern international finance literature. I recommend this book to PH.D students who looking for a dissertation topic. Researchers should also have a copy of this book for reference.

Trading in the Global Currency Markets Second Edition

Average customer rating:

Notionistic
Those who rate above 3 probably did not read through
Tradeoff in practicality for information
Background, but not greatly practical
Well informed author but poorly written book

Trading in the Global Currency Markets Second Edition
Cornelius Luca
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Forex Revolution: An Insider's Guide to the Real World of Foreign Exchange Trading (Financial Times Prentice Hall Books)
The Psychology of the Foreign Exchange Market (Wiley Trading)

ASIN: 0735201463
Release Date: 2000-07-04

Book Description

An in depth look at the tremendous potential of this vital market with expert advice from one of the foremost authorities. The foreign exchange market is the world's largest and fastest growing financial terrain. Despite its high trading volume, it is also a market little understood and little regulated. This definitive resource brings the universe of foreign exchange within reach of every investor. The revised edition includes complete comprehensive coverage of the euro and the latest historical and economic changes in the market.

Cornelius Luca, a renowned authority on international investing, draws on the insights of leading experts in diverse fields of specialty to explain every crucial aspect of foreign exchange. He provides investors with an arsenal of trading weapons, many on the cutting edge of technology. Demystifying the intricacies of these markets, the book includes:

Analysis of the mechanics of the market, the major players and markets, the pertinent risks, corporate trading, and methods of trading execution.

A thorough overview of foreign exchange instruments and major option strategies, with clear explanations of why currencies are traded and how to forecast currency behavior. An in-depth look at the three types of analysis: fundamental, technical, and econometric. Featuring 200 charts and graphics, TRADING IN THE GLOBAL CURRENCY MARKETS is an indispensable guide to a daunting yet promising financial playing field.

Customer Reviews:

Notionistic.......2006-08-26

The book contains a lot of undigested info on trading in currency markets, failing to explain much of the things it illustrates.

Those who rate above 3 probably did not read through.......2005-09-05

The structure is good, topics are comprehensive, style is concise.

The problems,

The book seems did not proof read carefully. There are many typos, very confusing.

Especially in the second part, which is about technical analysis, it does not explain details when they are needed. And it lacks proper explanations for figures. Some figures do not match patterns he described.

This guy, Luca, seems to be famous. He is maybe good at trading himself and he is able to write a good book, but he just did not put himself into it.

Tradeoff in practicality for information.......2005-04-23

This book turned out to be quite different from what I was expecting. By the cover, I thought it would be about finding a brokerage account, and then getting set up to trade away. To my surprise it was more of an educational textbook than a "do it yourself" guide for individual investors.

However, this book contains a lot of interesting information about foreign exchange and how it works. It discusses the history of foreign exchange, factors that influence it, terminologies used by traders, and the different means that currency is traded. The primary focus is the multimillion-dollar trades put forth by large firms. It serves as a good reference and a good supplement to other readings about finance/economics in general. Since it covers a wide range of topics and somewhat glosses over them quickly, I suggest reinforcing with other more specific books on economics.

The good points are that it contains much useful information for educating yourself in the foreign exchange area. The downside is that it is not a practical guide for people interested in getting their dollars converted to Euros by this evening.

Background, but not greatly practical.......2005-02-16

Luca has written what is essentially a text book for the foreign exchange market. That is good in that he provides a survey of the market, its history, how it works, etc. If you want to learn about the market, this book contains the information you desire. It reads like a textbook, though. If you want something to help you actually trade the market, look elsewhere.

Well informed author but poorly written book.......2005-01-11

The author clearly has had experience in the foreign exchange market, but the writing style is so poor that very little useful information is presented. The book reads like an economics text book from the 60's. If you are hoping for a book that will give you specific pointers on spot trading the forex market, this will disappoint. However, if you want to get a broad history and background on foreign exchange, this book is will be helpful.

Interest and Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy

Average customer rating:

It's monetary economics, not diff eqns
Woodford's Incomplete Model
Very good book in Monetary Policy
must read text for students in monetary economics

Interest and Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy
Michael Woodford
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Monetary Theory and Policy, 2nd Edition
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Time Series Analysis
Lectures on Macroeconomics

ASIN: 0691010498

Book Description

With the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, any pretense of a connection of the world's currencies to any real commodity has been abandoned. Yet since the 1980s, most central banks have abandoned money-growth targets as practical guidelines for monetary policy as well. How then can pure "fiat" currencies be managed so as to create confidence in the stability of national units of account?

Interest and Prices seeks to provide theoretical foundations for a rule-based approach to monetary policy suitable for a world of instant communications and ever more efficient financial markets. In such a world, effective monetary policy requires that central banks construct a conscious and articulate account of what they are doing. Michael Woodford reexamines the foundations of monetary economics, and shows how interest-rate policy can be used to achieve an inflation target in the absence of either commodity backing or control of a monetary aggregate.

The book further shows how the tools of modern macroeconomic theory can be used to design an optimal inflation-targeting regime--one that balances stabilization goals with the pursuit of price stability in a way that is grounded in an explicit welfare analysis, and that takes account of the "New Classical" critique of traditional policy evaluation exercises. It thus argues that rule-based policymaking need not mean adherence to a rigid framework unrelated to stabilization objectives for the sake of credibility, while at the same time showing the advantages of rule-based over purely discretionary policymaking.

Customer Reviews:

It's monetary economics, not diff eqns.......2005-03-02

It's a most compehensive and thought-provoking treatise on modern monetary economics, an excellent follow-up to Carl Walsh's Monetary Theory and Policy. I think this reviewer who gives the book 2 stars just on account of one technical error that he claims to have discovered is being extremely myopic. The book is not about solutions to stochastic difference equations and neither does the author claim to be an expert at stochastic difference equations. The book handles what it is meant to handle admirably well, i.e. MONETARY ECONOMICS

Woodford's Incomplete Model.......2004-05-04

I have been spending the last four months concentrating on Woodford's model of a cashless economy, which Woodford presents in Chapter 2, and which provides the foundation for the rest of the book. I believe his model to be incomplete, relying on a rational expectations precedent of assuming bounded solutions when solving expectational difference equations. A colleague and I have written a paper that shows that this precedent is flawed and we then propose more rigorous procedures. When we apply those revised procedures to Woodford's model of a cashless economy, we find his model is incomplete.

Furthormore, I am writting a second paper that shows that the central bank in Woodford's model is unable to affect the nominal interest rate paid on loans by other entities. If the central bank cannot affect this interest rate, then it cannot affect prices even if Woodford's model was complete.

These are just challenges to Woodford's model which need to withstand the test of refereed journals. However, the potential reader of this book needs to be aware that there are some academics who are challenging the validity of his model. For more details, search for "Woodford cashless economy" with a search engine and you should be able to find my web page that discusses this (...) David Eagle, Associate Professor of Finance
Eastern Washington University
(...)

Very good book in Monetary Policy.......2004-04-21

For sure this will become a masterpiece in modern monetary policy. It is very well detailed, and discusses what is really important in the field.

It is already a reference book, and must be read by practitioners, students and academicians interested in the subject.

However the book has the following caveats:

- It is too verbose. That means that you might have the same deepness with less words. As a consequence the reader often gets tired, bored and misses the main point;
- It does not talk about conventional monetary policy as you could find in Walsh's "Monetary Theory and Policy";
- Trying to make the exposition easier, the models are presented in separeted too far apart pieces. This makes it difficult to fully grasp the details at once.

In view of this, I must say that Walsh's book might become a necessary complements to Woodford's. Notice that the styles and goals of both books are different. Therefore, buying one or another depends on your intentions.

In additon I'd say that Woodford's overall strategy is right in terms of the sequence of subjects treated. However, shorter and more numerous chapters might improve the exposition tactics.

must read text for students in monetary economics.......2004-01-15

This book is written by one of the giants in modern macroeconomics. Although a little bit lengthy, the book contains nearly all the recent advance in monetary economics, especially in the interest rate rules and optimal monetary policy. Of course, you should be familiar with log linearization and simple matrix algebra in order to access the mathematics of the book. Woodford¡¦s Interest and prices and Walsh¡¦s Monetary Theory and Policy (2nd edition) would definitely become the required text for every graduate course in monetary economics around the world.

The Rules of the Game: International Money and Exchange Rates

Average customer rating:

A clear overview of the history of international exchange rates

The Rules of the Game: International Money and Exchange Rates
Ronald I. McKinnon
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Exchange Rates under the East Asian Dollar Standard: Living with Conflicted Virtue

ASIN: 0262133180

Book Description

Generalized financial volatility is capitalism's Achilles' heel. And nowhere is the problem of controlling such volatility more acute than in monetary and exchange-rate relationships across countries - the central theme of this book.

The Rules of the Game brings together essays, written over the course of thirty years, by a major figure in the field that analyze and compare a wide variety of important international monetary regimes. These range from the establishment of the gold standard in the nineteenth century through Bretton Woods, the dollar standard, floating exchange rates, the European Monetary System, to current proposals for reforming world monetary arrangements.

The essays are unique in that they specify precisely the rules of the game for each international monetary regime - past, present, and future. For ease of reference, the book offers boxed summaries of each set of rules and then discusses their advantages and disadvantages from the gold standard down to the author's proposal for a common monetary standard for the twenty-first century.

Part I assesses each monetary regime's success in stabilizing prices and exchange rates, while fostering international trade. Part II addresses a central question each country faces: what are the benefits of giving up exchange-rate flexibility to join a common monetary standard? Part III focuses on overall monetary reform for limiting financial volatility and exchange-rate crises in the next century - including whether or not Western Europe should adopt a common currency. The last chapter synthesizes and updates the author's previous writings on rationalizing monetary arrangements among the major industrial countries of North America, Western Europe, and East Asia.

Customer Reviews:

A clear overview of the history of international exchange rates.......2007-07-20

This book is a fine reference for a mainstream neoclassical-Keynesian synthesis view of money and exchange rates. It's a good source for information about the arrangements that governed international trade under the various international agreements of the last 100 years or so.

I give the book three stars for some of its theoretical failures, which is first and foremost, a misunderstanding of the nature of money, and hence, of exchange rates. The book follows much of the economics field in treating money as a creature of the government. That is only the case in the last 35 years or so, which is a kind of radical experiment. Money does not exist because governments say so. If this were true, money could never have developed. Money is a medium of exchange which has everything to do with its status as a store of value. Governments cannot create an item that has value simply by a government seal. All over the world, fiat currencies have lost value rapidly, because the long-term historical value of paper money is zero. Exchange rates operate chaotically, because they depend on arbitrage in foreign exchange markets, but all fiat currencies are inexorably headed toward zero.

While this book is a good reference for how much of the economics field views money, I find it gives a misleading picture of the nature of money. I'd recommend Rothbard's "What has the government done to our money?" for a clearer picture.

Average customer rating:

Great for the clueless but not for the pros
A poor text book
The perfect forex primer!

A Foreign Exchange Primer
Shani Shamah , and Shani Beverly Shamah
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Similar Items:

Foreign Exchange: A Practical Guide to the FX Markets (Wiley Finance)
Mathematical Methods for Foreign Exchange: A Financial Engineer's Approach
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ASIN: 0470851627

Book Description

The foreign exchange market is the largest in the world, with an estimated $1.6 trillion average daily turnover. This book sets out to introduce the novice to the practical skills necessary to understand the foreign exchange market today.

A Foreign Exchange Primer provides a clear understanding of how this market functions, from the main products through to the techniques used, coverage of the main participants, details of the various 'players' and an understanding of the 'jargon' used in everyday dealings.

This concise, highly accessible primer is ideal for anyone new to or wanting to become involved in the foreign exchange market, from a dealing room or sales perspective through to the novice investor.

Download Description

The foreign exchange market is the largest market in the world, with an estimated $1.6 trillion average daily turnover. This book sets out to introduce the novice to the practical skills necessary to understand the foreign exchange market today. Foreign Exchange Primer provides a clear understanding of how this market functions, from the main products through to the techniques used, coverage of the main participants, details of the various 'players' and an understanding of the 'jargon' used in everyday dealings. This concise and highly accessible primer, is ideal for anyone new to or wanting to become involved in the foreign exchange market, from a dealing room or sales perspective through to the novice investor.

Customer Reviews:

Great for the clueless but not for the pros.......2006-05-03

As another reviewer noted, this book is definitely not for people who are ready to study "financial engineering". It is, however, PERFECT for people who want to learn about foreign exchange but don't have a finance background. It does not TRY to be a book for rocket scientists, so criticizing it for that is unfair. More advanced books that have lots of integral and summation signs assume that you already understand the basic information in this book.

This is the only book I have found which explains this important market at a level that practically anyone can understand. I'm a math student doing a mathematical modelling project involving finance and investment and so I needed something like this: I do not know anyone who invests and the simple fact is that most people don't know much about the mechanics of the markets. This book fills in a gap in plain English with little verbosity or unnecessary digressions. Thus, as a basis for gaining intuition and domain knowledge in an undergraduate university project, this book is everything it attempts to be.

A poor text book.......2004-03-20

This book does not help me much with my foreign exchange course as a financial engineering student.

Many examples in the book have obvious numeric errors. Also it does not talk about any logic behind the calculation. The little calculation it has is neither rigorous nor complete. Reading this book only caused me more questions and confusions. I had to read other books as a correction or supplement.

It's definitely not for people looking for mathematical reasoning. It does not even talk about Garman-Kohlhagen formula, or Spot-Forward parity etc. It only has some explanations of some jargons, even those explanations are not very well presented.

Another thing I don't like is that at several places two consecutive paragraphs are identical except for a few keywords -- an obvious result of copy & paste.

Had I known the content of the book, I would not have bought it! I bought the e-book & didn't know the content until after I bought it. And e-books cannot be returned. Otherwise I would have done it!

The perfect forex primer!.......2003-06-16

Although this book is primarily written for people that are clueless about foreign exchange (FX), it will actually teach the clued-up a thing or two also. The broad range of topics covered is what you'd expect to find in a book that is considerably thicker and more expensive - there's a detailed insight into the marketplace and its participants, the products (spot, forwards, swaps, options), fundamental vs. technical analysis, and more. The author writes in a concise, but extremely readable style and makes extensive use of pictures and diagrams. Furthermore, the book is bang up to date with recent developments in FX, such as the Euro and electronic dealing (that is, at the time I wrote this review). Finally, as an added bonus, this book is not overly biased towards the US or the US dollar, which I feel is especially appropriate for an FX book. Highly recommended!

Central Banking in History. (International Library of Macroeconomic and Financial History 10 ). 3 Vol. Set.

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Central Banking in History. (International Library of Macroeconomic and Financial History 10 ). 3 Vol. Set.

Manufacturer: Edward Elgar Pub
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1852785691

Greenspan's Fraud: How Two Decades of His Policies Have Undermined the Global Economy

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May the Zionist get their spiritual evolution
Here comes Ravi Batra again...
All you ever feared about Alan Greenspan
Not "your government" version of economics 101
A light read on a heavy subject

Greenspan's Fraud: How Two Decades of His Policies Have Undermined the Global Economy
Ravi Batra
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1403968594
Release Date: 2005-04-14

Book Description

An explosive critique of Alan Greenspan's economic policies by New York Times bestselling author Ravi Batra F or two decades Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has held reign over economic policy, outlasting three presidents. His long tenure has had a profound effect on global economics and on individuals. In this hard-hitting expos, international bestselling author Ravi Batra takes sharp aim at Greenspan's policies since he came into power. Greenomics, Batra argues, has extracted trillions of dollars from the American middle class and sharply benefited the rich, while protecting big business. Batra argues that Greenomics has also been responsible for periods of irrational exuberance, and exposes the wild inconsistencies in his social security recommendations. Greenspan's Fraudexplores Greenspan's influences and motivations and the discrepancies between his words and actions, while revealing how his policies have national and global impact.

Customer Reviews:

May the Zionist get their spiritual evolution.......2007-05-13

this book is telling us clearly - that we still have Zionist in our world who are spiritually very under develope.
Let us pray for their spiritual evolutin for Greenspan and for all other Zionist in our world.

As soon as our Zionist will reach out to higher spiritual maturity - we will have peace in ou world.
So mote it be.
God bless us all.
Sincerely Emanuel Schwarz

Here comes Ravi Batra again..........2006-08-01

I am shocked, SHOCKED that this author has come back to scare a whole new generation of readers. All this glowing reviews? Where do they come from? A little background: Batra made a fortune writing and selling popular books in the late 80s predicting that the 90s would be worse than the 1930s Great Depression years. Batra is a skillful writer, and his books sold well. Problem was, academic economists and serious researchers saw that there was no serious analysis behind all the apocalyptic predictions.

Batra discredited himself among scholars as soon as his popular books hit the bookshelves in the 1980s. Of course, once the 1990s proved to be the strongest decade ever of economic growth, Batra became discredited also among the naive people who had bought his books. And now he is back? No one remembers who he is? Perhaps Batra thinks that there was no collapse in the 1990s because of Greenspan's policies. Don't buy his "sky-are-falling" books, no matter how entertaining and well-written they appear to be. He may be a superb writer of pamphlets, but they have proved to be useless.

All you ever feared about Alan Greenspan.......2006-07-04

In this powerful, disturbing book, author Ravi Batra criticizes financial icon Alan Greenspan's 14-year stint as chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Greenspan steadily promoted his own ambitions and agenda, getting pretty much what he wanted in the secretive world of the Fed. The author says Greenspan often calculatedly used deceptive, incomprehensible language to hide his intentions and goals. Though this book uses much clearer language, it necessarily meanders, since understanding why Greenspan hid his motives and how he sold his policies requires a crash course in advanced economics, the Fed, politics and history. Greenspan is an ideologue whose long history is intertwined with complex economic theories. Batra tries to untangle enough of the U.S. economy's inner workings to prove his contention that Greenspan perpetrated a national intellectual fraud. Even absent a smoking gun, Batra is clear on who he thinks wears the black hat. When he discusses the deficit and the failure to secure Social Security, he doles out plenty of blame for Greenspan to share with both political parties, Congress and a handful of presidents. We suggest this exposé to corporate treasurers, economists, business strategists, CEOs and financial reporters. Batra says that Greenspan's policies have left future generations with a drastically changed world, and yet, most folks will have no idea what hit them

Not "your government" version of economics 101.......2006-03-14

This is an outstanding presentation of exactly what the title conveys. It shows that callous corporate greed is being sustained by a government that is anti-worker, anti- social security, & anti-public. It is definitely Pro-Big-Business, at the expence of the majority of the citizens. The author explains the concepts easily and builds upon them incrementally to show you how they are pulling the wool over your very eyes. They take you for the dummies that they have been paying your tax dollars to dumb down. Wise up and read this manifesto on the maestro's shenanigans. You don't need agent99 to get smart. Start holding theses wolves in sheep's clothing accountable!

A light read on a heavy subject.......2005-12-30

Beginning with LTCM I noticed the Fed's (and authorities in general) proclivity for pumping liquidity into global markets during potential hiccups in global growth stories. I thought it interesting, but at the time I didn't associate the behavior and global free money with Greenspan - or with `his friends on Wall Street' or in government.

It was only when I started to notice that the inflation data didn't feel as low as it looked, and then when I got about zero interest for my short term deposits, that I began to suspect that policies of pegging interest rates as low as possible to stimulate growth could be part of a concerted strategy to reflate global growth after the big bash of the millennium. Since I am not an economist there is little I can do to prove my case, however.

I agree with many points in the book - but I didn't learn most of them from reading the book. That Greenspan has been one of the greatest tale spinning maestros in history clearly comes out in the book. And I learned some from the book's itemizing of different periods of Greenpsan's reign. A whole chapter should have been dedicated to Greenspan's thinking on productivity, since it appears to have been such a cornerstone of his policies.

If this book is the best we can do to show up Greenspan and his track record then it has failed. And this is because not enough convincing evidence is offered in many cases. The problem is loose presentation of data, linear thinking and simple strawman-type arguments. Simple arguments make for a good introduction to some of the potential future problems Greenspan will be seen as having a hand in. The current effort by Batra is perhaps a first effort and hopefully more can be written soon.

What we also really need is Greenspan to get dared to defend his record by a leader with stature. Since he is so revered, to the point of being called a `national treasure' it would be difficult to imagine a rebuttal from Greenspan anytime soon on the heels of this book.

Questions: Did Greenspan engineer any of our long-term problems? Or did he simply fail to act to reverse any of them? Is structurally high US national and trade debt sustainable for quite some time more? And is it this debt-driven pump priming what has driven global liquidity, and which could now also be part of the reason for over-demand of commodities? Is much of China's near US$1 trillion foreign reserves a result of the US demand driven beyond its means? The list goes on.

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