Product Description: The bestselling author reveals how the U.S. financial sector has hijacked our economy and put America’s global future at risk
In American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips warned us of the perilous interaction of debt, financial recklessness, and the increasing cost of scarce oil. The current housing and mortgage debacle is proof once more of Phillips’s prescience, and only the first harbinger of a national crisis. In Bad Money, Phillips describes the consequences of our misguided economic policies, our mounting debt, our collapsing housing market, our threatened oil, and the end of American domination of world markets. America’s current challenges (and failures) run striking parallels to the decline of previous leading world economic powers—especially the Dutch and British. Global overreach, worn-out politics, excessive debt, and exhausted energy regimes are all chilling signals that the United States is crumbling as the world superpower.
“Bad money” refers to a new phenomenon in wayward megafinance—the emergence of a U.S. economy that is globally dependent and dominated by hubris-driven financial services. Also “bad” are the risk miscalculations and strategic abuses of new multitrillion-dollar products such as asset-backed securities and the lure of buccaneering vehicles like hedge funds. Finally, the U.S. dollar has been turned into bad money as it has weakened and become vulnerable to the world’s other currencies. In all these ways, “bad” finance has failed the American people and pointed U.S. capitalism toward a global crisis. Bad Money is the perfect follow- up to Phillips’s last book, whose dire warnings are now proving frighteningly accurate.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Too Tough for Most, Here is Short Version and Links
I admire this author, very much, and consider him to be one of the more thoughtful public intelligence minutemen--sadly, the media has failed us, as have the think tanks, and we who wish to know the truth ... Read More
Rating: - Great book if you have some knowledge of economics & securitization
If you haven't studied (or educated yourself on) things like GNP, GDP and securitization this book isn't for you as the author implicitly assumes some knowledge of these things. I majored in economics in ... Read More
Rating: - We must act quickly
A well researched view of how the United States has come to be a seriously indebted, precariously troubled economy which could lead to the end of our role as the world's dominant nation. Everyone should read ... Read More
Rating: - Not Perfect But Still Very Worthwhile
This book is prophetic esepcially in light of the events of the last couple of weeks and earlier this year (Bear Stearns and the rest) though I did find it sometimes a bit repetitive.
Rating: - Good but pesamistic
This book is very well researched and much of the financial market is playing out in the ways predicted by the book. I found it informative and very useful for a group discussion that my coworkers had on the topic ... Read More
- We must act quickly