Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
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Michael Lewis • Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
As we move from the 1950s to the 1970s and then to 2008, we notice a problem. A perfectly good idea morphed into another good idea, spread beyond housing, and then culminated in uncontrolled insanity. By 2008, no one, including the management of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or the Department of Housing and Urban Development, had any idea of the fragi
... See moreGeorge Friedman • The Storm Before the Calm: America's Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond
The point is not that all banking is a fraud, but rather the more subtle point that we rely on the judgments of others when we decide whom to trust. For years, Madoff had been a well-respected figure in the investment community. Madoff’s fraud was possible only because so many people trusted him. The more people trusted him, the easier it was for M
... See moreTyler Cowen • The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better: A Penguin eSpecial from Dutton
Why did this happen? Amid all the forces that were still pumping money into Argentina—the generally positive assessments of Wall Street analysts, the obligations of index-bound money managers to apportion much of their portfolios to Argentine bonds, the desire of European retail investors to diversify out of their own governments' low-yielding pape
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