Those of us interested in the sordid world of finance and the events of recent history face a glut of books in the marketplace. Luckily, we have Satyajit Ras to save us lots of time and money. And for those of us who love a choice book review, his are always full of gems. In this recent article he reviews seven, yes seven, recent books.
Here are some of my favorite bits. On what all these books seem to have in common:
A key characteristic of the emerging tidal wave of books is the fact that almost everyone saw the writing on the wall, predicted the crisis and now moreover have solutions that can ensure that this was the crisis to end all crises.
On future regulation:
...embrace regulation and regulators freely whilst being critical of regulators as lacking in skills and beholden to special interests. The faith in government activism is perverse. It fails to consider why a new set of rules will necessarily be more effective and existing regulators will be able to deal with complex issues well above their pay grades. This is particularly the case when the same regulators failed in the very same tasks in the lead up to this crisis. This dissonance is striking.
Most amusingly, on style:
The style of these books varies. The tone is mostly the desiccated drone (reminiscent of John Cage’s experimental work from the 1960s). Some are deliberately academic in tone to achieve the correct type of unreadability. One assumes that they are weapons deployed in the dawn duels between economic scholars.
