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This wealth depends on the reductions of government barriers to trade. In 300 pages the benefits of lower taxes and regulation have shown in clear stats what makes a country rich. An amazing stat is that immigrants are 5 times as productive in the US than their home country. He liked Clinton, Delay and saw Schumer as a free trader.
There was no mention of attempts to lower the amount of risky loans that were going into mortgage backed securities and there is no mention of how that affected the markets. I was surprised how many people Smick found favorable. The fact that Fannie and Freddie were mandated to take on risky loans was totally missed. There are good explanations of how the finical meltdown happened but it did glaze over a bit the role of Sarbanes-Oxley and market to market accounting did a great deal to shrink the money supply.
The book goes into examples of how government are less and less in control of our economic destinies and to try to take that control can undo all the increases in wealth we experienced in the last 30 years. Had there not been china we would have a far lower standard of living. The key to wealth is removing government obstacles to investment and toleration of those that gain profits. That low cost Chinese imports have had the effect of cushioning the inflation of western government overspending.
The real lessons of this book are the sources of our wealth and that we have become far wealthy than we realize. The US is special because we have predictable rules on business, we have fairly low taxes and embraced open markets and rejected class warfare. In that time with the fall of planned economies of communism and spreading of freedom we are 3 times as wealthy and a billion people have been lifted out of poverty.
abound. (A decade ago, at least, Manpower was the single largest employer in both countries).
Through a couple of things like this being properly adjusted, I can basically cut in half the unemployment gap of 3-4 years ago between "high unemployment" Germany and the United States.That said, knowing the thoughts for the future of a schmoozing international finance consultant does make this book worth a second star, at least. In Germany, with universal service, the military doesn't count in employment numbers; in the US, it does.
Alternative review titles: "The enlightened conservative/neoliberal 'consensus' on finance," etc.When hedge fund managers are touted as quasi-divinities, while Robert Rubin and Larry Summers are extolled as near-geniuses rather than anti-regulatory gutters of most U.S. In the US, employed.
Know thy enemy, you know. financial checks, and hence two of the people who helped **lead us into the crisis Smick laments,** you know you're buying BS by the bushel.Other errors, simplistic statements, etc.
For example, one that I know about, and whenever I see it in a finance-type book, or one about international relations, it's a dead giveaway "tell" -- and that's how "overregulated" Europe has such high unemployment rates.Smick, whether out of ignorance or deliberately (and I'll choose the latter interpretation) knows comparing European (German, specifically, in the book) and US unemployment rates is like apples and bowling balls.In Germany, if you're working through a temp agency, you're considered unemployed.
China, Japan, and India are countries with thousand years of history, I am sure that they can survive another few thousand years without serious doom. The author discusses the global financial market and various countries and their effect on the economy. I am sure one of their billions of people is smarter than Hank Paulson or Ben Benanke and not all of them are Tony Soprano's. That into consideration, I am sure one of their billions of people is smart enough to figure out how not to kill their countries' financial system. However, upon reading it, one feels that he really believes America is the only trustworthy nation in conducting business, the American way, the American democratic system is the only answer to the rest of the world, nothing else would work. This is a little short visioned and near-sighted.
"I guess now with hindsight we can know for sure which banking system is the bankrupt one for sure.Let's start:Lehman Brother biggest bankruptcy in the WorldWashington Mutual among the biggest bank failure in the USA and eventually absorbed by JP Morgan ChaseWachovia went bankrupt and it was bought by Well FargoMerrill Lynch sold on the cheap to Bank of America only because the CEO of Bank of America was forced by government to buy it and Bank of America needed a big government bail after this forced purchase.City Bank pretty much went bankrupt if not for government big bail out.AIG became a government agency to avoid bankruptcyFannie Mae and Freddy Mac became also government agency in order to avoid bankruptcy 40 bank went bankrupt last year and now 89 so far for this year and more to come.Wall Street was selling toxic asset on the world and causing great damage.A water down stress test to make the banks under test to look better than it would really is. I am shock that someone actually paid this guy for advices. "There was a reviewer that got a perfect quote to describe what Smick know about China economy or any economy at all.Especially, when the eminent author compares China, which banks"do not understand credit risk management, not to mention even the rudimentary rules of financial transparency"with."large American and European financial institutions" that "look like paragons of financial purity". The water down was done at the request of the bank under test and you get the idea that the whole stress test was a sham.I guess the Smick never had bothered to read or analyzed the Chinese banking and even American financial system at all to come with the above conclusion. Please. (p. 108)No kidding.You can hardly be more delusional than that.
If Alan Greenspan thought this was an "essential read", it is not surprising that the Federal Reserve turned out to be so wrong about the workings of financial markets. It seems that the main purpose of the book was to impress prospective clients with the number of famous people he is on a first-name basis with. He offers no new ideas and no new useful evidence for re-hashed old ideas.
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