13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown

Even after the ruinous financial crisis of America is still beset by the depredations of an oligarchy that is now bigger more profitable and more resistant to regulation than ever Anchored by six megabanksmdashBank of America JPMorgan Chase Citigroup Wells Fargo Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanleymdashwhich together control assets amounting astonishingly to more than percent of the countryrsquos gross domestic product these financial institutions now more emphatically ldquotoo big to failrdquo continue to hold the global economy hostage threatening yet another financial meltdown with their excessive risk-taking and toxic ldquobusiness as usualrdquo practices How did this come to bemdashand what is to be done These are the central concerns of Bankers a brilliant historically informed account of our troubled political economyIn Bankers Simon Johnsonmdashone of the most prominent and frequently cited economists in America former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT and author of the controversial ldquoThe Quiet Couprdquo in The Atlanticmdashand James Kwak give a wide-ranging meticulous and bracing account of recent US financial history within the context of previous showdowns between American democracy and Big Finance from Thomas Jefferson to Andrew Jackson from Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin Delano Roosevelt They convincingly show why our future is imperiled by the ideology of finance finance is good unregulated finance is better unfettered finance run amok is best and by Wall Streetrsquos political control of government policy pertaining to itAs the authors insist the choice that America faces is stark whether Washington will accede to the vested interests of an unbridled financial sector that runs up profits in good years and dumps its losses on taxpayers in lean years or reform through stringent regulation the banking system as first and foremost an engine of economic growth To restore health and balance to our economy Johnson and Kwak make a radical yet feasible and focused proposal reconfigure the megabanks to be ldquosmall enough to failrdquoLucid authoritative crucial for its timeliness Bankers is certain to be one of the most discussed and debated books of From the Hardcover edition.