This book asks a fundamental question, that is, whether "somebody in
charge" could have prevented or solved the problem leading up to our current
financial crisis.
This book explores and answers that question from a scholarly and academic
economic viewpoint.
PIERRE LEMIEUX is a Research Fellow at The Independent Institute,
Professor of Economics at the Université du Québec en Outaouais (Canada), and
co-chairman of the GREL (Groupe de Recherche Économie et Liberté).
Table of Contents
Introduction: Adult Supervision
PART I: THE LIMITS OF AUTHORITY
Social Complexity
The Impossibility of Planning
The Inconvenient Individual
The Tribe and the Great Society
PART II: ARE RECESSIONS POSSIBLE?
Business Cycles and Crashes
An Economist in Wonderland
Classical Economics
Recessions Happen
PART III: MACROECONOMIC CONTROVERSIES
The Old Idea of Underconsumption
Keynes's Ideas: A Brief Summary
Price Adjustments
Multiplying Bread and Fish
Meaningless Aggregates
Information and Coordination
Government Activism
More Recent Theories of the Business Cycle
PART IV: THE MIXED ECONOMY
A Failure of Capitalism?
Government Revenues and Expenditures
Regulation and Control
The Welfare State
Businessmen as Domestic Animals
PART V: FINANCIAL DEREGULATION: AN URBAN LEGEND
Lax Regulation
Deregulation
U.S. Banks in a World Perspective
Necessary Regulation?
PART VI: THE CRIME SCENE: ENVY OF THE WORLD
Residential Home Market Driven by Government
A Half-nationalized Residential Mortgage Market
Securitization
Subsidization of Risk
The Collapse of the House of Cards
Larger Consequences
PART VII: MONETARY MEDDLING
The Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle
Some Doubts on the Austrian Interpretation of the Crisis
Monetary Policy Played a Role
On Balance: A Contributing Factor
PART VIII: STATE ANIMAL SPIRITS
State Greed
Faddish Behavior and State Bubbles
Regulatory failure
Collectivism
Power and Hubris
Systemic risk
Conclusion: Something Must Be Done
Bibliography
Name Index
Topics Index
Charts
220 pages, Hardcover