Monetary-policy

Nothing fancy, but a good testimony from a real central banker about how real central banking has been carried out in recent US history. It is much less glamorous than all the theories, models and arguments would have it. Logical, sensible and even-tempered, like a central banker. A small book easily read in an evening that brings a lot down to earth. Only four stars because nothing this reasonable deserves five.

After having taken Macroeconomic Theory, Alan Blinder's book was extremely clear and understandable. His comments about Central Banking behavior make wonderful sense as he takes into account both academic and real world theaters. He was especially clairvoyant in his reasoning about why a Central Bank needs to establish credibility. A definite recommendation for those interested in the Federal Reserve and what they do.

Professor Peter Kenen is a leading US expert on international economic relations. In this excellent little book, he analyses the prospects for Economic and Monetary Union.

Firstly, he shows the difficulties that countries are having when their governments try to meet the criteria for Economic and Monetary Union. He points out that in 1994 none of the twelve European Community countries met all four criteria; Italy and Portugal met none of them. Six countries failed the inflation test; two had interest rates too high; ten had fiscal deficits too high, and eight had excessive public debts.

Since then, European Union economies have stagnated or shrunk, so they are even further from meeting the criteria. Four of the six countries with debt ratios above 75 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1993 ran bigger budget deficits in 1994 than in 1992, so they would have to make even bigger cuts in their deficits before they can start to cut their debt ratios.

The Governments are in a dilemma: they cannot cut their budget deficits quickly to the stipulated three per cent without depressing real economic activity. And the more they deflate their economies, the less popular support there is for Economic and Monetary Union. Professor Kenen sums up, "It is thus unlikely that a majority of EC countries will be ready for Stage Three in 1997, when a majority is required to set a starting date, and it may be hard to muster a majority in 1999 - although a majority is not needed then." Stage Three is supposed to start automatically in 1999!

Secondly, Kenen studies the likely results if Governments seriously try to meet the criteria. He cites Buiter et al, writing in Economic Policy: "Greece, Italy, Belgium and Ireland need serious fiscal retrenchment, but getting even halfway to the Maastricht debt targets ... involves dangerous fiscal overkill. A blatantly unrealistic debt target is unhelpful for these countries in designing effective fiscal programs." They write that the necessary scale of retrenchment would involve "the economics of the lunatic asylum."

Kenen also cites the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, which says that "If the Maastricht targets are adhered to, something significant will have to give in terms of public expenditure in many EC countries, with social consequences which could be highly disruptive. Clawing back public deficits which are across the Community higher in GDP percentage terms than they have been at any moment since the EC was founded, at a time when more and more 'legitimate' demands are made on the public purse, looks increasingly like trying to run up a downward moving escalator."

Thirdly, Kenen looks at the costs of joining Economic and Monetary Union. He cites the economists Ghosh and Wolf who estimate that joining it would cost as much as 2.5 per cent of the European Union's total GDP. The European Union's own employment committee said that Economic and Monetary Union would destroy ten million jobs in the European Union.

Supporters of Economic and Monetary Union like to claim that it would curb the speculators, tame finance capital, and end financial crises. But what does Kenen conclude? "In the first years of Economic and Monetary Union, then, the G-7 countries may find it harder to agree on policies and strategies for exchange rate management, and Economic and Monetary Union may thus lead to exchange rate fluctuations wider than those seen since the Louvre Accord [of 1987]. That would be truly ironic. Economic and Monetary Union is meant to replace the EMS (European Monetary System), which emerged from the desire to create a zone of monetary stability in Europe. Yet the achievement of that goal may have the effect of producing greater exchange rate instability at the global level."

A single European currency would not end speculation. It would still be operating in the world of global speculative flows. A single currency would be the focus for speculation against the dollar and the yen, and a smaller number of currencies could generate even more rapid and destabilising speculative flows.

So, to sum up, Kenen's book shows us that Economic and Monetary Union would be extremely difficult and painful to achieve. It would mean savage cuts in public spending (an estimated £18 billion in Britain), a 2.5 per cent reduction in GDP, and greater exchange rate instability. The cuts in public spending would also increase unemployment, reduce wages and worsen our public services...

EMU is the most important international economic event since the Bretton Woods Agreements of 1944.It will represent a further step in the process of economic integration within the European Union. The effects of the monetary union will be felt primarily in the Euro area participating countries. At the same time, Euro will affect international monetary system. Euro's taking its place among the major international currencies is going to be gradual. This process will be quite important for the countries those with the close economic relationships with the European Monetary Union member countries. This book is a must read for all interested in the Euro...

This critical study of the euro, written by a respected French economist, should make sense to every trade union member. Throughout the eurozone, growth is weak, unemployment high and rising, and investment stagnant. Yet society needs full employment: without it, we cannot end all its by-products, poverty, crime, corruption, bad health, illiteracy, lack of skills. When workers are in work, they can prevent all these evils.
Rosa shows that unemployment is high because macro-economic policy, not Brown's micro, supply-side, fiddling, decides employment levels, and the European Union has the wrong macro policy. Euro-fundamentalists, including the Labour Government, cling to a fixed overvalued currency - pound or euro - cutting real wages, revenues and growth, and raising unemployment. The resulting excessive interest rates deflate the real economy of production and inflate the casino economy of speculation.
In the 1930s, France clung to the Gold Standard and suffered hugely; Britain floated the pound, and did better. In the 1990s, countries like Britain that left the ERM grew faster and had lower inflation than France, which stayed in.
Capitalists argue that welfare spending and 'labour market inflexibility' cause permanent 'structural' unemployment, so you can only increase growth by raising unemployment enough to cut wages. Rosa demolishes this 'Eurosclerosis' argument. He shows that in 1989, the last year before the Maastricht Treaty's monetarism was imposed, the French economy grew by 4%, although welfare payments and the labour market stayed the same.
We need a policy for growth, of floating exchange rates and cutting short-term interest rates down to zero. The OECD estimates that in France, for instance, cutting exchange rates would add 2% growth, and cutting 2% interest rates by 2% would add 0.5% growth, creating 320,000 jobs a year.
Rosa notes that the euro is Europe's worst mistake since deflationary policy turned the 1929 crisis into a decade of depression. He stresses that the euro's economic failings don't bother the EU's leaders, because they expressly conceived it as an 'economic' way to lock us into the single European state, since they know they could never do it through winning our democratic consent.

Excellent, Excellent, Excellent - The author provides the reader with an informative insight into why the EU is making a big mistake by adopting the Euro. The EU is clearly not an optimal single currency area yet political correctness has ruled the day. Without a strong political union the Euro is heading for failure and with a strong political union the EU is heading for the inefficiencies most smart multinational companies have long since abandoned. The Euro could become a perfect example of a good thing (free trade) taken too far by the feel good politics of the left trying to strong arm the rest of the world away from the dollar. This book is a must read for all interested in the Euro, but make sure you're not in a rush as the translation from the French can leave you scratching your head at times.

Galbraith explains banks & money as wittily as the Motley Fool demystifies stocks & Wall Street. Too bad Galbraith was way ahead of his time. Too bad it is out-of-print. Please bring "Money..." back ASAP.

This is JKG holding forth on that most perennially fascinating of topics. The subtitle ("Whence it Came, Where it Went") may bear a relation to the question on everybody's mind during the early and mid-seventies: why is our money behaving so badly?

"In the twenty years before the founding of the [Federal Reserve] System there were 1748 bank suspensions; in the twenty years after it ended the anarchy of unstable private banking, there were 15,502."(p144)

"...the Democrats...could authorize it [the central bank] without being suspected of evil."(p239)

"...the [German] inflation of 1923, with its euthanasia of the "rentier" class...had almost certainly a far greater [than the 1945 inflation] effect on relative wealth. ...The loss of assets makes a deep impression on an impressionable class of people. The loss of jobs is accepted more philosophically."(p303/304)

"... the higher oil price [in 1973] was considered highly inflationary ... in fact, it was deflationary ... the revenues... accumulated in unspent balances. Thus they represented a withdrawal from current purchasing power..."(p363) (The rest of the paragraph is relevant. The basic point is that the oil producers took money out of circulation, since they made it far faster than they could spend it.)"

And the piece de resistence: "To see economic policy as a problem of choice between rival ideologies is the greatest error of our time."(p368)

MONEY

OK, do I have your attention? Well, this book will not demystify money - like love it is resistant to that, but like love we can't let it go. And its progress through our culture is a fascination, attended by hopes, frauds, inventions, and, not least, desperate invocations.

Galbraith is a writer of enormous wit, intelligence, learning, and sympathy. But he is, of course, a liberal, so to many anything he says will be suspected as not arising out of a proper deference to the efficacy of pure market forces. Just as daunting, his strong, ironical style requires a neophyte a few pages to adjust to syntax shock. Once comfortable with the language, though, one can sit back and enjoy the colorful cavalcade of rogues and fools, madmen and prophets, as they invent and wreck institutions, impoverish whole nations, and pay for wars with worthless paper.

A Harvard economist, a former ambassador, and a leading Keynesian in the Roosevelt administration, John Kenneth Galbraith is at home in the twentieth century's public life as few others are, and has a firm intellectual grasp of his sometimes slippery subject. This book is a witty, but intellectually serious, history of a concept absolutely central to what we are pleased to call modern life, and how it has grown and changed from exchanging pieces of something shiny to now encompass powerful banks, puzzling foreign exchange markets, and tottering Ponzi schemes. Vast frauds separated by centuries appeal to the same base motives and use the same crude stratagems to separate us from our bit of money in hopes we'll get more. With money, like love, it seems we will never learn. But there is much enjoyment in the lessons, anyway.

This book gives insight knowledge about the monetary and fiscal policy making in the developing countries. First ten chapters of the book desribes the expereince of Far Eastern and Latin American countries' financial reforms during the 1960-80s. Especially, it would be interesting to read about the reasons of Japanese as well as Korean miraculous growth during the above mentioned period. Besides, last three chapters explain the case of transitional countries of ex-socialist economies. In his last chapters, the author compares the Russian big bang effect with Chinese gradual reforms. He also points out on the importance of fiscal as well as the liberation policies in those transional countries. Since it is based on the development models of many countries in the world,in brief, I think, the book would be very useful for the policymakers in almost all developing countries.

This book takes the opposite position of Jeffrey Sachs' big bang theory of economic reform. Instead of a big bang, McKinnon suggests a particular order to economic liberalization in order to maintain some stability during the transition process. He uses many examples to show that, for example, fiscal stability should come first, which is a lesson that has proven itself current with Argentina's and Turkey's cases in the early 2000s. This is a book that, though has a strong economics foundation, leaves something to be desired in terms of rigour of economic analysis. Instead, it was written I think particularly for the usage of policy-makers who may not be familiar with technical economic jargon.

If you think you cannot understand the banking system and how it affects you, give this book a try. Technical terms are avoided. Explanations are made in simple ways. A variety of clear methods are used to illustrate key points.

If you already think you know all you need to know about banking, think again. Mr. LoCascio has new observations about old problems that will cause you to stop and think. And hopefully to act!

During the worst of the Savings and Loan bailout, the Lesser Developed Country debacles, and commercial real estate collapses of the past 20 years, articles in the financial press repeatedly pointed out that many bankers were playing fast and loose with taxpayer money to take a chance to make it big for themselves, at little personal risk. Today, little is said about this problem. Special Privilege reopens the debate by pointing out that those old problems may be small potatoes compared to what could be ahead for us without fundamental reform in the banking system. Like a lake rapidly filling with gasoline, the potential explosion just keeps growing. Although no one can predict the spark, Mr. LoCascio describes a major stock market collapse as a potential cause.

With a title like Special Privilege, you might think this is a liberal view of economics that doesn't reflect the underlying needs of capitalism. Actually, the book attacks the current banking system as being harmful to free markets, holding back capitalism, and undermining our democratic traditions by letting a select group benefit at the expense of everyone else.

Special Privilege is the clearest book I have read on the inherent structural weaknesses in the U.S. banking system. These weaknesses are becoming greater as they are pushed to new extremes by decreasingly imprudent bank lending practices, at a time when the banking system is in a very weakened state due to excessive lending to poor credit risks, a national recession, and inappropriate regulation.

In the book, you get a good sense of how banking worked (and didn't work) before the current system was established, and how many safety underpinnings have been removed. Like a hereditary group of nobility, money center bankers have been turned loose to compete recklessly for deposits, make bad loans for high fees and interests rates, and degrade the value of the currency safe in the knowledge that the Federal Reserve, the IMF, and the Federal Government will "solve" any problems that crop up. In this system, insolvent lenders are propped up with new loans and banks earn outsized fees for accommodating this.

Mr. LoCascio does a good job of describing the special privileges that bankers have available to them, and the harm that is inevitably created as a result. He uses a series of fictional dialogues involving two bankers to help put you inside of the temptation that faces bankers in such a system.

The only thing I thought that the book was missing was an explanation of how the U.S. banking system sets up the whole world for increased frequency and degree of volatility in values of currencies, stocks, real estate, and other assets affected by the free flow of capital. While we are still recovering from the dot-com bust, the seeds are being sown for the next collapse as we all watched Enron's and Argentina's financial structures collapse.

If these costs came home to bear in the form of higher rates on bank loans or losses by bank investors, that would be the normal working of capitalism. The challenge here is that our banking system has much of the crony capitalism in it that we have condemned in other countries (like Japan) . . . and the costs of failure are ultimately passed along to taxpayers through new Federal borrowing.

While Mr. LoCascio's suggestions for change certainly warrant consideration, I suspect that reform will more likely succeed if financial incentives are created to go to a sounder system while the current incentives are gradually removed.

If you are already pretty familiar with past issues about the banking system, you will probably find this book a little on the repetitive side. Feel free to skip ahead to chapter IX where all of the key points are repeated. If you want more on a particular issues, you can then read just the chapter that deals with that area.

Regarding peace protesters, Al Haig is reported to have once said, "Let them march all they want, as long as they pay their taxes." Alan Greenspan could well say something similar about the Fed's control over the nation's money -- if, that is, he ever got around to saying anything intelligible at all.

In this volume financial planner and consultant Vince LoCascio, following to some degree in Murray Rothbard's footsteps, aims to blow the lid off the "special privilege" of the banking elite. Inspired by Rothbard's _The Mystery of Banking_ and _The Case Against the Fed_, LoCascio seeks to provide the reader with an accessible, easily understood introduction to the sort of jiggery-pokery that currently goes on with our "money."

His effort seems to me to be quite successful, though I may not be the best judge of how a reader completely new to the topic would respond to the book. The exposition is set out in clear and intelligible prose and laced with illustrative dialogues. And his proposals for reform are presented cautiously and with due regard for alternative proposals (LoCascio's own is to freeze the money supply at its current level).

The "special privilege" of the title is sixfold. Under current U.S. law, banks have six "special privileges" that grant them sweeping and pretty scary powers: the power to create money out of thin air (both by the Fed's initial creation of unbacked currency and through individual banks' pyramiding new money on top of it through the "fractional reserve" system); special protection of their assets (any bank whatsoever can be "rescued" whenever the Fed chooses to do so); liability protection (FDIC deposit guarantees that encourage banks to engage in rash speculation); bailout schemes (at taxpayer expense, of course); funny accounting (e.g. booking outstanding loans at their original value instead of at their current value); and secrecy (banks don't have to report certain information even to their stockholders, let alone to the public). Each of these topics gets a chapter-long workout, and LoCascio does a good job of making them clear.

Moreover, his discussion of how things got this way is based in large measure on Milton Friedman's/Anna Jacobson Schwartz's _Monetary History of the United States_, a fine work highly regarded even by non-monetarists (even some Austrians like it). I would have liked to see a reference to Ludwig von Mises in here somewhere, even if just a nod to his _Theory of Money and Credit_, but at any rate LoCascio has selected good sources.

Another feature worth noting is LoCascio's insistence that banks' special privileges are a _moral_ problem -- that lending out multiples of demand deposits is a kind of fraud. (This feature has its good and bad points; on the one hand, it's nice to see the ethical question raised, but on the other hand I'm not sure LoCascio adequately explains _why_ it's wrong.)

On the whole LoCascio's presentation is thorough and even gripping, and he has a knack for grabbing the reader with the most telling points up front: for example, that the purchasing power of the dollar in 1937 was just about what it had been in 1802, whereas today's dollar is by comparison worth about eight cents. This fact appears on page eight and sets the reader asking exactly the question loCascio wants to answer: how in the world did this _happen_?

LoCascio's hope is to help prevent a financial disaster by informing the ordinary citizen about these "special privileges" and their ill economic effects. One way of helping him to succeed in that aim is to read this book.

Pauly is to congratulated on this book. Returning to a period of international monetary history that is often neglected or singularly explored only for its failings, the author quite precisely re-examines the Interwar monetary system and the role of the League of Nations in the "management" and "surveillance" of global financial relations. In identifying the roots of the Bretton Woods System and the IMF's eventual surveillance role in the League's operations, Pauly gives continuity and a measure of depth to our own understandings of today's financial systems. In addition, he explores the difficult question of the legitimacy of the state in an era when financial modernization and integration has humbled policymakers and ruined economies. Who Elected the Bankers? is an important book as we debate the future of our contemporary monetary system by calling our attention to the lessons of the League.

A great book. Anyone interested in a well written history of the Fund would do well by buying this book. Pauly's work combines a historical overview (as far back as the Genoa Conference of 1922) with an analysis of modern problems in this book. After having bought numerous books on international economics, Political science and economic history, I find Pauly's book to be very good value for money.

Readers should be aware that this book is a perfect example of writing in International Political Economy. It combines economic data with political analysis. For readers that want the economic theory as well as the political reality of the Fund's work, this book will be of benefit.

This book provides an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of credit derivatives. Tavakoli provides an excellent resource for credit risk managers who specialize in one area of credit risk management, professionals who are new to the field, or for experienced professionals who need the definitive reference of credit derivatives products.
This book is not about is the mathematical and statistical details in credit risk/portfolio modeling, but Tavakoli does a good job of highlighting various aspects of modeling (such as data availability, limitations of different approaches, etc.). For example, Tavakoli's explanation of first-to-default baskets provides a quantitative explanation of boundary conditions and a qualitative explanation of the products.

The clear, qualitative, conceptual explanations are supported by explanations that show a deep understanding of the underlying mathematics. Numerically minded readers will grasp this, but even those who are a bit numbers shy will find the quantitative examples easy to follow. Tavakoli's book enabled me to discuss the assessment and deployment of quantitative models on an even footing with professional risk managers and the rocket scientists developing these models.

I also recommend Phillip Schonbucher's book on credit derivatives for people who need to model credit derivatives. Unfortunately, the resource doesn't exist that can solve the tough problem of estimating correlation between defaults.

The use and misuse of credit derivatives terminology is thoroughly explained in this book. After that, the products applications are introduced. The difference between insurance and credit derivatives is clearly explained. From the insurance perspective, examples of using credit derivatives to change capital structure are very helpful.

The basic structures of synthetic collateralized debt obligations are introduced in this book, but more details and the cash flows are explained in Tavakoli's newer book. This book focuses on the credit derivatives market and the peculiarities of this market.
Tavakoli's book is an excellent credit derivatives guide for both newcomers (who are finance professionals) and insurance/finance professionals who need a thorough overview of the various the products. All of the major structures of credit derivatives are explained. The new indexes aren't included in this edition, but index products of other sorts are included, so the structural form is introduced here.

The qualitative narratives are very helpful in explaining how the products are traded. These are supplemented with deal diagrams and tables of information. The author's firm command of the subject matter makes this book very readable and easy for finance professionals to understand. Professionals who are not looking for a heavy quant book but want a clear understanding of how these products are used and the guideposts for value will enjoy this book.

The documentation shown in this book is especially useful for lawyers and people customizing trades. This is particularly useful if you want to include features that offer greater value to you than "standard" documentation. Tavakoli includes basic documentation for each of the major products.

POSITIVE POINTS: Best indepth book on Credit Derivatives. Very readable. Explains very nicely why this derivatives are so important for banks. Non technical.

NEGATIVE POINTS: Focus on banks with only a little chapter on Credit Derivatives as investment products. No explanation how those derivatives are priced (but hey, there are loads of technical books)

The Great Unraveling, like Greg Palast's book, "The Best Democracy Money can Buy," may be flawed in places and written from a left-wing perspective but it does provide important information regarding how our country is abandoning its principles and ultimately its people. My only complaint is that Krugman, like so many others these days, is an ideologue; as a result, he still believes there is a difference between left and right, Republican and Democrat. Although he may not see it this way, his book discusses the ways in which a global, corporate Sovietization of America is quickly subverting families, communities and ultimately the country. Though Palast's book is better, Krugman does provide information which so-called conservatives don't ever address. Unfortunately, Americans are being deceived into accepting the absurd idea that the leaders of our two parties are men of vision and principle with actual political philosophies they seek to implement - as if Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton were similar in stature to a Pericles, Cicero, or Bismarck. If the company you work for has sent jobs offshore, increased your copays, engaged in regular, year-end layoffs; if your HR department has engaged in Skinner-like behavior modification programs by showing you the absolutely ridiculous "Fish" program and talking endlessly about valuing its employees while rolling back benefits and increasing your amount of work; if you no longer trust your child's teacher; if you wonder why low-paying service sector jobs grow like weeds while white collar jobs disappear; if you know more and more people who have to declare bankruptcy even though they are a two-income family; if you know more and more people in their early to mid fifties who are being laid off not because of job performance but because their job has been "eliminated;" if you wonder why the pirates at Enron could go free while Martha Stewart is rounded-up; if you wonder why our government is bombing various countries for vague and/or indefinite reasons that mention "pre-emption" or "stabilization in the region" while our government kow-tows to human rights abuser Red China; if you wonder why more and more illegal aliens keep flooding the country - perhaps cooking the food you eat at fast-food and higher end restaurants, or working for the company that has agreed to put a new roof on your house; if crime seems to be a problem in your city, though you have been told crime it is at an all-time low; and, if you wonder why so-called conservatives talk endlessly about reducing the size of government yet support a president who is deficit-spending like crazy and expanding the role of the federal government, then read Krugman's book for clues - though not necessarily answers.

This collection of columns written by Paul Krugman with some material to tie them together deliver a hard-hitting condemnation of the misguided economic and political ways of our current federal government. In some ways, this book is depressing because how time and time again the current administration has shown itself to be anything but fiscal conservatives. For 3+ years, the government has waddled from the bad policy of tax cuts as a cure for surpluses, deficits, war, you name it. Krugman addresses these issues from an economists view and delivers insights that cut through the political jargons to the heart of the matters. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to see spelled out how utterly bad and utterly corrupt Bush's policies are.

Are you ever puzzled by the fact that the Bush Administration seems to say one thing and then do another? Well this book explains the Bush Presidency not by what it says but by the consequences of what it does. Mr. Krugman's book will be attacked on this forum by all the right wing pundits, disclosed or undisclosed, who now write book reviews on Amazon for the purpose of dissuading the public from reading meaningful books or books that run counter to their own views. Read this book, think and be enlightened.

This book didn't start as a book but as columns Mr. Krugman, who teaches economics at Princeton, wrote mostly for the Op-Ed page of the N.Y. Times from 2000 to 2003. Therefore he had the benefit of a great deal of feed back from counter columns on the same page and elsewhere. His accumulated writings were then organized in topics and published in this book. His statements and concerns were tested in the public arena long before they became a book. If he were just attacking the Administration on trivial grounds or for minor compromises made to gain some larger political concession for the common good he would have been booed off the stage long ago. He was not and the reason is two fold, one, he is a gifted writer able to take complicated economic matters and political situations and make them lucid and readable and two, as an educator he has no stake to protect except that of a concerned citizen.

Why would Mr. Bush want tax cuts that send us in to mounting deficits? I always thought compassionate conservatives were against deficit spending. Well the unstated reason differs from the stated reasons of tax relief, economic stimulus, supply side capital formation for investment etc. The real reason is that the present administration wants to starve what they perceive as big, unnecessary government into small government. Something like we had in the nineteenth century. You remember the nineteenth century don't you with its unrestrained capitalism leading to the exploitation of the public and the rape of our natural resources, the sale of tainted food products, the exploitation of labor, the amassing of great wealth by a few while average families struggled to make ends meet on six day weeks with ten hour days etc. Male life expectancy then was around forty and widows with small children were common. Also you remember the Spanish American War. A war historians are still trying to explain. Was it to free Cuba, to acquire the Philippines as a colony, to make Puerto Rico a state or just to make the world safe from the despotic rule of Spain? Does this sound like Iraq?

Mr. Krugman examines the Administrations actions and points out with logic and with factual examples the following:
The compassionate conservatives are really radical conservatives, who wish the following:
1.To shrink government by tax cuts to the size it was in the administration of Herbert Hoover.
2.To bankrupt Social Security by using the SS security trust, meant for the Baby Boomers, to pay for other programs with budget deficits because of the draconian tax cuts that benefit mainly the top two percent of taxpayers.
3. To, shrink the SEC, Labor Department, Health Education and Welfare Departments and any other perceived department or bureau charged with the protection of the public (except the military with whom these people do a lot of business) so that it has a budget so small to make it meaningless. This is especially true of any environmental protection programs that might be bothersome to the friends of the Administration.
4. To regress foreign policy back to at least the McKinley Administration.
5. To limit taxes to the income earned by ones labor.
6.To eliminate taxes on income from capital.
7.To eliminate inheritance taxes.
7. To provide as much corporate welfare as possible at the expense of the wage earning citizenry.
8. To make economic and social opportunities dependent on ones connections rather than abilities.

These actions resemble the aims of those who wish to establish a plutocracy based on inherited wealth just in case such an aristocracy is not already in place.

Does all this sound way out there? Consider that in 1983 Senator Pat Moynihan, Alan Greenspahn and others on a committee to reform Social Security recognized that the baby boom generation created a huge bubble in the population. Social Security is set up so each generation pays for the preceding generations Social Security through payroll taxes. Since there would be less people working after the baby boom generation retired adjustments were made. A two percent increase in payroll taxes was enacted to be held in trust until it was needed to pay for the baby boomers Social Security. Well Bush has "borrowed" the trust money issuing treasury bonds as security. So thirty percent of every payroll tax dollar is going into the general fund. Something like one trillion dollars has been borrowed. This method of borrowing keeps interest rates down now because the government is not competing for private capital to finance the deficit, but the debt will have to be paid by future generations and since taxes have been cut to mainly benefit the top two percent of taxpayers the burden will fall on the middle class. Also payroll taxes are a very regressive tax falling mainly on the poorest segment of society and take money out of the hands of those most likely to spend it on consumer goods so in effect the cost of financing the government is falling on those least able to do so in a way most damaging to the economy.

This book tells us to stop listening to buzz words like, compassionate conservative, no child left behind etc and look to the actions of the Bush administration for the truth.

Since Bush took office the gap between rich and poor is steadily widening. Wondering why? Mr. Krugman explains the reasons for this. Do wonder if your children will have decent jobs or if you are a baby boomer, will you have a secure retirement? After you read this book you will know the reasons for your concern. When you finish this book then read Robert Rubin's, In An Uncertain World, for a further discussion of responsible fiscal and monetary policies. Edsopinion.hopto.org.

I enjoyed this book by Terry Savage. My wife bought this book along with The Road to Wealth and The Laws of Money by Suze Orman.

In many ways, Savage pushes Orman on financial advice and savvy and is a witty writer as well. Both have credentials to write financial books, unlike other authors.

I also felt that Ms. Savage showed class in her review, thanking her fans and clearing the air o n the Microsoft issue. And at least she (Savage) writes reviews using her own name, not an alias as some other authors do.

Overall good good written by a person of quality.

I bought this book by Terry Savage along with Don't Mess with My Money by the Dolans after returning Making the Most of Your Money by Quinn.

I have to admit I felt a little strange buying this book which at first appeared to be for women, but after inspection, found this book to be outstanding and a great financial book for everyone.

Ms Savage covers everything you need to know about money from mutual funds, "chicken money", insurance and going on into retirement. Her style makes this an easy read and she is witty too.

By contrast, I bought Making the Most of Your Money by Quinn and was wholly dissappointed--returned it after one day.

Terry Savage has written an excellent book for anyone interested in truly Making the Most of their Money. In Savage's case, it is not a fancy line, but reality.

Great book Terry. I am looking forward to your next foray!

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The candid and up-front advice in The Savage Truth on Money is aimed at your mind, your heart...and your balance sheet. Whether you're just starting out or well on your way, Terry Savage will empower you to make informaed money decisions and evaluate the advice that the financial industry sends your way. Savage's expertise comes from her experience as a stock trader, stock broker, investment advisor, television commentator, and best selling financial author.

Step by step and dollar by dollar, The Savage Truth On Money enables you to manage your money by freeing yourself from debt, creating a budget you can live with, and investing wisely---even on a modest paycheck--to build equity and wealth. Savage helps you harness the power of the web by using money management software to develop and track your financial plan.

There's a Savage side to investing today. Find out what it is and how it could impact your 401 (k) choices and IRA decisions. Discover how to control the twin emotions that destroy your financial plans: fear and greed. Learn how to invest for retirement; insure for long term care; create a college education fund; use life insurance and annuities; and make a smart estate plan so that your hard earned wealth isn't confiscated by taxes. Terry Savage wills how you how.

The SAVAGE Truth On Money gives you the facts, resources, and confidence you need to take charge of your finances today--and give you a secure future for tomorrow.

What a pleasure it was for me to read a quality financial book written by a nationally recognized financial authority like Terry Savage. Excellent book and not just for women either.