Understanding the Financial Crisis (Johan Norberg)

http://www.cato.org/people/johan-norberg

"The story of this storm in the global markets is the story of how government intervention to solve previous crises laid the foundation for a new one," writes Johan Norberg in his important new book. Tracing the causes of our current financial crisis with liveliness and clarity, Financial Fiasco shows the mistakes made in Washington, on Wall Street, and in communities across America that led to the economic meltdown. While many analysts have placed the blame solely on Wall Street, Norberg exposes the crucial role government regulation played in creating the opportunities and incentives that led to the financial collapse.

In six concise chapters, Financial Fiasco tells the complex story of the crisis, showing how monetary policy, housing policy, and financial innovations combined to create financial catastrophe. The final two chapters describe the government's mismanagement of the crisis and how we are now dangerously repeating many of the very same mistakes that caused it. An understanding of the roots of the financial crisis is crucial for every American who has felt its effects—and would like to prevent the same disaster from happening again. Financial Fiasco provides that understanding, with great insight, clarity, and wit.

Just as important, the book serves as a profound warning against pursuing the wrong solutions. "After government authorities had helped create the worst financial crisis in generations, the climate of ideas has now shifted dramatically in the direction of bigger and more active government," Norberg writes. Financial Fiasco is the perfect antidote to those ideas, a cautionary tale on how to stop confusing the disease with the cure.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• economic
• analysis
• economy
• politics
• commentary
• cato
• institute
• financial
• crisis
• johan
• norberg

[bamatecangel7]

Love all the Cato vids, wish we could get wider viewership. I send links but it seems most adults would rather watch a kid blow up a coke bottle or fall down a flight of stairs with their YouTube time than learn anything.

[1czelaya]

Johan Norberg's book, Financial Fiasco is a true testemant about the housing debacle that the media never put forth.

In the end, GSE's and government coercion have cost the taxpayers billions.

The politicians blame the free market, not even knowing what the free market is nor how their, well to do, policies have bankrupted America.

[mpc91]

@slightlyndifferent - They won't bury it, because it tells them what they want to hear. It tells them that government spending is good for the economy. It lets them spend other people's money to buy power for themselves.

[KanchoKomancho]

Markets are " a little bit turbulent now" ... :)

That was a good one

[deathrowjoeblog]

This video has a lot of facts wrong. Go to the FCIC website and review the evidence yourself. He obviously reached his conclusions before looking at the evidence.There is a mountain of evidence contradicting him on the FCIC site.

[1czelaya]

@UBSCARED By all means, explain what's called the housing bubble? Let's not resort to ad hominem. That's a sign of the absence of intelligence. Either way, GSE's are in the water, because like ALL government entities there is no mechanism that accounts for efficiency and overspending. And yes, corporatism was also a prime cause.

[MtMozart]

who is screwing with the audio on cato vids? Talk about big brother! 

[Darusdei]

@ST0orz lol, it's the 'we need less government' "plan"

[ST0orz]

Ok, where's the next part where he solves the problem?

[enjoythewildUSA]

Listen to this man....we the sheeple have destroyed our perfect union by following idiots like George Bush and Barack Obama to the edge of the cliff...now they are telling us to jump with more wasteful spending, more denial.....

[slightlyndifferent]

when will our governments bury keynesianism? It's started to smell real bad

[Th3Wab3]

@classicalbunny this discussion is getting of topic... "meaningless..." in order to understand this you must have an understanding of negative externalities, planned obsolescence, dated industries, the true amount of production which is trash, manufactured consent... aside from that most mall jobs that marginalized teens do are meaningless. capitalism fails in that it forces people to have perpetually destroy natural resources for sake of creating profit/surplus.... infinite vs finite