Vivek Kaul

At last, a truly transparent and understandable account of the great financial meltdowns of he recent decades. This book especially traces the origin and development of what has come to be known as the 'sub-primes' financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. In summary, banks and investment companies started issuing loans for housing to all and sundry, in the expectation that property prices would continue to surge upward, so that any risk of defaults would be comfortably covered. As more and more borrowers started defaulting on their loan repayments, more and more of the loans became delinquent. The problem arose because property prices did not keep rising, so that the lenders were left holding bad loans. The collapse was made worse because the financial companies had repackaged the loans into tradable financial assets, and thus passed on the risk to thousands of small retail investors, who wee ultimately the losers, while the money managers and brokers got bonuses and high compensations even as their companies collapsed or were bailed out by heir governments. A fine book, that enable the average reader to get a better grip on the way high finance works, without the excessive jargon that many mainstream financial writers indulge in.… (lisätietoja)

A truly gargantuan book - all of 733 pages of text, plus notes, it has to be digested appropriately slowly. The author covers almost every sector in great detail, and the burden of his story seems to be that there is a strict limit to the capability of governments (in particular, the Indian) to deliver goods and servicees to the people. He suggests, therefore, that instead of actually running schools and colleges or clinics and hospitals and banking and transport, the government should just give cash transfers and get out of the way, leaving the actual production and distribution to the private sector and the free and open market. Of course thaere can be many arguments on the opposite side, and political governments will probably not like to give up their stake completely. One mitigating factor is that he seems to value a rational approach unaffected by any slavish kowtowing to a particular dispensation, as shown by his realistic and competent analysis of the demonetization debacle. So the reader can, I think, accept most of his analysis as basicall good factually, and make up their own mind about his particular recipes for improving the situation. One effect on me, though, is that I am mowencouraged to get his 3-volume account of India's finances and banking.… (lisätietoja)