Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Wow - over 650 reviews, 15 Dec 2008
On the US Amazon site there are over 650 reviews of this book! Do you have any idea how unusual that is?!

Many books have been written about the US victimisation of third world countries (for facts, read books like Blackwater, No Logo, Shock Doctrine, The New Nuclear Danger). This one, unusually, is an insider's perspective and a fascinating look behind the scenes, if you ignore the retrospective moralising about the use of U.S. aid policy to manipulate foreign countries.

However, while it's shocking, feasible, readable and enjoyable... it's probably not honest. For decades the author acquired wealth and status by lying, stealing, cheating - and must have been aware of the enormous human misery he was helping to create. His life has certainly been shown in a romanticised light and it's most likely that the book is deeply economical with the truth. As one reviewer points out: all his mistakes in life are the fault of others (his parents, school, wives, employer,etc.) and he stayed with this evil organisation for decades, paid very well indeed. Still, he has spoken out...but is it for still more financial benefit?

What's your take on such a compromised way of life? We've all lied, cheated and played victim at some time or another, although most of us not nearly to this extent. At what point does each of us claim the right to stone this sinner?

My final take: America doesn't just do this stuff to third-world countries. Thom Hartmann's book Screwed, for instance, details the "covert war conservatives and corporations are waging against America's middle class". (America's poor have already long been screwed, of course - it is well known that the gap between poor and rich continues to widen in the US and I have never forgotten a TV documentary showing a poor black family in the deep south reduced to slicing canned dog food to use as the "meat" in their sandwiches - better than the starving in Africa, yes, but still disgusting to me, anyway, particularly since I am aware that condemned meat is a major ingredient of dog and cat food.) But - even as we point the finger at these wicked and greedy "others" - more of our fingers point back to us...


Downplaying U.S. Atrocities - Blaming Communists for U.S. Slaughter, 13 Dec 2008
This book is extremely unconvincing, to the point of embarrassment for the Author & reader who parts with Idly earned cash. Compare it to books like Philip Agee's CIA Diary, wherein Agee (a CIA defector) named hundreds of CIA agents & handlers, named agencies set up & infiltrated by the CIA & gave specific operation data & dates.

Early in the book, Perkins mentions the overthrow of democracy in Indonesia by Suharto in '65 & even mentions the 'communist' coup that led to the deaths of 5-600,000 people.

Perkins forgets to mention that the U.S. funded the overthrow, that the CIA & MI6 sent the death lists & that the CIA funded the Kap Gestapu group that staged the fake 'communist' coup to further justify the slaughter. Something, he will have known if he'd properly researched declassified CIA documents, or even read a Chomsky book or two. It's something he may have intentionally left out.

He really downplays U.S. atrocities, making out that the worst crime of the U.S. has been to attempt to get a few countries into debt & then arrange 2 or 3 coups here & there if this was not possible. He doesn't really make any effort to highlight the other 20+ governments (including many democracies) America has overthrown since WWII or the hundreds of thousands of people tortured & murdered (in Latin America alone) by U.S. installed , trained & funded clients.

Perkins gives very, very, very little detail of what he actually did, when & where he did it. So little detail, that there's virtually nothing to refute in the book. The 2 presidents that he names & that he claims to have worked closely with, were assassinated, so those stories can't be corroborated. Forget this, go & read the declassified documents at the National Archive on the George Washington University or the CIA website. The truth is far worse than this fictional account of nothing happening.

PS I actually gave this book a 3 star rating (rather than 1), because besides from his totally unconvincing account of his complicity in U.S. crimes, his incites on Politics & the different countries he worked in are actually quite interesting at times.

Almost certainly a true acount, 19 Oct 2008

Perkins has probably made alot of money from this book as it is written in the first person narrative style of an autobiography, and as such draws the reader in and carries him/her along with the "storyline"
Even if some of the accounts in the book are exaggerated (and I have no reason to say that they are), there is so much personal and historical information in this account of Perkins life, that it could easily have been disproved were it not largely truthfull....to my knowledge, he has not been discredited yet, and so we must assume that it is largely true.
I thought this book was rather brilliant actually, and is ideal for anybody who has misgivings, but has not really ever thought about or faced up to the nature of big corporate exploitation of developing countries, the globalization of the world and ...and this is the big one...the consequences for us (the western capitalists), if we continue as we are....we have got it coming to us...big time !! if we carrty on the way we are going
Read it, its a good book that deals with some big issues.... I shall read his follow on book next "the secret history of the American Empire"

Unbelievable Nonsense - I think not!!, 17 Jul 2008
I'm not quite sure what to think of this book. Why? I recently read a book titled 'Great Controversy' by White. It was written about a hundred years before John Perkins wrote this book. Now, the two books are worlds apart, until you come towards the end of White's book, (and you sure have to hang in there and read the whole book), then all of a sudden, Perkins starts to make sense. John Perkins does well in this book! It's more of an overview ... an itroduction to EHM's. If you first read White and then Perkins, you have to admit that perkins hits the nail on the head - or was it White?. But just on it's own this book is a brilliant read. I like it and unless you are 'one of them' you will enjoy it too.

Interesting but far too much sensationalism, 16 Jun 2008
A good read but Perkins spoils it by going over the top with political rhetoric. The book would have been a lot more effective in getting his intended message accross if he allowed his experience to speak for itself rather attempting to direct us how to think.

Despite this, when Perkins stops preaching and self-promoting (you do actually wonder whether he was as important to the whole process as he professes) there are some fascinating stories, it's just a shame that he chooses to interdisperse theses with streams of consciousness and directions such as to "consume less oil".

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Wow - over 650 reviews, 15 Dec 2008
On the US Amazon site there are over 650 reviews of this book! Do you have any idea how unusual that is?!

Many books have been written about the US victimisation of third world countries (for facts, read books like Blackwater, No Logo, Shock Doctrine, The New Nuclear Danger). This one, unusually, is an insider's perspective and a fascinating look behind the scenes, if you ignore the retrospective moralising about the use of U.S. aid policy to manipulate foreign countries.

However, while it's shocking, feasible, readable and enjoyable... it's probably not honest. For decades the author acquired wealth and status by lying, stealing, cheating - and must have been aware of the enormous human misery he was helping to create. His life has certainly been shown in a romanticised light and it's most likely that the book is deeply economical with the truth. As one reviewer points out: all his mistakes in life are the fault of others (his parents, school, wives, employer,etc.) and he stayed with this evil organisation for decades, paid very well indeed. Still, he has spoken out...but is it for still more financial benefit?

What's your take on such a compromised way of life? We've all lied, cheated and played victim at some time or another, although most of us not nearly to this extent. At what point does each of us claim the right to stone this sinner?

My final take: America doesn't just do this stuff to third-world countries. Thom Hartmann's book Screwed, for instance, details the "covert war conservatives and corporations are waging against America's middle class". (America's poor have already long been screwed, of course - it is well known that the gap between poor and rich continues to widen in the US and I have never forgotten a TV documentary showing a poor black family in the deep south reduced to slicing canned dog food to use as the "meat" in their sandwiches - better than the starving in Africa, yes, but still disgusting to me, anyway, particularly since I am aware that condemned meat is a major ingredient of dog and cat food.) But - even as we point the finger at these wicked and greedy "others" - more of our fingers point back to us...


Downplaying U.S. Atrocities - Blaming Communists for U.S. Slaughter, 13 Dec 2008
This book is extremely unconvincing, to the point of embarrassment for the Author & reader who parts with Idly earned cash. Compare it to books like Philip Agee's CIA Diary, wherein Agee (a CIA defector) named hundreds of CIA agents & handlers, named agencies set up & infiltrated by the CIA & gave specific operation data & dates.

Early in the book, Perkins mentions the overthrow of democracy in Indonesia by Suharto in '65 & even mentions the 'communist' coup that led to the deaths of 5-600,000 people.

Perkins forgets to mention that the U.S. funded the overthrow, that the CIA & MI6 sent the death lists & that the CIA funded the Kap Gestapu group that staged the fake 'communist' coup to further justify the slaughter. Something, he will have known if he'd properly researched declassified CIA documents, or even read a Chomsky book or two. It's something he may have intentionally left out.

He really downplays U.S. atrocities, making out that the worst crime of the U.S. has been to attempt to get a few countries into debt & then arrange 2 or 3 coups here & there if this was not possible. He doesn't really make any effort to highlight the other 20+ governments (including many democracies) America has overthrown since WWII or the hundreds of thousands of people tortured & murdered (in Latin America alone) by U.S. installed , trained & funded clients.

Perkins gives very, very, very little detail of what he actually did, when & where he did it. So little detail, that there's virtually nothing to refute in the book. The 2 presidents that he names & that he claims to have worked closely with, were assassinated, so those stories can't be corroborated. Forget this, go & read the declassified documents at the National Archive on the George Washington University or the CIA website. The truth is far worse than this fictional account of nothing happening.

PS I actually gave this book a 3 star rating (rather than 1), because besides from his totally unconvincing account of his complicity in U.S. crimes, his incites on Politics & the different countries he worked in are actually quite interesting at times.

Almost certainly a true acount, 19 Oct 2008

Perkins has probably made alot of money from this book as it is written in the first person narrative style of an autobiography, and as such draws the reader in and carries him/her along with the "storyline"
Even if some of the accounts in the book are exaggerated (and I have no reason to say that they are), there is so much personal and historical information in this account of Perkins life, that it could easily have been disproved were it not largely truthfull....to my knowledge, he has not been discredited yet, and so we must assume that it is largely true.
I thought this book was rather brilliant actually, and is ideal for anybody who has misgivings, but has not really ever thought about or faced up to the nature of big corporate exploitation of developing countries, the globalization of the world and ...and this is the big one...the consequences for us (the western capitalists), if we continue as we are....we have got it coming to us...big time !! if we carrty on the way we are going
Read it, its a good book that deals with some big issues.... I shall read his follow on book next "the secret history of the American Empire"

Unbelievable Nonsense - I think not!!, 17 Jul 2008
I'm not quite sure what to think of this book. Why? I recently read a book titled 'Great Controversy' by White. It was written about a hundred years before John Perkins wrote this book. Now, the two books are worlds apart, until you come towards the end of White's book, (and you sure have to hang in there and read the whole book), then all of a sudden, Perkins starts to make sense. John Perkins does well in this book! It's more of an overview ... an itroduction to EHM's. If you first read White and then Perkins, you have to admit that perkins hits the nail on the head - or was it White?. But just on it's own this book is a brilliant read. I like it and unless you are 'one of them' you will enjoy it too.

Interesting but far too much sensationalism, 16 Jun 2008
A good read but Perkins spoils it by going over the top with political rhetoric. The book would have been a lot more effective in getting his intended message accross if he allowed his experience to speak for itself rather attempting to direct us how to think.

Despite this, when Perkins stops preaching and self-promoting (you do actually wonder whether he was as important to the whole process as he professes) there are some fascinating stories, it's just a shame that he chooses to interdisperse theses with streams of consciousness and directions such as to "consume less oil".

Comprehensive, 30 Sep 2008
I just read the book - cover to cover. It is very comprehensive and readable however I have a few gripes:

1. It reads like a book that has "evolved" and is somewhat "lumpy". Some bits are bang up-to-date - others are not; some bits are international some are very US domestic focussed; some bits are amazingly simple (does anyone not know what a direct debit is?) others are highly complex (efficient frontiers and linear programming).

2. The authors should acknowledge that not all CFOs are female and to use "she" in place of "he" whenever they refer to senior decision-makers in fictional companies is both unnecessary and patronising. Feminists will tell you, you've got this wrong - you could easily have used more neutral language (instead of he or she use "they" for example).

3. "Forecasted" is a very clumsy word (on almost every page) - doesn't everyone just say "forecast"?

4. Text refers to "blue lines" on the graphs which are always "black lines" - by the 9th edition you'd think you could have sorted that out!

More technically specific gripes:
1. I believe there are occasions when it makes sense to exercise American options early if you can't short the stock (eg US government has just banned short selling in financial stocks).
2. p649 high yield spreads declined as investors "scurried to the safe haven of high-quality debt" - forgive me but I for one can't work that out!
3. p 788 IOSC is the wrong acronmy for IOSCO (typo?).
4. Swaps are poorly explained. They derived from the arbitrages between international bond markets - which explains how they are structured.
5. The book refers only to the interest calculation basis of actual/360 which is only used in US. It is confusing to only mention this basis and not go on to refer to 30/360 (bond basis) or actual/365 as used in most international markets. In fact, there is a whole section on cash amangement that needs to be reviewed, in my opinion, to make it international and fit with the rest of the book.

Overall, I think it is a good textbook and sound primer - but someone needs a re-edit to freshen it up. The good news is that the Credit Cruch provides that opportunity to take a fresh look at the whole thing and highlight liquidity issues!

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Wow - over 650 reviews, 15 Dec 2008
On the US Amazon site there are over 650 reviews of this book! Do you have any idea how unusual that is?!

Many books have been written about the US victimisation of third world countries (for facts, read books like Blackwater, No Logo, Shock Doctrine, The New Nuclear Danger). This one, unusually, is an insider's perspective and a fascinating look behind the scenes, if you ignore the retrospective moralising about the use of U.S. aid policy to manipulate foreign countries.

However, while it's shocking, feasible, readable and enjoyable... it's probably not honest. For decades the author acquired wealth and status by lying, stealing, cheating - and must have been aware of the enormous human misery he was helping to create. His life has certainly been shown in a romanticised light and it's most likely that the book is deeply economical with the truth. As one reviewer points out: all his mistakes in life are the fault of others (his parents, school, wives, employer,etc.) and he stayed with this evil organisation for decades, paid very well indeed. Still, he has spoken out...but is it for still more financial benefit?

What's your take on such a compromised way of life? We've all lied, cheated and played victim at some time or another, although most of us not nearly to this extent. At what point does each of us claim the right to stone this sinner?

My final take: America doesn't just do this stuff to third-world countries. Thom Hartmann's book Screwed, for instance, details the "covert war conservatives and corporations are waging against America's middle class". (America's poor have already long been screwed, of course - it is well known that the gap between poor and rich continues to widen in the US and I have never forgotten a TV documentary showing a poor black family in the deep south reduced to slicing canned dog food to use as the "meat" in their sandwiches - better than the starving in Africa, yes, but still disgusting to me, anyway, particularly since I am aware that condemned meat is a major ingredient of dog and cat food.) But - even as we point the finger at these wicked and greedy "others" - more of our fingers point back to us...


Downplaying U.S. Atrocities - Blaming Communists for U.S. Slaughter, 13 Dec 2008
This book is extremely unconvincing, to the point of embarrassment for the Author & reader who parts with Idly earned cash. Compare it to books like Philip Agee's CIA Diary, wherein Agee (a CIA defector) named hundreds of CIA agents & handlers, named agencies set up & infiltrated by the CIA & gave specific operation data & dates.

Early in the book, Perkins mentions the overthrow of democracy in Indonesia by Suharto in '65 & even mentions the 'communist' coup that led to the deaths of 5-600,000 people.

Perkins forgets to mention that the U.S. funded the overthrow, that the CIA & MI6 sent the death lists & that the CIA funded the Kap Gestapu group that staged the fake 'communist' coup to further justify the slaughter. Something, he will have known if he'd properly researched declassified CIA documents, or even read a Chomsky book or two. It's something he may have intentionally left out.

He really downplays U.S. atrocities, making out that the worst crime of the U.S. has been to attempt to get a few countries into debt & then arrange 2 or 3 coups here & there if this was not possible. He doesn't really make any effort to highlight the other 20+ governments (including many democracies) America has overthrown since WWII or the hundreds of thousands of people tortured & murdered (in Latin America alone) by U.S. installed , trained & funded clients.

Perkins gives very, very, very little detail of what he actually did, when & where he did it. So little detail, that there's virtually nothing to refute in the book. The 2 presidents that he names & that he claims to have worked closely with, were assassinated, so those stories can't be corroborated. Forget this, go & read the declassified documents at the National Archive on the George Washington University or the CIA website. The truth is far worse than this fictional account of nothing happening.

PS I actually gave this book a 3 star rating (rather than 1), because besides from his totally unconvincing account of his complicity in U.S. crimes, his incites on Politics & the different countries he worked in are actually quite interesting at times.

Almost certainly a true acount, 19 Oct 2008

Perkins has probably made alot of money from this book as it is written in the first person narrative style of an autobiography, and as such draws the reader in and carries him/her along with the "storyline"
Even if some of the accounts in the book are exaggerated (and I have no reason to say that they are), there is so much personal and historical information in this account of Perkins life, that it could easily have been disproved were it not largely truthfull....to my knowledge, he has not been discredited yet, and so we must assume that it is largely true.
I thought this book was rather brilliant actually, and is ideal for anybody who has misgivings, but has not really ever thought about or faced up to the nature of big corporate exploitation of developing countries, the globalization of the world and ...and this is the big one...the consequences for us (the western capitalists), if we continue as we are....we have got it coming to us...big time !! if we carrty on the way we are going
Read it, its a good book that deals with some big issues.... I shall read his follow on book next "the secret history of the American Empire"

Unbelievable Nonsense - I think not!!, 17 Jul 2008
I'm not quite sure what to think of this book. Why? I recently read a book titled 'Great Controversy' by White. It was written about a hundred years before John Perkins wrote this book. Now, the two books are worlds apart, until you come towards the end of White's book, (and you sure have to hang in there and read the whole book), then all of a sudden, Perkins starts to make sense. John Perkins does well in this book! It's more of an overview ... an itroduction to EHM's. If you first read White and then Perkins, you have to admit that perkins hits the nail on the head - or was it White?. But just on it's own this book is a brilliant read. I like it and unless you are 'one of them' you will enjoy it too.

Interesting but far too much sensationalism, 16 Jun 2008
A good read but Perkins spoils it by going over the top with political rhetoric. The book would have been a lot more effective in getting his intended message accross if he allowed his experience to speak for itself rather attempting to direct us how to think.

Despite this, when Perkins stops preaching and self-promoting (you do actually wonder whether he was as important to the whole process as he professes) there are some fascinating stories, it's just a shame that he chooses to interdisperse theses with streams of consciousness and directions such as to "consume less oil".

Comprehensive, 30 Sep 2008
I just read the book - cover to cover. It is very comprehensive and readable however I have a few gripes:

1. It reads like a book that has "evolved" and is somewhat "lumpy". Some bits are bang up-to-date - others are not; some bits are international some are very US domestic focussed; some bits are amazingly simple (does anyone not know what a direct debit is?) others are highly complex (efficient frontiers and linear programming).

2. The authors should acknowledge that not all CFOs are female and to use "she" in place of "he" whenever they refer to senior decision-makers in fictional companies is both unnecessary and patronising. Feminists will tell you, you've got this wrong - you could easily have used more neutral language (instead of he or she use "they" for example).

3. "Forecasted" is a very clumsy word (on almost every page) - doesn't everyone just say "forecast"?

4. Text refers to "blue lines" on the graphs which are always "black lines" - by the 9th edition you'd think you could have sorted that out!

More technically specific gripes:
1. I believe there are occasions when it makes sense to exercise American options early if you can't short the stock (eg US government has just banned short selling in financial stocks).
2. p649 high yield spreads declined as investors "scurried to the safe haven of high-quality debt" - forgive me but I for one can't work that out!
3. p 788 IOSC is the wrong acronmy for IOSCO (typo?).
4. Swaps are poorly explained. They derived from the arbitrages between international bond markets - which explains how they are structured.
5. The book refers only to the interest calculation basis of actual/360 which is only used in US. It is confusing to only mention this basis and not go on to refer to 30/360 (bond basis) or actual/365 as used in most international markets. In fact, there is a whole section on cash amangement that needs to be reviewed, in my opinion, to make it international and fit with the rest of the book.

Overall, I think it is a good textbook and sound primer - but someone needs a re-edit to freshen it up. The good news is that the Credit Cruch provides that opportunity to take a fresh look at the whole thing and highlight liquidity issues!

Excellent introduction with enough detail for the lay person, 23 Sep 2008
I found this book after searching long and hard for some information about financial instruments in general. Having heard some of the terms described in the book, I was at a loss to know what the heck they were used for. For example SWAPS and Repos where terms I had heard in the financial media but had no idea why they would be used. This book answered my questions and more. It also placed the financial markets into a global context, as the markets are truely world-wide. Thankfully, for me anyway, there are no complex formulae or mathematical terms in the book. It is an "Introduction", therefore high level. Having said that, it still takes some time to put the pieces together, but that is not the fault of the author. Financial markets are complex and hence difficult to understand. In my opinion this book is the best available if you require a high-level, not too detailed, Introduction to Global Financial Markets.

At Last ! A book that has it all for finance newbies, 03 Feb 2008
A FANTASTIC book for all newcomers to finance and a briliant refresher for commercial and investment bankers who need to get a bird eye's view of the markets. How do markets inter-relate? What is the history behind the players, the products and the regulators? Stephen Valdez' years of experience as a financial markets trainer are distilled into a jargon-free guidebook. This book should be recommended reading for all new banking graduate trainees. And anyone selling to the "city" or working in a support role eg: Audit, Regulation, Compliance, Risk, Middle Office, Back Office, Law, HR, Sales/Marketing, Public/Investor Relations etc. Get it ! It's worth every cent.

The best book on finance I've ever read, 27 Sep 2007
This is the best book on finance I've ever read. It's a comprehensive introduction to financial markets written in simple language. BUY IT.

A good readable intro, 20 Feb 2007
This is a great grounding in global markets & written in a plain., straightforward style. I've got this new (5th) edition which has good - broad, but interesting - coverage of Chinese and Indian markets. And the further reading at the back gives good links to books on more specific ares.

Good job, well done., 30 May 2006
The book is an Introduction - a very useful one, which outlines in reasonable detail all the areas of the financial world you are likely to need to know about.

For a beginner, i.e. someone looking to study the industry, or someone looking to make a career in the industry (like me), the book is excellent because the writing is clear and the content jolly interesting!

No, it is NOT a comprehensive guide to risk management, to valuation, or to derivatives trading, or whatever else you hoped it would be. But it IS the place to start - if you happen to have half a brain, you will know after reading it which book(s) to buy next!

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Wow - over 650 reviews, 15 Dec 2008
On the US Amazon site there are over 650 reviews of this book! Do you have any idea how unusual that is?!

Many books have been written about the US victimisation of third world countries (for facts, read books like Blackwater, No Logo, Shock Doctrine, The New Nuclear Danger). This one, unusually, is an insider's perspective and a fascinating look behind the scenes, if you ignore the retrospective moralising about the use of U.S. aid policy to manipulate foreign countries.

However, while it's shocking, feasible, readable and enjoyable... it's probably not honest. For decades the author acquired wealth and status by lying, stealing, cheating - and must have been aware of the enormous human misery he was helping to create. His life has certainly been shown in a romanticised light and it's most likely that the book is deeply economical with the truth. As one reviewer points out: all his mistakes in life are the fault of others (his parents, school, wives, employer,etc.) and he stayed with this evil organisation for decades, paid very well indeed. Still, he has spoken out...but is it for still more financial benefit?

What's your take on such a compromised way of life? We've all lied, cheated and played victim at some time or another, although most of us not nearly to this extent. At what point does each of us claim the right to stone this sinner?

My final take: America doesn't just do this stuff to third-world countries. Thom Hartmann's book Screwed, for instance, details the "covert war conservatives and corporations are waging against America's middle class". (America's poor have already long been screwed, of course - it is well known that the gap between poor and rich continues to widen in the US and I have never forgotten a TV documentary showing a poor black family in the deep south reduced to slicing canned dog food to use as the "meat" in their sandwiches - better than the starving in Africa, yes, but still disgusting to me, anyway, particularly since I am aware that condemned meat is a major ingredient of dog and cat food.) But - even as we point the finger at these wicked and greedy "others" - more of our fingers point back to us...


Downplaying U.S. Atrocities - Blaming Communists for U.S. Slaughter, 13 Dec 2008
This book is extremely unconvincing, to the point of embarrassment for the Author & reader who parts with Idly earned cash. Compare it to books like Philip Agee's CIA Diary, wherein Agee (a CIA defector) named hundreds of CIA agents & handlers, named agencies set up & infiltrated by the CIA & gave specific operation data & dates.

Early in the book, Perkins mentions the overthrow of democracy in Indonesia by Suharto in '65 & even mentions the 'communist' coup that led to the deaths of 5-600,000 people.

Perkins forgets to mention that the U.S. funded the overthrow, that the CIA & MI6 sent the death lists & that the CIA funded the Kap Gestapu group that staged the fake 'communist' coup to further justify the slaughter. Something, he will have known if he'd properly researched declassified CIA documents, or even read a Chomsky book or two. It's something he may have intentionally left out.

He really downplays U.S. atrocities, making out that the worst crime of the U.S. has been to attempt to get a few countries into debt & then arrange 2 or 3 coups here & there if this was not possible. He doesn't really make any effort to highlight the other 20+ governments (including many democracies) America has overthrown since WWII or the hundreds of thousands of people tortured & murdered (in Latin America alone) by U.S. installed , trained & funded clients.

Perkins gives very, very, very little detail of what he actually did, when & where he did it. So little detail, that there's virtually nothing to refute in the book. The 2 presidents that he names & that he claims to have worked closely with, were assassinated, so those stories can't be corroborated. Forget this, go & read the declassified documents at the National Archive on the George Washington University or the CIA website. The truth is far worse than this fictional account of nothing happening.

PS I actually gave this book a 3 star rating (rather than 1), because besides from his totally unconvincing account of his complicity in U.S. crimes, his incites on Politics & the different countries he worked in are actually quite interesting at times.

Almost certainly a true acount, 19 Oct 2008

Perkins has probably made alot of money from this book as it is written in the first person narrative style of an autobiography, and as such draws the reader in and carries him/her along with the "storyline"
Even if some of the accounts in the book are exaggerated (and I have no reason to say that they are), there is so much personal and historical information in this account of Perkins life, that it could easily have been disproved were it not largely truthfull....to my knowledge, he has not been discredited yet, and so we must assume that it is largely true.
I thought this book was rather brilliant actually, and is ideal for anybody who has misgivings, but has not really ever thought about or faced up to the nature of big corporate exploitation of developing countries, the globalization of the world and ...and this is the big one...the consequences for us (the western capitalists), if we continue as we are....we have got it coming to us...big time !! if we carrty on the way we are going
Read it, its a good book that deals with some big issues.... I shall read his follow on book next "the secret history of the American Empire"

Unbelievable Nonsense - I think not!!, 17 Jul 2008
I'm not quite sure what to think of this book. Why? I recently read a book titled 'Great Controversy' by White. It was written about a hundred years before John Perkins wrote this book. Now, the two books are worlds apart, until you come towards the end of White's book, (and you sure have to hang in there and read the whole book), then all of a sudden, Perkins starts to make sense. John Perkins does well in this book! It's more of an overview ... an itroduction to EHM's. If you first read White and then Perkins, you have to admit that perkins hits the nail on the head - or was it White?. But just on it's own this book is a brilliant read. I like it and unless you are 'one of them' you will enjoy it too.

Interesting but far too much sensationalism, 16 Jun 2008
A good read but Perkins spoils it by going over the top with political rhetoric. The book would have been a lot more effective in getting his intended message accross if he allowed his experience to speak for itself rather attempting to direct us how to think.

Despite this, when Perkins stops preaching and self-promoting (you do actually wonder whether he was as important to the whole process as he professes) there are some fascinating stories, it's just a shame that he chooses to interdisperse theses with streams of consciousness and directions such as to "consume less oil".

Comprehensive, 30 Sep 2008
I just read the book - cover to cover. It is very comprehensive and readable however I have a few gripes:

1. It reads like a book that has "evolved" and is somewhat "lumpy". Some bits are bang up-to-date - others are not; some bits are international some are very US domestic focussed; some bits are amazingly simple (does anyone not know what a direct debit is?) others are highly complex (efficient frontiers and linear programming).

2. The authors should acknowledge that not all CFOs are female and to use "she" in place of "he" whenever they refer to senior decision-makers in fictional companies is both unnecessary and patronising. Feminists will tell you, you've got this wrong - you could easily have used more neutral language (instead of he or she use "they" for example).

3. "Forecasted" is a very clumsy word (on almost every page) - doesn't everyone just say "forecast"?

4. Text refers to "blue lines" on the graphs which are always "black lines" - by the 9th edition you'd think you could have sorted that out!

More technically specific gripes:
1. I believe there are occasions when it makes sense to exercise American options early if you can't short the stock (eg US government has just banned short selling in financial stocks).
2. p649 high yield spreads declined as investors "scurried to the safe haven of high-quality debt" - forgive me but I for one can't work that out!
3. p 788 IOSC is the wrong acronmy for IOSCO (typo?).
4. Swaps are poorly explained. They derived from the arbitrages between international bond markets - which explains how they are structured.
5. The book refers only to the interest calculation basis of actual/360 which is only used in US. It is confusing to only mention this basis and not go on to refer to 30/360 (bond basis) or actual/365 as used in most international markets. In fact, there is a whole section on cash amangement that needs to be reviewed, in my opinion, to make it international and fit with the rest of the book.

Overall, I think it is a good textbook and sound primer - but someone needs a re-edit to freshen it up. The good news is that the Credit Cruch provides that opportunity to take a fresh look at the whole thing and highlight liquidity issues!

Excellent introduction with enough detail for the lay person, 23 Sep 2008
I found this book after searching long and hard for some information about financial instruments in general. Having heard some of the terms described in the book, I was at a loss to know what the heck they were used for. For example SWAPS and Repos where terms I had heard in the financial media but had no idea why they would be used. This book answered my questions and more. It also placed the financial markets into a global context, as the markets are truely world-wide. Thankfully, for me anyway, there are no complex formulae or mathematical terms in the book. It is an "Introduction", therefore high level. Having said that, it still takes some time to put the pieces together, but that is not the fault of the author. Financial markets are complex and hence difficult to understand. In my opinion this book is the best available if you require a high-level, not too detailed, Introduction to Global Financial Markets.

At Last ! A book that has it all for finance newbies, 03 Feb 2008
A FANTASTIC book for all newcomers to finance and a briliant refresher for commercial and investment bankers who need to get a bird eye's view of the markets. How do markets inter-relate? What is the history behind the players, the products and the regulators? Stephen Valdez' years of experience as a financial markets trainer are distilled into a jargon-free guidebook. This book should be recommended reading for all new banking graduate trainees. And anyone selling to the "city" or working in a support role eg: Audit, Regulation, Compliance, Risk, Middle Office, Back Office, Law, HR, Sales/Marketing, Public/Investor Relations etc. Get it ! It's worth every cent.

The best book on finance I've ever read, 27 Sep 2007
This is the best book on finance I've ever read. It's a comprehensive introduction to financial markets written in simple language. BUY IT.

A good readable intro, 20 Feb 2007
This is a great grounding in global markets & written in a plain., straightforward style. I've got this new (5th) edition which has good - broad, but interesting - coverage of Chinese and Indian markets. And the further reading at the back gives good links to books on more specific ares.

Good job, well done., 30 May 2006
The book is an Introduction - a very useful one, which outlines in reasonable detail all the areas of the financial world you are likely to need to know about.

For a beginner, i.e. someone looking to study the industry, or someone looking to make a career in the industry (like me), the book is excellent because the writing is clear and the content jolly interesting!

No, it is NOT a comprehensive guide to risk management, to valuation, or to derivatives trading, or whatever else you hoped it would be. But it IS the place to start - if you happen to have half a brain, you will know after reading it which book(s) to buy next!


Great book for such a boring subject!!, 01 Apr 2003
Im a second year business student - and finance is definately NOT my strong point, the lectures to me were a chance to catch up on some well needed sleep and it all went in one ear and out the other.

However, when exam time came this book was extremely helpful, and i can easily say i would NOT have passed without it! :)
The language is simple and easy to read, and explains difficult concepts in an easy to understand manner.

There are lots of sample questions to try for yourself, so you can see how your getting on and they are very similar to the type of questions i had in the exam.

Well worth a read through - but sorry - there arnt many pictures!! :)

Excellent book for beginners and undrergraduates, 28 Feb 2003
The authors shuold be applauded for producing an excellent book on intermediate difficulty finance. The book covers everything a student needs to know - NPV, bond and stock valuation, risk, annuities, project analysis - you name it, its there. The topics are covered methodically, in an easy to follow fashion, often with fascinating case studies along the way which really keep you interested. The book is sometimes quite humorous which motivates you to read more. The authors really know their stuff and explain it very well. The pages are colourful (no drab black and white pages here!) and nicely laid out. There is even a quiz at the end which tests your knowledge of all financial topics covered, and some other general financial things. All in all a must have book for any finance student.

Amazing understanding from this book for beginners., 25 Nov 2001
Enables easy understanding of the various concepts involved in Corporate Finance. This book has its unique feature of dealing with the principle's of finance. The methods are clearly explained and examples provided are very usefull in the understanding of the subject.

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Wow - over 650 reviews, 15 Dec 2008
On the US Amazon site there are over 650 reviews of this book! Do you have any idea how unusual that is?!

Many books have been written about the US victimisation of third world countries (for facts, read books like Blackwater, No Logo, Shock Doctrine, The New Nuclear Danger). This one, unusually, is an insider's perspective and a fascinating look behind the scenes, if you ignore the retrospective moralising about the use of U.S. aid policy to manipulate foreign countries.

However, while it's shocking, feasible, readable and enjoyable... it's probably not honest. For decades the author acquired wealth and status by lying, stealing, cheating - and must have been aware of the enormous human misery he was helping to create. His life has certainly been shown in a romanticised light and it's most likely that the book is deeply economical with the truth. As one reviewer points out: all his mistakes in life are the fault of others (his parents, school, wives, employer,etc.) and he stayed with this evil organisation for decades, paid very well indeed. Still, he has spoken out...but is it for still more financial benefit?

What's your take on such a compromised way of life? We've all lied, cheated and played victim at some time or another, although most of us not nearly to this extent. At what point does each of us claim the right to stone this sinner?

My final take: America doesn't just do this stuff to third-world countries. Thom Hartmann's book Screwed, for instance, details the "covert war conservatives and corporations are waging against America's middle class". (America's poor have already long been screwed, of course - it is well known that the gap between poor and rich continues to widen in the US and I have never forgotten a TV documentary showing a poor black family in the deep south reduced to slicing canned dog food to use as the "meat" in their sandwiches - better than the starving in Africa, yes, but still disgusting to me, anyway, particularly since I am aware that condemned meat is a major ingredient of dog and cat food.) But - even as we point the finger at these wicked and greedy "others" - more of our fingers point back to us...


Downplaying U.S. Atrocities - Blaming Communists for U.S. Slaughter, 13 Dec 2008
This book is extremely unconvincing, to the point of embarrassment for the Author & reader who parts with Idly earned cash. Compare it to books like Philip Agee's CIA Diary, wherein Agee (a CIA defector) named hundreds of CIA agents & handlers, named agencies set up & infiltrated by the CIA & gave specific operation data & dates.

Early in the book, Perkins mentions the overthrow of democracy in Indonesia by Suharto in '65 & even mentions the 'communist' coup that led to the deaths of 5-600,000 people.

Perkins forgets to mention that the U.S. funded the overthrow, that the CIA & MI6 sent the death lists & that the CIA funded the Kap Gestapu group that staged the fake 'communist' coup to further justify the slaughter. Something, he will have known if he'd properly researched declassified CIA documents, or even read a Chomsky book or two. It's something he may have intentionally left out.

He really downplays U.S. atrocities, making out that the worst crime of the U.S. has been to attempt to get a few countries into debt & then arrange 2 or 3 coups here & there if this was not possible. He doesn't really make any effort to highlight the other 20+ governments (including many democracies) America has overthrown since WWII or the hundreds of thousands of people tortured & murdered (in Latin America alone) by U.S. installed , trained & funded clients.

Perkins gives very, very, very little detail of what he actually did, when & where he did it. So little detail, that there's virtually nothing to refute in the book. The 2 presidents that he names & that he claims to have worked closely with, were assassinated, so those stories can't be corroborated. Forget this, go & read the declassified documents at the National Archive on the George Washington University or the CIA website. The truth is far worse than this fictional account of nothing happening.

PS I actually gave this book a 3 star rating (rather than 1), because besides from his totally unconvincing account of his complicity in U.S. crimes, his incites on Politics & the different countries he worked in are actually quite interesting at times.

Almost certainly a true acount, 19 Oct 2008

Perkins has probably made alot of money from this book as it is written in the first person narrative style of an autobiography, and as such draws the reader in and carries him/her along with the "storyline"
Even if some of the accounts in the book are exaggerated (and I have no reason to say that they are), there is so much personal and historical information in this account of Perkins life, that it could easily have been disproved were it not largely truthfull....to my knowledge, he has not been discredited yet, and so we must assume that it is largely true.
I thought this book was rather brilliant actually, and is ideal for anybody who has misgivings, but has not really ever thought about or faced up to the nature of big corporate exploitation of developing countries, the globalization of the world and ...and this is the big one...the consequences for us (the western capitalists), if we continue as we are....we have got it coming to us...big time !! if we carrty on the way we are going
Read it, its a good book that deals with some big issues.... I shall read his follow on book next "the secret history of the American Empire"

Unbelievable Nonsense - I think not!!, 17 Jul 2008
I'm not quite sure what to think of this book. Why? I recently read a book titled 'Great Controversy' by White. It was written about a hundred years before John Perkins wrote this book. Now, the two books are worlds apart, until you come towards the end of White's book, (and you sure have to hang in there and read the whole book), then all of a sudden, Perkins starts to make sense. John Perkins does well in this book! It's more of an overview ... an itroduction to EHM's. If you first read White and then Perkins, you have to admit that perkins hits the nail on the head - or was it White?. But just on it's own this book is a brilliant read. I like it and unless you are 'one of them' you will enjoy it too.

Interesting but far too much sensationalism, 16 Jun 2008
A good read but Perkins spoils it by going over the top with political rhetoric. The book would have been a lot more effective in getting his intended message accross if he allowed his experience to speak for itself rather attempting to direct us how to think.

Despite this, when Perkins stops preaching and self-promoting (you do actually wonder whether he was as important to the whole process as he professes) there are some fascinating stories, it's just a shame that he chooses to interdisperse theses with streams of consciousness and directions such as to "consume less oil".

Comprehensive, 30 Sep 2008
I just read the book - cover to cover. It is very comprehensive and readable however I have a few gripes:

1. It reads like a book that has "evolved" and is somewhat "lumpy". Some bits are bang up-to-date - others are not; some bits are international some are very US domestic focussed; some bits are amazingly simple (does anyone not know what a direct debit is?) others are highly complex (efficient frontiers and linear programming).

2. The authors should acknowledge that not all CFOs are female and to use "she" in place of "he" whenever they refer to senior decision-makers in fictional companies is both unnecessary and patronising. Feminists will tell you, you've got this wrong - you could easily have used more neutral language (instead of he or she use "they" for example).

3. "Forecasted" is a very clumsy word (on almost every page) - doesn't everyone just say "forecast"?

4. Text refers to "blue lines" on the graphs which are always "black lines" - by the 9th edition you'd think you could have sorted that out!

More technically specific gripes:
1. I believe there are occasions when it makes sense to exercise American options early if you can't short the stock (eg US government has just banned short selling in financial stocks).
2. p649 high yield spreads declined as investors "scurried to the safe haven of high-quality debt" - forgive me but I for one can't work that out!
3. p 788 IOSC is the wrong acronmy for IOSCO (typo?).
4. Swaps are poorly explained. They derived from the arbitrages between international bond markets - which explains how they are structured.