Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism | 
| Author: Kevin Phillips
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
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Rating:  70 reviews
Sales Rank: 1205
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.1
ISBN: 0670019070
Dewey Decimal Number: 330.973
EAN: 9780670019076
ASIN: 0670019070
Publication Date: April 15, 2008
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Product Description
The bestselling author reveals how the U.S. financial sector has hijacked our economy and put Americas global future at risk
In American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips warned us of the perilous interaction of debt, financial recklessness, and the increasing cost of scarce oil. The current housing and mortgage debacle is proof once more of Phillipss prescience, and only the first harbinger of a national crisis. In Bad Money, Phillips describes the consequences of our misguided economic policies, our mounting debt, our collapsing housing market, our threatened oil, and the end of American domination of world markets. Americas current challenges (and failures) run striking parallels to the decline of previous leading world economic powersespecially the Dutch and British. Global overreach, worn-out politics, excessive debt, and exhausted energy regimes are all chilling signals that the United States is crumbling as the world superpower.
Bad money refers to a new phenomenon in wayward megafinancethe emergence of a U.S. economy that is globally dependent and dominated by hubris-driven financial services. Also bad are the risk miscalculations and strategic abuses of new multitrillion-dollar products such as asset-backed securities and the lure of buccaneering vehicles like hedge funds. Finally, the U.S. dollar has been turned into bad money as it has weakened and become vulnerable to the worlds other currencies. In all these ways, bad finance has failed the American people and pointed U.S. capitalism toward a global crisis. Bad Money is the perfect follow- up to Phillipss last book, whose dire warnings are now proving frighteningly accurate.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 65 more reviews...
Phillips November 30, 2008
Moira E. Mccaffrey
This is a great book about the origins our our current financial straits. It's not a light read but compelling and thought provoking to be sure.
It details America's rise as global financial hegemon and offers predictions about what the future of the global economy will look like. Phillips offers four predictions for the future of the world economy namely that (1) Asia will dominate the global economy by 2030 (2) China will be the dominant player within Asia (3) Some city with a large Chinese population will eventually emerge as a financial capital, rivaling London and New York and (4) the leading currency in Asia will have a global reserve function by 2030 (p. 182).
There are also a number of interesting facts sprinkled throughout the book. One figure I found fascinating was the ranking of principal suppliers of crude oil to the US. It turns out that Canada is our leading source of oil, accounting for 1.85MM barrels per day. It's followed by Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria, and Iraq (p. 139).
A great book, and one I could see myself re-reading again in 6 months.
 A Major Disappointment November 29, 2008
audiobook maven (Bryn Mawr, PA United States)
This review covers the audio version of Bad Money, which runs 8 cds. I am a fan of Kevin Phillips, so this audio book was a major disappointment. I found the text disorganized, ill-focused, pompous, and too long by a half. It wasn't until well into disk 2 that he stated his major thesis, then he went off AGAIN on some tangent or another, jumping forward and backward in time, disgressing repeatedly, alternating between being descriptive and analytic. I couldn't follow "the plot" and quit listening mid-way through disk 3. Scott Brick, the reader, manages to overdramatize much of the text, further exacerbating the unpleasant listening experience. The 8 CD set of Bad Money is a waste of money and in my opinion Kevin Phillips should quit writing any more books and stick to a career as talking head.
Why isn't this guy President? November 24, 2008
John Brownin (Alabama)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Good book. I was surprised at how right on he is. We are even studying this book as a companion to our Bible Study (who would have thought).
This Only LOOKS Like A Book About the Economy November 22, 2008
Keith Otis Edwards (Dearbron, MI United States)
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
One would expect that a book subtitled "Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism" would answer two basic questions: (1) What is wrong with the economy, and (2) How did it get that way? As a bonus, we might also like to know just who is responsible for the incipient Great Depression II, so that we can begin erecting gallows and fashioning enough nooses, and we might like to entertain suggestions as to how the crisis might be solved, but it turns out that Dr. Phillips knows no more about economics than do you or I or your local greengrocer. As a result, the book meanders in a desultory manner around various topics that are at best only tangentially related to our financial woes, and most are irrelevant.
In place of specifics about the economy, Kevin Phillips rambles about under the pretense of giving us the "Big Picture" or a "Historical Perspective," and thus we are treated to an entire chapter (chapter 6) on not merely what happened during the first Great Depression, but a complete overview of European history, as well. "In 1618, the fall of a weak Spanish first minister led to a burst of activism, and several years later . . ." And blah, blah, blah, followed by an analysis of the situation in Holland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It's all absolutely fascinating (NOT!), but the trouble with this is that, if one digs hard enough, one can discover any lesson from history that one's looking for, and when does Phillips get to the economic situation of 2008? He doesn't. If the fact that in the fifth century the capitals of both Rome and Spain were moved to different cities (pg.157) is pertinent to our present situation, then what, if anything, can be considered irrelevant? Rin Tin Tin? Cameron Diaz? Jujubees?
Throughout "Bad Money" Kevin Phillips refers again and again to his previous books (he wants you to buy them), and since he has little information to share with us about the present economic crisis, he begins writing those old books all over again. We get many pages of his American Dynasty, including the scintillating revelation that "John Quincy Adams was elected president in 1824, . . . twenty-four years after his father, John Adams . . ." and that "Benjamin Harrison was elected president in 1888, forty-eight years after his grandfather, William Henry Harrison . . ." (This in a book about the economy.) Phillips has a Mencken-like animosity toward the Christian Right that he vented in his American Theocracy, so he here he spends a chapter placing the blame of our financial situation at the feet of the devout.
Because it's easier to write about than specifics of the financial system, an entire chapter is devoted to the debate on whether the world has reached Peak Oil production or not, but now (November, 2008) that the price of oil has fallen below $50-per-barrel, all that has been rendered moot for the time being.
I would fain admit that on random occasions, the stream-of-consciousness Philips writes in stumbles briefly into economic matters, but much of this is material that you have already read in the same papers and magazines that Kevin Phillips reads. There are many graphs and charts from The Financial Times and many quotes from that British journal. Unfortunately, Phillips adds little to the quotes, and he doesn't clarify the more abstruse terms. This book desperately needs a glossary, and before you read it (not that I'd recommend that you do) you should first become familiar with such terms as brouses, derivatives, credit default swaps, mercantilism, deleveraging, fixed-leg features and two-step binomial trees. (If you don't know what those are, don't feel bad, neither does Kevin Phillips.)
There is some new and startling information in "Bad Money," but much of it is of a dubious nature and is merely mentioned in passing. Our nation's conservative masses have followed the lead of their mob masters (turn-on any radio) and are blaming "minorities" (you know who) for the financial crisis, because these high-melanin types purchased homes they couldn't afford. But what about the "Ninja loans" that Phillips mentions? These were loans eagerly given to people with no job, no income, no assets. Are the brown people to blame for those, too? Unfortunately, Phillips cites such loans only in passing. Which lenders made them? How many such loans were made? Sorry, no further information is available. Likewise, Phillips mentions bonds that were backed by delinquent credit-card accounts. Phillips informs us that these bonds were given a rating of AAA, but that's all he knows.
Phillips provides a stunning revelation when he quotes several sources about a shadowy Plunge Protection Team within the Federal Reserve that may (or may not) have been manipulating the market by secretly buying and selling stocks and futures. On the other hand (pg.60), "There's never been any official confirmation of this." That's quite a serious charge --the Federal Reserve, a government within the government, buying and selling stocks to influence the market-- and I for one would like to learn more about it. Is it happening or not?
Alas, Phillips admits, "I have no personal firsthand knowledge and am not interested in becoming a conspiracy investigator." In other words, he doesn't know. It seems that there is much that Kevin Phillips doesn't know about the economy. Read this book and you, too, will know just as little.
Bad Money is a good read! November 20, 2008
David M. Cann
This is a must read for any elected pol who thinks they know whats going on.
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