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Carl, since you like to read so much I have two recommendations. Charles Kindleberger's "The World in Depression" and Robert Patterson's "The Great Boom & Panic" one thing that I like about patterson's book is that he offers many viewpoints of leading economists here is an excerptfrom Patterson"...In the United States the inflationary extension of credit,not only for stock speculation but for business,real estate,and consumerpurchases,had led to an unwholesome,illiquid debt conditionon an enormous scale. International,too,the credit situation was bad. The day of reckoning for war debts,reparations,reconstruction,unbalanced national budgets,insecure currencies,international trade restrictions ,and deep mistrust among nations merely had been put off by the temporary zeal of american investors to buy foreign bonds....Although the great inflation was made possible by policies of ...the Federal Reserve Board ...the inflation was aggravated by private rather than governmental abuse of the credit...While the nation's credit mechanism was complex,and much borrowing and lending did not directly involve the banks themselves,it was,nevertheless ,the commercial banks and the Federal Reserve banks behind them that were accountable for the unwarranted increase in the credit supply." Consider the impact of the recent financial deregulation and the explosive growth of loan secuitization. Mike hey Pete ho ho ho |
