Managed by the Markets: How Finance Re-Shaped AmericaThe current economic crisis reveals just how central finance has become to American life. Problems with obscure securities created on Wall Street radiated outward to threaten the retirement security of pensioners in Florida and Arizona, the homes and college savings of families in Detroit and Southern California, and ultimately the global economy itself. The American government took on vast new debt to bail out the financial system, while the government-owned investment funds of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Malaysia, and China bought up much of what was left of Wall Street. How did we get into this mess, and what does it all mean? Managed by the Markets explains how finance replaced manufacturing at the center of the American economy and how its influence has seeped into daily life. From corporations operated to create shareholder value, to banks that became portals to financial markets, to governments seeking to regulate or profit from footloose capital, to households with savings, pensions, and mortgages that rise and fall with the market, life in post-industrial America is tied to finance to an unprecedented degree. Managed by the Markets provides a guide to how we got here and unpacks the consequences of linking the well-being of society too closely to financial markets. |
From inside the book
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Page ix
... executives and bankers were in charge. In this new corporate system, populists knew whom to hold accountable—J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford. To understand the plotline of American society, one had to understand the newly ...
... executives and bankers were in charge. In this new corporate system, populists knew whom to hold accountable—J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford. To understand the plotline of American society, one had to understand the newly ...
Page xiv
... executives were fired, bankruptcies surged, home foreclosures skyrocketed, neighborhoods were blighted with newly abandoned houses, and unemployment leapt. There was broad agreement that the world was on the precipice of a second Great ...
... executives were fired, bankruptcies surged, home foreclosures skyrocketed, neighborhoods were blighted with newly abandoned houses, and unemployment leapt. There was broad agreement that the world was on the precipice of a second Great ...
Page 11
... executives in their self-financing corporations hold the keys of economic power.”8 Thus, events around 1900—mergers creating large-scale, vertically integrated manufacturers, and the use of stock markets to finance them—set in train the ...
... executives in their self-financing corporations hold the keys of economic power.”8 Thus, events around 1900—mergers creating large-scale, vertically integrated manufacturers, and the use of stock markets to finance them—set in train the ...
Page 16
... executives from Cabot, Gillette, and Raytheon, all major firms in Boston; First Chicago had executives from Chicago's Amoco, National Can, and Quaker Oats; and Pittsburgh's Mellon Bank had directors from Alcoa, Allegheny International ...
... executives from Cabot, Gillette, and Raytheon, all major firms in Boston; First Chicago had executives from Chicago's Amoco, National Can, and Quaker Oats; and Pittsburgh's Mellon Bank had directors from Alcoa, Allegheny International ...
Page 19
... executives) that their investment banking arms were doing business with and that their analysts were recommending to their brokerage clients. Banks made personal loans totalling $1.3 billion to WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers to fund his ...
... executives) that their investment banking arms were doing business with and that their analysts were recommending to their brokerage clients. Banks made personal loans totalling $1.3 billion to WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers to fund his ...
Contents
| 1 | |
| 31 | |
How the Corporation Got Then Lost its Soul | 59 |
How Securitization Ended the Wonderful Life | 102 |
How Delaware and Liberia became the McDonalds and Nike of Corporate Law | 154 |
How Talent Friends and Homes became Capital | 191 |
A Society of Investors? | 235 |
Notes | 256 |
References | 285 |
Index | 295 |
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accounts allowed American analysts assets bankers became become benefits Bermuda bonds buyers capital century changes chapter Citi clients companies competition contracts corporate countries created crisis Davis debt decades described directors dozens early economic effect employees employment executives Federal financial markets firms foreign functions future give global hand holding homeowners households income increased increasingly individuals industry institutions interest investment banks investors kinds labor largest late loans managers manufacturing means million mortgage mutual funds offer operated organization ownership particular pension plans policies practices production regulation relatively responsible result risk savings securities share price shareholder shares social society stock market Street Journal takeover theory tion trading turn Wall Street Wall Street Journal York