A Failure of Capitalism by Richard A. Posner

In his quirky way, he can't really understand the concept of avarice. 'Posner knocks down greed or stupidity as a central reason for the crash.In other words, it is only a starting point - but an indispensable one.' - Jonathan Rauch, The New York Times Book Review A Failure of Capitalism clears away whole forests of cant but leaves readers at a loss as to where to go from here. (.) By the last page, not a single lazy generalization has survived Posner’s merciless scrutiny, not one populist cliché remains standing. His real interest is in finding and detonating grenades in the underbrush. Being Richard Posner, however, he is not content to be an amiable guide through the thicket. 'You know that story, and Posner tells it well, with a particular flair for showing how dozens of moving parts interacted.But I also have to say that, in some respects, his grasp of economic ideas is precarious.' - Robert M. Posner has an extraordinarily sharp mind, and what I take to be a lawyerly skill in argument. The haste may have been justified by the pace of the events he aims to describe and explain. If not exactly chiseled, the prose is nevertheless lively, readable, and plainspoken. There is some unnecessary repetition, and many paragraphs spend more time than they should on digressions that seem to have occurred to the author in mid-thought. (.) I have to say that the prose in this book often reads as if it were written, or maybe dictated, in a great hurry. 'I think it is at best a partial success it gets some things right and some things wrong, and the items on both sides of the ledger are important.Das Buch ist ausgewogen in dem Sinne, dass viele einander widersprechende ökonomische Theorien diskutiert werden und die Vorläufigkeit jedes Fachwissens betont wird.' - Erich Weede, Neue Zürcher Zeitung Auf einer Rechts-Links-Skala lässt er sich gar nicht oder allenfalls in der Mitte einordnen.

'Posner hat ein sehr gut lesbares Buch geschrieben.

But the genie is out of the behavioural finance bubble, and no redefinition of 'rational' will put it back in.' - Paul Kedrosky, Globe & Mail His book has many strengths, including the most lucid and dispassionate explanation of this crisis currently in print, as well as some brief but sensible policy prescriptions. Posner believes in the importance and utility of economic methods, but he needs to find a way to make sure that the current crisis, with its inevitable fallout for economics, doesn't contaminate all of economics, turning it into a subset of psychology.

The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depressionī : readable, decent effort to do what it sets out to do.General information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs.

A Failure of Capitalism by Richard A. Posner