The Meltdown Years

The Meltdown Yearsoffers the most lucid and useful explanation to date about why home values, life savings, job security, and investments around the world are in peril.Rather than focus on who is to blame, though, author Wolfgang Munchau takes the more practical approach of focusing on what isto blame. The fact that individuals were stupid, greedy, and corrupt should come as no surprise. What's remarkable is that our world's financial systems-put in place to help stave off such a crisis-failed so miserably.What is inherently wrong with the global monetary system? What happened to the regulatory process? What role did the credit market, hedge funds, and investment banks play? These are the types of questions one must answer in order to truly comprehendwhat caused the meltdown and, more importantly, to understand what must be done to repair it.Munchau dissects the global financial system,exposing its flaws and weaknesses in the context of the crisis. A decidedly global perspective of the greatest financial crisis of ourtime, The Meltdown Years examinesThe structure of the world banking systemGlobal events that led to financial collapseThe growth of speculative bubblesThe descent from financial crisis into full-out recessionPointing to an unstable global economic system as the root of the problem, theauthor predicts how long the recession willand illustrates long-term consequences of the meltdown."Apportioning [individual] blame for thiscrisis may be fun," Munchau writes, "butit is a dead-end road for anyone who seeksan understanding of what happened." AIG,Alan Greenspan, Fannie Mae, Bear Stearns...Each is portrayed as a villain responsible for the state of the economy. In truth, the blame is much broader and lies much deeper.The Meltdown Years is required reading for anyone who wants to follow the ongoing debate about economic recovery and understandwhat the collapse means for the future offinancial capitalism.