Banking Politics

What is wrong with today's banking system? The past few years have shown that risks in banking can impose significant costs on the economy. Many claim, however, that a safer banking system would require sacrificing lending and economic growth. The Bankers' New Clothes examines this claim and the narratives used by bankers, politicians, and regulators to rationalize the lack of reform, exposing them as invalid.

In the spirit of Evicted, Bait and Switch, and The Big Short, a shocking, heart-wrenching investigation into America’s housing crisis and the modern-day robber barons who are making a fortune off the backs of the disenfranchised working and middle class - among them, Donald Trump and his inner circle.

How did a bank, which boasts ‘we’re committed to helping protect the world’s financial system on which millions of people depend, by only doing business with customers who meet our high standards of transparency’ come to facilitate Mexico’s richest drug baron? And how did a bank that as recently as 2002 had been named ‘one of the best-run organisations in the world’ become so entwined with such a criminal? Too Big to Jail is an extraordinary story brilliantly told by writer, commentator, and former editor of The Independent.

You would have to live under a rock not to know who Alan Greenspan is. But that's probably about as much as you know. Leave it to investigative reporter Bob Woodward to uncover the story of Greenspan and the power he wields as head of the Federal Reserve.

Even after the ruinous financial crisis of 2008, America is still beset by the depredations of an oligarchy that is now bigger, more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever. Anchored by six megabanks, which together control assets amounting to more than 60 percent of the country's gross domestic product, these financial institutions (now more emphatically "too big to fail") continue to hold the global economy hostage.

In the 1930s, battered and humbled by the Great Depression, the US financial sector struck a grand bargain with the federal government. Bankers gained a safety net in exchange for certain curbs on their freedom: transparency rules, record-keeping and anti-fraud measures, and fiduciary responsibilities. By the free-market era of the 1980s and 90s, however, Wall Street argued that rules embodied in New Deal-era regulations to protect consumers and ultimately taxpayers were no longer needed - and government agreed.

Charles H. Ferguson, who electrified the world with his Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job, now explains how a predator elite took over the country, step by step, and he exposes the networks of academic, financial, and political influence, in all recent administrations, that prepared the predators' path to conquest. Over the last several decades, the United States has undergone one of the most radical social and economic transformations in its history.

From an internationally acclaimed economist, a provocative call to jump-start economic growth by aggressively overhauling liberal democracy. Around the world, people who are angry at stagnant wages and growing inequality have rebelled against established governments and turned to political extremes. Liberal democracy, history's greatest engine of growth, now struggles to overcome unprecedented economic headwinds - from aging populations to scarce resources to unsustainable debt burdens.

Did Wall Street cause the mess we are in? Should Washington place stronger regulations on the financial industry? Can we lower unemployment rates by controlling the free market? Answer: no. Not only is free-market capitalism good for the economy, it is our only hope for recovery. As the nation’s longest-serving CEO of one of the top 25 financial institutions, John Allison has had a unique inside view of the events leading up to the financial crisis.

Over the past decade financial service innovations have contributed to a completely new way in which customers can bank, threatening the status quo of traditional retail banks, and redefining a banking model which has been in place for generations. These new technological advancements have facilitated the rapid emergence of digital banking firms and FinTech companies, leading to established banks being forced to swiftly increase their pace of digital adoption.

The bankruptcy of the investment bank Lehman Brothers was the pivotal event of the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession that followed. Ever since the bankruptcy, there has been heated debate about why the Federal Reserve did not rescue Lehman in the same way it rescued other financial institutions, such as Bear Stearns and AIG. The Fed's leaders from that time, especially former Chairman Ben Bernanke, have strongly asserted that they lacked the legal authority to save Lehman because it did not have adequate collateral for the loan it needed to survive.

Thomas Piketty's work has proved that unfettered markets lead to increasing inequality. Without meaningful regulation, capitalist economies will concentrate wealth in an ever smaller number of hands. Armed with this knowledge, democratic societies face a defining challenge: fending off a new aristocracy. For years Piketty has wrestled with this problem in his monthly newspaper column, which pierces the surface of current events to reveal the economic forces underneath.

As incredible as it may seem in this hyper-connected, technologically advanced era, half the planet's population exist as financial nomads: those who nourish and shelter themselves without using traditional banking services. While the wealthy live at the top of a metaphorical pyramid, taking financial security and banking services for granted, there are billions of people who struggle at the pyramid's base in an exhausting state of financial exclusion and insecurity.

The independence of the Federal Reserve is considered a cornerstone of its identity, crucial for keeping monetary policy decisions free of electoral politics. But do we really understand what is meant by "Federal Reserve independence"? Using scores of examples from the Fed's rich history, The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve shows that much common wisdom about the nation's central bank is inaccurate.

Every day across America, consumers face issues with credit cards, mortgages, car loans, and student loans. When they are cheated or mistreated, all too often they hit a brick wall against the financial companies. People are fed up with being run over by big corporations, and few have the resources or expertise to fight back on their own. It is no wonder consumers feel powerless: they are outgunned every step of the way. Since 1970, the financial industry has doubled in size. It is the biggest source of campaign contributions....

Whether you're buying lunch, looking for a job or applying for a mortgage, the thing we call 'the economy' is going to set the terms. A pity, then, that many of us have no idea how the economy actually works. That's where this book comes in. The Bank of England is Britain's most important financial institution, responsible for printing money, regulating banks and keeping the economy running smoothly. Now, the bank's team take you inside their hallowed halls to explain what economics can—and can't—teach us about the world.

In The Hellhound of Wall Street, Michael Perino recounts in riveting detail the 1933 hearings that put Wall Street on trial for the Great Crash. Never before in American history had so many financial titans been called to account before the public, and they had come within a few weeks of emerging unscathed. By the time Ferdinand Pecora, a Sicilian immigrant and former New York prosecutor, took over as chief counsel, the investigation had dragged on ineffectively for nearly a year and was universally written off as dead....

Today, most of our money is created, not by governments, but by banks when they make loans. This audiobook takes the listener step by step through the sausage factory of modern money creation, explores improvements made possible by advances in digital technology, and proposes upgrades that could transform our outmoded 19th-century system into one that is democratic, sustainable, and serves the needs of the 21st century.

The casino was alive and well in Will Roger's time. It was called Wall Street then as well. But mainstream media allowed for the total exposure of the criminal greed of the Street. Bankers were determined not to allow that mistake to rain on their next financial orgy, so that Will Rogers would have had no voice in the days of the ponzi housing bubble and subsequent crash. Things are different now, and mainstreet is even more vulnerable than in the roaring twenties.

Analyzing the movement's deep-seated origins in questions that the country has sought too long to ignore, some of the greatest economic minds and most incisive cultural commentators capture the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon in all its ragged glory. They give listeners an on-the-scene feel for the movement as it unfolds while exploring the heady growth of the protests, considering the lasting changes wrought, and recommending reform.