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A review by jlbrown23
The Origin of Financial Crises: Central Banks, Credit Bubbles, and the Efficient Market Fallacy by George Cooper
5.0
I don't have too much to add that you won't see in the other 4 or 5 star reviews. Chapter 3, on the evolution of money is about as clear and concise of a summary you are likely to find on how we got from stone age bartering to modern age fiat currency and central banks(in 50 pages). Worth the price of the book & the stars on its own.
In addition, the author attempts to take on the clear hand-waving and hindsight-as-wisdom that is the current financial world. I am not sure if you could find a better indicator that the current conventional wisdom on economics is broken than the almost universally unpredicted 2008 economic crisis. When circumstances such as these come along where the theory becomes more and more clearly detached from reality (see string theory, global warming, earth-centric universe), I always appreciate the people who realize that band-aiding the old theory is hopeless and only helping further entrench bad ideas. What is needed is new ideas, not putting lipstick on the pig. I don't pretend to be informed enough about economics to give a valid opinion on whether or not he is correct. But I like that he bases his views on real world systems we know work, and not the entrenched dogma of folks who have probably read Atlas Shrugged one too many times. Instead he looks to James Clerk Maxwell's theories of regulating systems. I would say that a strictly factual and mathematical look at regulating systems by one of the most brilliant scientists in history would seem to be a better starting point than the opinions of economics professors who couldn't see 4Q2008 coming even at the end of 3Q2008. As the old joke goes, "If you take all of the economists in the world and line them up in a row, they will all be pointing in different directions". If they follow Maxwell's ideas on governors, maybe they'll start following some of his other laws and line up a little better...
In addition, the author attempts to take on the clear hand-waving and hindsight-as-wisdom that is the current financial world. I am not sure if you could find a better indicator that the current conventional wisdom on economics is broken than the almost universally unpredicted 2008 economic crisis. When circumstances such as these come along where the theory becomes more and more clearly detached from reality (see string theory, global warming, earth-centric universe), I always appreciate the people who realize that band-aiding the old theory is hopeless and only helping further entrench bad ideas. What is needed is new ideas, not putting lipstick on the pig. I don't pretend to be informed enough about economics to give a valid opinion on whether or not he is correct. But I like that he bases his views on real world systems we know work, and not the entrenched dogma of folks who have probably read Atlas Shrugged one too many times. Instead he looks to James Clerk Maxwell's theories of regulating systems. I would say that a strictly factual and mathematical look at regulating systems by one of the most brilliant scientists in history would seem to be a better starting point than the opinions of economics professors who couldn't see 4Q2008 coming even at the end of 3Q2008. As the old joke goes, "If you take all of the economists in the world and line them up in a row, they will all be pointing in different directions". If they follow Maxwell's ideas on governors, maybe they'll start following some of his other laws and line up a little better...