A cogent, persuasive, and timely look at the dollar’s power.
An authoritative work offers a perspective on the United States dollar’s importance on the global stage.
This is economist/scholar Elson’s fifth book on global finance, distinguished by its narrower focus on the role that the dollar plays in the international economy. The author first covers the historical rise of the dollar since World War II, then demonstrates how it became the center of the global financial system. He finally addresses the benefits and defects of the dollar-centered system as well as possible reforms. Elson’s depth of knowledge on the subject is the basis for a solidly factual, if at times wonky, discussion. Still, even readers not steeped in global economics will surely comprehend the influence and implications of the “dollar zone,” which “has increased to around 65% of global GDP, involving more than half of the 195 countries in the global system with separate currencies.” The author shows how the U.S. routinely exerts its financial power internationally. But the more intriguing aspect of the book is the contrast of the dollar system’s benefits with its deficiencies. In particular, he exposes a number of weaknesses that intensify risk; for example, with the American economy becoming a smaller part of the global financial landscape in the past decade, it may “be unable to continue to satisfy a growing demand for safe assets without other countries becoming concerned about the debt sustainability of the United States.” Further complicating the vaunted current position of the dollar is, not surprisingly, the increasing power of the Chinese economy. Observers and students of the global economy are likely to find the chapter on “possible reforms” of the dollar-based system to be of great value. Here, Elson suggests that a shift to a multireserve currency system may be appropriate, although an “unbalanced and gradual process of evolution” in that direction “could be the source of financial instability.” Another key concern the author raises is the role of digital currencies (cryptocurrencies) and, more specifically, the potential for central bank digital currencies. Each chapter contains notes and references, and Elson’s concluding chapter is a fine summary of the book’s main points.
A cogent, persuasive, and timely look at the dollar’s power.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-3030835187
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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