The best book on the Fed in our time and a model of financial writing.
A wide-ranging study of the Federal Reserve and its almost unrestricted power over the U.S. economy.
“The Fed plays a quiet but critical part in shaping our everyday lives,” writes New York Times financial journalist Smialek in this surprisingly—given its subject—readable account. To fulfill its mission of controlling inflation and employment levels, it essentially has the power to print money without much in the way of oversight. For example, “during the 2008 financial crisis, chair Ben Bernanke unilaterally approved a $600 billion bond-buying program to shore up crumbling markets.” This independence has made the Fed “the most powerful economic institution the modern world has ever known.” It has also come with the understanding that the Fed is apolitical, as Donald Trump discovered when he attempted to bend the institution and its head, Jerome Powell, to his will to make him look good during the economic implosion of 2020. The pandemic figures heavily in Smialek’s detailed, cogent account, as the author illustrates how the bankers and economists who run the Fed are quick to abandon ideology and theory for practical solutions to the problems they face. Some of the Fed’s governors tend to free market fundamentalism, but when faced with crisis, they allow for quantitative easing to increase the liquidity of banks. During the pandemic, the Fed reduced interest rates to zero and allowed foreign banks easier access to dollars in a package indicating that “the Fed was trying to say that it would do whatever it took to restore markets to normality.” In 2021, the Fed’s strategies kept the global economy from collapsing, “demonstrating that the Fed’s powers could be wielded to address more of society’s challenges than anyone had previously imagined.” Today, as Smialek lays out in accessible prose, the Fed has a new battle to fight in attempting to curb inflation, which may bring about “another Fed evolution” in policy and practice.
The best book on the Fed in our time and a model of financial writing.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780593320235
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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