A sober but not dismal account of what’s been happening to our pocketbooks. Readers who wonder why raising the interest rate...
Former Federal Reserve chair Bernanke (The Federal Reserve and the Financial Crisis, 2013) offers a view from the trenches of the Great Recession and its aftermath.
A framing figure in this lucid memoir, appearing early and late, is Alan Greenspan, Bernanke’s predecessor, who, it seems, saw trouble coming and did not act decisively. Bernanke cites Greenspan’s reluctance to subject whole categories of financial practices relating to mortgages to federal oversight, which opened the door to loopholes that contributed to the housing market collapse. “The hole in our logic,” writes Bernanke, “was that, as lending standards deteriorated, the exception became the rule.” Bernanke’s account of the Great Recession involves plenty of mea culpa pleading; he writes that in his time as a Fed governor leading up to his chairmanship, he and his fellow executives tended to underestimate the risks inherent in a loosely regulated market. He goes on to trace this fast-and-loose approach to legislative politics. For example, although Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac came close to catastrophic failure, congressional overseers were too enamored of the “ultimate free lunch” these agencies offered to pay much attention until it was almost too late. Bernanke, who has made news outside of but coincidental with this book by renouncing his former affiliation with the GOP, suggests that political gridlock has served as a tremendous brake on an economic recovery that should have been complete by now. The ongoing threat of government shutdown is an understandable deterrent to investment and consumer confidence. It helps to have wonky leanings to follow Bernanke’s arguments, which, though mostly nontechnical, can be a little daunting: “Futures markets gave us a reliable read of where markets thought the federal funds rate was going—but not for our securities purchases.”
A sober but not dismal account of what’s been happening to our pocketbooks. Readers who wonder why raising the interest rate is a big deal (and why not raising it may be a mistake) will find suggestive answers here.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-393-24721-3
Page Count: 610
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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