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List Price: $26.99Amazon.com's Price: $17.81 You Save: $9.18 (34%)as of 07/30/2010 07:20 EDT
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.110973
EAN: 9780307459688
Format: Deckle Edge
ISBN: 0307459683
Label: Crown Business
Manufacturer: Crown Business
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: August 04, 2009
Publisher: Crown Business
Release Date: August 04, 2009
Studio: Crown Business
Features:- ISBN13: 9780307459688
- Condition: New
- Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
“Whatever it takes”
That was Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s vow as the worst financial panic in more than fifty years gripped the world and he struggled to avoid the once unthinkable: a repeat of the Great Depression. Brilliant but temperamentally cautious, Bernanke researched and wrote about the causes of the Depression during his career as an academic. Then when thrust into a role as one of the most important people in the world, he was compelled to boldness by circumstances he never anticipated.
The president of the United States can respond instantly to a missile attack with America’s military might, but he cannot respond to a financial crisis with real money unless Congress acts. The Fed chairman can. Bernanke did. Under his leadership the Fed spearheaded the biggest government intervention in more than half a century and effectively became the fourth branch of government, with no direct accountability to the nation’s voters.
Believing that the economic catastrophe of the 1930s was largely the fault of a sluggish and wrongheaded Federal Reserve, Bernanke was determined not to repeat that epic mistake. In this penetrating look inside the most powerful economic institution in the world, David Wessel illuminates its opaque and undemocratic inner workings, while revealing how the Bernanke Fed led the desperate effort to prevent the world’s financial engine from grinding to a halt.
In piecing together the fullest, most authoritative, and alarming picture yet of this decisive moment in our nation’s history, In Fed We Trust answers the most critical questions. Among them:
• What did Bernanke and his team at the Fed know–and what took them by surprise? Which of their actions stretched–or even ripped through–the Fed’s legal authority? Which chilling numbers and indicators made them feel they had no choice?
• What were they thinking at pivotal moments during the race to sell Bear Stearns, the unsuccessful quest to save Lehman Brothers, and the virtual nationalization of AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac? What were they saying to one another when, as Bernanke put it to Wessel: “We came very close to Depression 2.0”?
• How well did Bernanke, former treasury secretary Hank Paulson, and then New York Fed president Tim Geithner perform under intense pressure?
• How did the crisis prompt a reappraisal of the once-impregnable reputation of Alan Greenspan?
In Fed We Trust is a breathtaking and singularly perceptive look at a historic episode in American and global economic history.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
"In Fed We Trust" takes a look at the causes of the downturn of our present economy. While most people find economics dry and boring, this book is far from it. Not only does this book speak intelligently about the "panic" of September 18th, 2008, it also compares it to the other great panics of United States history, the Great Depression being the major event.
It also gives you the understanding that many of the issues at we now face were born way before Bernanke's time. It doesn't ... Read More
Rating:  -
I found the events around Columbus Day 2008 interesting, when the (9) largest banks were invited for a meeting without an agenda.
The congress meetings are begging for someone to give us more detail and this book was disappointing in this area. Was Harry Reid the only person to have objected to the TARP request? Hardly! what if TARP was denied? what would have happened? Something other than "If it doesn't pass, then heaven help us all" would be nice. Wassel could have expanded, but chose ... Read More
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There are any number of insider anecdotes in this book that would make it well worth reading for those looking for supplementary information on what Mr. Wessell calls the Great Panic. However, I couldn't recommend it as a first, or certainly only, read on the financial events of the last couple of years, and I doubt the author intended it to be so. So that's fine. However, it is dry in parts, and the chronological focus on Bernanke/Paulson/Geithner sometimes leads to disassociation from the larger ... Read More
Rating: -
The economic crisis has brought the standard emotion over the Federal Reserve to entirely new levels. I mean, if you thought people were opinionated about the central bank before the implosion of 2008, we are now in a whole new stratosphere. What is fascinating when analyzing the toxicity that exists over this issue is the extraordinarily non-partisan nature of it. Full blown anarchists like the Austrian economic camp believe the Federal Reserve to be far, far more evil than they do Al Qaida. Left wing ... Read More
Rating:  -
Is the sub-prime mortgage the root of today's dramatic economic downturn? Was the inflated housing bubble the cause of today's financial meltdown? Did the financial engineering of banks and investors that created complex securities result in today's economic failure? All these questions and so much more of the bigger picture on the delicate workings of the incredibly complex economic web of the U.S. and world economy is at the heart of David Wessel's book, //In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke's War on the Great ... Read More
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