New book from the Cato Institute

Have just received details on a new book from the Cato Institute that some readers of this blog may find interesting (though that is not a product recomendation only an observation). I haven't read it yet so cannot offer any personal view - if you read it please feel free to post your reviews below.

The Cato Institute describe the book as follows:

Financial Fiasco:

How America's Infatuation with Homeownership and Easy Money Created the Economic Crisis

By Johan Norberg.

JEFFREY MIRON, from Harvard University reportedly says that it is: "Essential reading for everyone who cares about our economic future, but especially for those who are still not sure what caused the crisis. As Norberg makes clear, private forces jumped willingly on a runaway train, but it was government that built the train and drove it off a cliff."

Writing in his new book, Mr Norberg reportedly says: "The story of this storm in the global markets is the story of how government intervention to solve previous crises laid the foundation for a new one."

Tracing the causes of our current financial crisis with liveliness and clarity, Financial Fiasco shows the mistakes made in Washington, on Wall Street, and in communities across America that led to the economic meltdown. While many analysts have placed the blame solely on Wall Street, Norberg exposes the crucial role government regulation played in creating the opportunities and incentives that led to the financial collapse.

In six concise chapters, Financial Fiasco tells the complex story of the crisis, showing how monetary policy, housing policy, and financial innovations combined to create financial catastrophe. The final two chapters describe the government's mismanagement of the crisis and how we are now dangerously repeating many of the very same mistakes that caused it. An understanding of the roots of the financial crisis is crucial for [everyone] who has felt its effects - and would like to prevent the same disaster from happening again. Financial Fiasco provides that understanding, with great insight, clarity, and wit.

Equally important, Financial Fiasco serves as a profound warning against pursuing the wrong solutions. "After government authorities had helped create the worst financial crisis in generations, the climate of ideas has now shifted dramatically in the direction of bigger and more active government," Norberg writes. Financial Fiasco is the perfect antidote to those ideas, a cautionary tale on how to stop confusing the disease with the cure.

According to AMITY SHLAES, on the Council on Foreign Relations: "Johan Norberg exposes the abiding hypocrisies of policy that generated this crisis. A masterwork in miniature."

About the Author

JOHAN NORBERG is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. His previous book, In Defense of Global Capitalism, has been published in more than 20 countries. He wrote and hosted "Globalisation Is Good," a documentary for Channel Four in Britain. He lives in Stockholm.