The Cost of Capitalism: Understanding Market Mayhem and Stabilizing our Economic Future

“A punchy and relevant book on our present distress that has, at its core, one very big and useful idea.“ “Heeding the lessons of the last few years, as documented in this book, may help both financiers and government policy makers find ways to reduce some future costs of capitalism without sacrificing all the potential rewards.” “[Barbera] challenges the blind faith in free markets.” “Barbera ... [is] one of the few commentators actually saying something interesting and innovative about the crisis.” " is a must-read and a thoroughly enjoyable one—for those who want to understand the Crisis of 2008 and hammer out a new framework for decision making." "Readers who absorb the lessons of this book will be armed with more than mere technique; they will acquire an attitude that will make them better investors for the rest of their lives." translates the economic diagnoses and theories of my father, Hyman Minsky. It captures the vivacity of a post dinner conversation not coincidentally my father's favorite forum for elaborating, educating, and entertaining." "Lucid, intriguing, brilliant! Barbera combines the uncertainty and speculation of Keynes with Schumpeter's "Creative Destruction" and Hy Minsky's "Deflationary Destruction" into a tasty stew." "Long ago, Bob taught me that if you don't know Minsky, you don't know nothing. This work shows the path out of nothingness." "Barbera's recommendations are profound in their simplicity. Let us hope Wall Street, Main Street, Washington, and academia embrace them." "This is truly an extraordinary book that should be of great interest to an extremely wide audience from Wall Street practitioners to economics and finance scholars." From the panic of 1987 to the tech-bubble burst of 2000, the past two decades have witnessed a series of financial crises, each more disruptive than the last. Unfortunately, they all seem like dress rehearsal for today's debacle. In hindsight, the precipitating factors responsible for each crisis seem clear, yet, in every case, mainstream economists and policy makers were caught off guard. Why didn't they see it coming? What should they have known but didn't? And, most critically, how must they adjust their thinking going forward? In the , Robert Barbera provides compelling answers to all these questions. In the process, he offers the most cogent analysis yet of today's crisis and explains how to manage the ever present potential for mayhem intrinsic to free market economies without stunting innovation and growth. At the core of Barbera's thinking are three assumptions: first, boom and bust cycles have been stoked since 1985 by finance, not inflation; second, Main Street stability paradoxically invites excessive risk taking on Wall Street; and last, these things set the stage for small setbacks to deliver cataclysmic consequences. Barbera applauds current efforts to unabashedly infuse public money into the global economy. It's the only way, he says, to prevent another Great Depression. And, looking beyond the crisis of the moment, Barbera contends that mainstream thinkers need to form a new economic paradigm by embracing the insights of free market champions like Joseph Schumpeter and the cautionary wisdom of Hyman Minsky. Financial market mayhem comes with the territory in a free market system. Nonetheless, innovators and their bankers still offer the world the best chance for a prosperous twenty-first century. Economists, policymakers, and investors must begin to redefine their understanding of free market capitalism. will set them on that course.