OK, I'm not actually going to read all of these books this weekend. I'll be reading the various bailout proposals. But I will thumb through many of them:

- Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, by Charles Kindleberger (Read chapter one in a free PDF.)
The definitive history of, well, bubbles and manias. Hint: we have been here before. At least in the general neighborhood.

- The Great Contraction, by Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz (First chapter is available for free.)
Love him or hate him, Milton Friedman's analysis of the Great Depression and all the things the Fed got wrong is the touchstone against which all other views are measured.

- The Trillion Dollar Meltdown, by Charles Morris.
I keep mentioning it because it helped me so much in understanding the crisis. It's short, it's readable. You will be able to show off to all your friends how much you know.

- Essays on the Great Depression, by Ben Bernanke. (Chapter one.)
A confession: this has been sitting on my shelf for months, making me feel guilty for not reading it. Even if Bernanke were not Chairman of the Fed, this would be must reading now. He is THE living scholar of the Great Depression. And, since he's running the show, it is even more important to understand his thinking.

categories: Understanding The Crisis

10:14 - September 20, 2008

What is this?

Share