The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered

Rating:
Summary: Precarious and Fragile - our financial world is not a given
Review: The real message here is that the our prosperity and our easy way of life is not guaranteed by our being members of a rich and productive society. There are real reasons, embedded in human nature, why our modern economy has teetered on the brink of collapse several times in the last fifteen years. Read this book together with "Maestro : Alan Greenspan's Fed and the American Economic Boom" to understand that it has been repeatedly left up to a small number of people to respond to genuine crises with risky fixes to keep our financial system from collapse. Soros' application of "reflexivity" to market behaviour helps us understand that this will happen again and again. Someday the right people won't be there or the risky fix will not work. Whether Soros' call for international banking authorities and guarantees is feasible is an important question that won't be answered until a lot more people understand that all it will take is time and normal human behaviour to bring it all crashing down.