What do you think?
Rate this book
Fed Up: An Insider's Take on Why the Federal Reserve is Bad for America
"An insider's unflinching expose of the toxic culture within the Federal Reserve. In the early 2000s, as a Wall Street escapee writing a financial column for the Dallas Morning News. Booth attracted attention for her bold criticism of the Fed's low interest rate policies and her cautionary warnings about the bubbly housing market.Nobody was more surprised than she when the folks at the Dallas Federal Reserve invited her aboard. Figuring she could have more of an impact on Fed policies from the inside, she accepted the call to duty and rose to be one of Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher's closest advisors. To her dismay, the culture at the Fed--and its leadership--were not just ignorant of the brewing financial crisis, but indifferent to its very possibility. They interpreted their job of keeping the economy going to mean keeping Wall Street afloat at the expense of the American taxpayer. But bad Fed policy created unaffordable housing, skewed incentives, rampant corporate financial engineering, stagnant wages, an exodus from the labor force, and skyrocketing student debt. Booth observed firsthand how the Fed abdicated its responsibility to the American people both before and after the financial crisis--and how nobody within the Fed seems to have learned or changed from the experience. Today, the Federal Reserve is still controlled by 1,000 PhD economists and run by an unelected West Coast radical with no direct business experience. The Fed continues to enable Congress to grow our nation's ballooning debt and avoid making hard choices, despite the high psychological and monetary costs. And our addiction to the "heroin" of low interest rates is pushing our economy towards yet another collapse. This book is Booth's clarion call for a change in the way America's most powerful financial institution is run--before it's too late"--
331 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 14, 2017
281 people are currently reading
1322 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews
March 19, 2017
A riveting, insider's view of the Federal Reserve and the negative impact their policies and culture have had on most Americans. It is a scary view of academics believing they can control the U.S. and world economies. The result of their policy making from Greenspan and continuing with Yellen - 2008 financial crisis, lowest creation of new households, Wall Street out of control, huge wealth disparity, pension plans unable to fund liabilities, lack of true jobs that create value and the list goes on. The "big banks" are bigger than ever with little, if any, understanding how they are making their money and the expectation, the U.S. taxpayers will absorb any risk. This book is not for the faint of heart.
March 2, 2017
When a Fed insider, somebody with nine years of service at the permanently dissenting Dallas Fed, decides to blow the whistle on the most contentious (and perhaps even the most independent) branch of government, you drop what you’re doing and you read what they have to say.
I was dying to hear Danielle DiMartino Booth’s inside view on how an organization like the Fed balances its often opposing roles of monitoring the economy versus cheerleading, the inside view of how the sundry presidents coordinate with each other, the inside view on what the staff is told to research and how the results of the research are released, the inside view on how the Fed is adjusting its famous (and famously inadequate) models to the changing environment around it, the inside view on the unofficial role the value of the dollar plays in the calculation of interest rate policy (the dollar is allegedly the business of the Treasury, but how can it only be that?), the inside view of what responsibility the Fed has to other nations that effectively peg their currency to the dollar, the inside view on how the Fed calculates the pros and cons of zero interest rates for savers versus businesses, the inside view on the discussion that is surely taking place regarding whether it is the level of QE purchases or the pace of new purchases that influences the economy more (Bernanke is on record saying it’s the level, but that’s just his view), the inside view of how it will be best to go about unwinding QE, the inside view of the debate that must be raging on when and how this process ought to start, the inside view on the true level of labor slack, the insider view on labor hysteresis (a Yellen special), the inside view on what the wealth effects of low rates are, who they accrete to and how they trickle down.
Away from the technical, I was also hoping that the book might probe the more political / more philosophical issues: Why did the Fed shift from the “taking away the punchbowl” mode to “money for nothing” mode at the historical juncture when it did? Greenspan was a man of his time, surely, not a shaper of opinion. When did the Fed become an underwriter of prosperity rather than a guarantor of the system’s integrity? Is the above ever discussed in the inner sanctum?
Well, I’ve finished the book and I’m none the wiser about any of the above.
This account alternates between telling the personal story of the author’s career at the Fed, providing an actually rather decent narrative of how the crisis of 2006-2009 unfolded (which would be fine if this was not the tenth such book I’ve bought), complaining that Goldman Sachs has infiltrated the Fed like it’s done all other important parts of government (watch out: the Germans have invaded Poland, I’m told) and moaning about the insularity of the Fed’s staff, all of whom hold a PhD in Economics from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale or Chicago (memo to the author: their problem with you is that 1. for all your three degrees, you are uneducated and for example think Pandora came out of the box, as you say on page 40 / economically uneducated and think the delays to the official data come from seasonalisation, which is instant, not that you don’t have a PhD and 2. Unlike your boss Fisher, geeks often do not realize that the uneducated can have valid views).
Away from the author’s, at times interesting and touching, personal story, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING here that you could not have found in the newspaper, I’m afraid. Except perhaps for stuff that I could not possibly care about. Dunno, for example Dallas represents the 11th district and San Francisco the 12th. Or where the checks get processed, where the bullion is kept and where the cash is kept. I’ve already forgotten, because I could not care less, but that stuff actually can be found in the book. Along with the fact that the Fed did not see the crisis coming. Duh.
If you were abducted by aliens in 2006 and they just released you and for some reason you want to find out about the financial crisis of 2006 – 2009 this book is as good a book as any other book out there and probably better in some respects, because the author has some great credibility in the “I told you so” department: she did see the crisis coming and she wrote about it, first in the press and then in her internal reports in the Fed. Buy it, read it and you’ll have a decent idea about how it went.
But it truly does not contain a single original finding.
In the absence of original thoughts, the book would still be worth buying if the author had listed all her gripes with the Fed clearly in one place. A well-drafted chapter on all the failings of the Fed, written by somebody with the authority that can only come from having been on the inside, would have been dynamite. You won’t find one here, I’m afraid. The sundry issues the author has with the Fed are diffused through the story and only ever summarized (kind of) in the… introduction.
In short, this book does not build an argument. It’s a long moan, with some history thrown in.
I pretty much agree the author’s views on most of the issues, so I find that to be a total shame.
I was dying to hear Danielle DiMartino Booth’s inside view on how an organization like the Fed balances its often opposing roles of monitoring the economy versus cheerleading, the inside view of how the sundry presidents coordinate with each other, the inside view on what the staff is told to research and how the results of the research are released, the inside view on how the Fed is adjusting its famous (and famously inadequate) models to the changing environment around it, the inside view on the unofficial role the value of the dollar plays in the calculation of interest rate policy (the dollar is allegedly the business of the Treasury, but how can it only be that?), the inside view of what responsibility the Fed has to other nations that effectively peg their currency to the dollar, the inside view on how the Fed calculates the pros and cons of zero interest rates for savers versus businesses, the inside view on the discussion that is surely taking place regarding whether it is the level of QE purchases or the pace of new purchases that influences the economy more (Bernanke is on record saying it’s the level, but that’s just his view), the inside view of how it will be best to go about unwinding QE, the inside view of the debate that must be raging on when and how this process ought to start, the inside view on the true level of labor slack, the insider view on labor hysteresis (a Yellen special), the inside view on what the wealth effects of low rates are, who they accrete to and how they trickle down.
Away from the technical, I was also hoping that the book might probe the more political / more philosophical issues: Why did the Fed shift from the “taking away the punchbowl” mode to “money for nothing” mode at the historical juncture when it did? Greenspan was a man of his time, surely, not a shaper of opinion. When did the Fed become an underwriter of prosperity rather than a guarantor of the system’s integrity? Is the above ever discussed in the inner sanctum?
Well, I’ve finished the book and I’m none the wiser about any of the above.
This account alternates between telling the personal story of the author’s career at the Fed, providing an actually rather decent narrative of how the crisis of 2006-2009 unfolded (which would be fine if this was not the tenth such book I’ve bought), complaining that Goldman Sachs has infiltrated the Fed like it’s done all other important parts of government (watch out: the Germans have invaded Poland, I’m told) and moaning about the insularity of the Fed’s staff, all of whom hold a PhD in Economics from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale or Chicago (memo to the author: their problem with you is that 1. for all your three degrees, you are uneducated and for example think Pandora came out of the box, as you say on page 40 / economically uneducated and think the delays to the official data come from seasonalisation, which is instant, not that you don’t have a PhD and 2. Unlike your boss Fisher, geeks often do not realize that the uneducated can have valid views).
Away from the author’s, at times interesting and touching, personal story, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING here that you could not have found in the newspaper, I’m afraid. Except perhaps for stuff that I could not possibly care about. Dunno, for example Dallas represents the 11th district and San Francisco the 12th. Or where the checks get processed, where the bullion is kept and where the cash is kept. I’ve already forgotten, because I could not care less, but that stuff actually can be found in the book. Along with the fact that the Fed did not see the crisis coming. Duh.
If you were abducted by aliens in 2006 and they just released you and for some reason you want to find out about the financial crisis of 2006 – 2009 this book is as good a book as any other book out there and probably better in some respects, because the author has some great credibility in the “I told you so” department: she did see the crisis coming and she wrote about it, first in the press and then in her internal reports in the Fed. Buy it, read it and you’ll have a decent idea about how it went.
But it truly does not contain a single original finding.
In the absence of original thoughts, the book would still be worth buying if the author had listed all her gripes with the Fed clearly in one place. A well-drafted chapter on all the failings of the Fed, written by somebody with the authority that can only come from having been on the inside, would have been dynamite. You won’t find one here, I’m afraid. The sundry issues the author has with the Fed are diffused through the story and only ever summarized (kind of) in the… introduction.
In short, this book does not build an argument. It’s a long moan, with some history thrown in.
I pretty much agree the author’s views on most of the issues, so I find that to be a total shame.
March 3, 2017
“No more excuses. The Fed’s mandate isn’t to have a perfect world. That only exists in fairy tales, dreams, and the Fed’s econometric models.”
The failure of the fraudulent model that underpins what passes by “capitalism” these days has been inspiring a slew of excellent books, both published and TBP. On the financial system itself, and specifically the ever-direr consequences of the central planning, and the PhD determination, of the most important price in capitalism, the price of money itself (i.e., the interest rate), the books include works by David Stockman, James Rickards, Mervyn King (Governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2013, whose recent book of analysis and reflection is appropriately titled “The End of Alchemy”), Satyajit Das (“A Banquet of Consequences”), Nomi Prins (“Artisans of Money”, TPB) and Anne Pettifour (“The Production of Money”) and many others (including Michael Hudson’s latest tomes; Prof. Hudson is in favour of the central planning, and the PhD determination, of the most important price in capitalism, but he does have lots of wisdom, knowledge and reasoning to share).
So, several important, relevant books, that have extensively dissected the subject, and Danielle DiMartino Booth’s “Fed Up” manages to shine through. This, she achieves with her extensive inside knowledge, which proves even more frightening than one would expect (i.e., they really do not have a clue) and her direct, frank, no-nonsense approach and views. There’s something to be said about being right when and where it matters while all the PhD’s in Economics surrounding you are focusing on their belly buttons (or their peer validated models, which essentially the same), and the certain knowledge that you are right doesn’t take you anywhere. How’s the poem? (“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, if you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don’t deal in lies”, etc.). Something along these lines.
This book is important and, chock-full of choice morsels, it’s a pleasure to read, which doesn’t hurt a bit.
As in: “The Fed’s medicine was incapable of treating the disease in the system, but they insisted on using it. By doing so, they began to cripple the very banks they desperately needed to convalesce. In an attempt to keep things flowing, the Fed expanded the type of assets it would accept as collateral from distressed banks, reduced penalty rates to virtually nothing, and speeded up auctions of quality bonds, so banks could put those on their balance sheets and off-load the junk onto the Fed.” Or: “One of Lemann’s final observations: ‘The Fed, not the Treasury or the White House or Congress, is now the primary economic policymaker in the United States, and therefore the world.’ But what if Yellen’s theoretical paradigm is dead wrong? The woman who ‘did not see and did not appreciate what the risks were with securitization, the credit rating agencies, the shadow banking system, the SIVs … until it happened’ has led us straight into an abyss.”
“Mistakes by the Fed included missing the housing bubble and financial crisis, being ‘blinded’ to the slowdown in the growth of worker productivity, and failing to anticipate how inflation behaved in regard to the job market. The Fed’s economic projections of GDP and how fast the economy would grow were wrong time and again.”
It's not only fully justified and founded criticism of one of the most important constructs of civilization: The author has suggestions and offer guidelines to salvage the institution, not to tear it apart: “Congress should release the Fed from the bondage of its dual mandate. (…) The Fed needs to get out of the business of trying to compel people to spend by manipulating inflation expectations. Not only has it introduced a dangerous addiction to debt among all players in the economy, it has succeeded in virtually outlawing saving. (…) Under ZIRP, only fools save for a rainy day. The floor on overnight rates must be permanently raised to at least 2 percent and Fed officials should pledge to never again breach that floor. (…) Limit the number of academic PhDs at the Fed, not just among the leadership but on the staffs of the Board and District Banks. Bring in more actual practitioners— businesspeople who have been on the receiving end of Fed policy, CEOs and CFOs, people who have been on the hot seat, who have witnessed the financialization of the country and believe that American companies should make things and provide services, not just move money around.” Etc.
Anyway, moral hazard, hubris and myopia, my friends. Hubris & Myopia, indeed. A world gone madder. What can one say? Full faith and credit! Amen.
The failure of the fraudulent model that underpins what passes by “capitalism” these days has been inspiring a slew of excellent books, both published and TBP. On the financial system itself, and specifically the ever-direr consequences of the central planning, and the PhD determination, of the most important price in capitalism, the price of money itself (i.e., the interest rate), the books include works by David Stockman, James Rickards, Mervyn King (Governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2013, whose recent book of analysis and reflection is appropriately titled “The End of Alchemy”), Satyajit Das (“A Banquet of Consequences”), Nomi Prins (“Artisans of Money”, TPB) and Anne Pettifour (“The Production of Money”) and many others (including Michael Hudson’s latest tomes; Prof. Hudson is in favour of the central planning, and the PhD determination, of the most important price in capitalism, but he does have lots of wisdom, knowledge and reasoning to share).
So, several important, relevant books, that have extensively dissected the subject, and Danielle DiMartino Booth’s “Fed Up” manages to shine through. This, she achieves with her extensive inside knowledge, which proves even more frightening than one would expect (i.e., they really do not have a clue) and her direct, frank, no-nonsense approach and views. There’s something to be said about being right when and where it matters while all the PhD’s in Economics surrounding you are focusing on their belly buttons (or their peer validated models, which essentially the same), and the certain knowledge that you are right doesn’t take you anywhere. How’s the poem? (“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, if you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don’t deal in lies”, etc.). Something along these lines.
This book is important and, chock-full of choice morsels, it’s a pleasure to read, which doesn’t hurt a bit.
As in: “The Fed’s medicine was incapable of treating the disease in the system, but they insisted on using it. By doing so, they began to cripple the very banks they desperately needed to convalesce. In an attempt to keep things flowing, the Fed expanded the type of assets it would accept as collateral from distressed banks, reduced penalty rates to virtually nothing, and speeded up auctions of quality bonds, so banks could put those on their balance sheets and off-load the junk onto the Fed.” Or: “One of Lemann’s final observations: ‘The Fed, not the Treasury or the White House or Congress, is now the primary economic policymaker in the United States, and therefore the world.’ But what if Yellen’s theoretical paradigm is dead wrong? The woman who ‘did not see and did not appreciate what the risks were with securitization, the credit rating agencies, the shadow banking system, the SIVs … until it happened’ has led us straight into an abyss.”
“Mistakes by the Fed included missing the housing bubble and financial crisis, being ‘blinded’ to the slowdown in the growth of worker productivity, and failing to anticipate how inflation behaved in regard to the job market. The Fed’s economic projections of GDP and how fast the economy would grow were wrong time and again.”
It's not only fully justified and founded criticism of one of the most important constructs of civilization: The author has suggestions and offer guidelines to salvage the institution, not to tear it apart: “Congress should release the Fed from the bondage of its dual mandate. (…) The Fed needs to get out of the business of trying to compel people to spend by manipulating inflation expectations. Not only has it introduced a dangerous addiction to debt among all players in the economy, it has succeeded in virtually outlawing saving. (…) Under ZIRP, only fools save for a rainy day. The floor on overnight rates must be permanently raised to at least 2 percent and Fed officials should pledge to never again breach that floor. (…) Limit the number of academic PhDs at the Fed, not just among the leadership but on the staffs of the Board and District Banks. Bring in more actual practitioners— businesspeople who have been on the receiving end of Fed policy, CEOs and CFOs, people who have been on the hot seat, who have witnessed the financialization of the country and believe that American companies should make things and provide services, not just move money around.” Etc.
Anyway, moral hazard, hubris and myopia, my friends. Hubris & Myopia, indeed. A world gone madder. What can one say? Full faith and credit! Amen.
May 2, 2021
Fantastic "tell-all" detailing the incompetence of what has now become the 4th branch of the US government, the Federal Reserve. It's frightening to think that it's now the Fed, not the Treasury or the White House or Congress, that is the primary economic decision policymaker in this country. Written a few years ago, Ms. Booth's book sets the stage for what I believe will be looked back upon as the Great Spending Spree of 2020-2021. While this book goes a bit more in depth than some may care for, its subject matter is really spot-on. The author, who once worked for the Fed, is clearly brighter (despite not having the Ivy League pedigree prized by the Fed culture) than the fools she worked for.
April 17, 2020
Conclusion of the book: Congress is run by the feds. The feds are run by wall street and the banks. What's going on?
August 12, 2019
Learned so much... Towards the end I started to slow down as I felt that things were starting to get repetitive BUT her point was driven home and the last chapter finished really strong. She gives approx 10 changes that she feels need to be instituted in the Fed (i.e. hire more business ppl less PhDs; reallocate regional bank HQs to represent more accurate capital structure nowadays; give regional presidents a permanent vote, etc). I found myself agreeing with her on almost everything. It was impactful to hear her take the mystique out of the Fed and just remind everyone that the employees of the Fed are just normal people (who mostly all think similarly) following models. Humbling and terrifying... S/O to David Winston for making me supplement my Elisabeth Elliot with a little Danielle Booth
July 23, 2022
Really wanted to rate this one higher.
First off, the content is enjoyable. Booth, working as an advisor to the Dallas Fed, shares an inside story of how the Fed operates, and makes decisions. On how the discussions (or lack thereof) are focused on census building, while critics are shut out. How the Fed has become both overly political, overly powerful, and overly infested by Wall Street insiders (Goldman Sachs alumni!) and Ivy Leaguers with no real world experience.
However, the book comes off as a stream of consciousness rather than a thoughtfully organized narrative. The chapter titles have little to do with the content of the chapter, and time periods discussed jump back, and forward, and back again. What’s with the paragraph breaks every sentence? It’s as if each sentence was a bullet point, making it harder to follow than it should be. This needed another few drafts.
First off, the content is enjoyable. Booth, working as an advisor to the Dallas Fed, shares an inside story of how the Fed operates, and makes decisions. On how the discussions (or lack thereof) are focused on census building, while critics are shut out. How the Fed has become both overly political, overly powerful, and overly infested by Wall Street insiders (Goldman Sachs alumni!) and Ivy Leaguers with no real world experience.
However, the book comes off as a stream of consciousness rather than a thoughtfully organized narrative. The chapter titles have little to do with the content of the chapter, and time periods discussed jump back, and forward, and back again. What’s with the paragraph breaks every sentence? It’s as if each sentence was a bullet point, making it harder to follow than it should be. This needed another few drafts.
September 20, 2017
An eye opening expose on why the Fed was not ringing alarm bells right up until (and even after) the Bear Stearns fire sale to JP Morgan, and how the Fed has artificially propping up the economy in the time since rather than let the free market reign. Ms. Booth goes into great detail as to why this institution controlled by Ivy league academics and Goldman Sachs alumni is bad for every nation, not just America. It's time to end the Fed - this book will tell you why.
March 12, 2021
Aggressively average story of the Fed’s involvement of the 2008 RE bubble. Wish I would have known that her points of why the fed is bad for the American economy only revolved around fed leaders reading miscues behind the bubbles. I would have read a Michael Lewis book instead.
July 10, 2022
Perhaps more interesting today
The book is primarily an insider's view l on the problems that the Federal Reserve caused and were slow to address that resulted in the Great Financial Crisis. It outlines why the solutions that have been employed and the continued insular nature of the Fed would likely result in another financial crisis. As we fast forward to today, you cannot help but believe that the author's prediction is coming true.
The book is primarily an insider's view l on the problems that the Federal Reserve caused and were slow to address that resulted in the Great Financial Crisis. It outlines why the solutions that have been employed and the continued insular nature of the Fed would likely result in another financial crisis. As we fast forward to today, you cannot help but believe that the author's prediction is coming true.
Read
May 28, 2021also interesting to read during the market debacle
October 20, 2022
I only wish I had enough understanding of finance to have gleaned more from the book. It was fascinating without any background though.
June 5, 2022
A former advisor to former president Richard Fisher of the Dallas Fed breaks down the causes of the 2008 financial crisis and all the corruption she encountered within the Federal Reserve at large.
I really liked this book and how DiMartino spins out the narrative of the progression of the Fed and its various important players over the course of about 10 years. I feel like I learned a lot about the dearth of qualitative understanding of business and markets at least among statisticians at the Fed, and then of course, I learned a lot about the 2008 crisis (I was in middle school and high school at the time and didn't understand much of what was happening), about Wall Street, about how financial markets can signal emerging problems, about politics, and more. Fed Up is very well written and accessible.
Considering what went down in 2020 and how the Fed is finally starting to taper (via attrition), and how it's possible it could be too late at this point, I think this book is a timely read. Not to mention the housing bubble... housing nuclear explosion... whatever in the world is going on in the housing market right now. And the desperation for increasingly risky assets (crypto, options and futures, meme stocks) in order to generate big yield, fast. There's a lot going on with the economy right now that feels predicted and validated by what's outlined in this book.
I liked how DiMartino takes the reader through the steps of her career and her struggles in her personal life. What held this part back for me was the little comments she'd insert here and there that reeked of internalized misogyny (easy to see how any woman working on Wall Street would develop some, easier still in the case of a Christian woman with conservative leanings). And the little twee comments that made it clear that DiMartino was once a columnist for a newspaper, but could get really annoying in this book.
DiMartino also had what really felt like a personal vendetta against Janet Yellen, and while I agree with DiMartino that Yellen was not doing a great job at the Fed and failed to uphold her personal mandate of "looking out for the real people behind the statistics," the sarcasm and vitriol dripping from DiMartino's writing got to be kind of a lot and made a lot of the internalized misogyny jump out when it didn't have to. It was just very weird and jarring whenever DiMartino would talk about Yellen.
I'm glad that DiMartino touches on what her and Fisher's alternatives to econometric modeling were - but she only touches on her methods of transforming and analyzing data, and while I know this book isn't meant to be a technical dissertation at the mathematics level, I would've liked more. I also got the sense that DiMartino and several of the people she spoke to and quoted don't fully understand what models, or econometric models, are. I think her arguments could have been strengthened even more if the book demonstrated some understanding of the design of typical econometric models (usually, quarterly or monthly time series - for rate or probability models, probably logit/probit models, or MC models). I also thought it was strange how DiMartino never seemed to be able to pull her own data and kept having to phone it in. Hopefully in the latter half of the book, she was able to leverage modern technology and APIs rather than needing to call up friends who had Bloomberg terminals.
After reading Trillion Dollar Triage and being pretty disappointed at the author's total disconnect to how Main Street works for anyone who isn't a mid-sized business, I was relieved at how DiMartino talked about Main Street and how the Fed is completely delusional in thinking that interest rates can solve regular people's problems. Sure, the Fed helped CAUSE regular people's economic/financial problems in 2008 onward, but bonds and interest rates are not the balm, and DiMartino is 100% right in highlighting how the Fed's (likely disingenuous) efforts have only exacerbated wealth inequality in the US.
It's frustrating how not even DiMartino, however, toys with the idea of policy for corporations and how they pay and provide benefits to their employees. Neither did Timiraos. I agree that businesses need the freedom to fail and acquire and be acquired and try new things in order to function properly in the economy, but wealth inequality and poverty in the US is going to continue whether or not the Fed manages to raise interest rates and keep its nose out of the economy, unless the profits generated by businesses is redirected reasonably and fairly to those who put in the work to generate it, rather than to stock buybacks, millionaire CEOs, and frivolities. And as cynical as it sounds, that's not going to happen without legislation, especially with how enormous and powerful the US' largest and richest companies have become.
I definitely had an existential crisis when DiMartino pointed out that everyone has had to take on much more risk than anyone has ever had to in history just to generate enough yield to even hope to beat inflation since I've been alive. It turns out it's NOT normal to need to shove cash into index funds as the main option for diversified risk, rather than into ACTUAL "high yield" savings accounts, or CDs, or moneymarket accounts. It makes me upset to know that my generation is being raised to either save to no avail, or get used to risk that can literally destroy your future if you don't know how to handle that risk financially or emotionally. We don't even know what the good old days were anymore, and our parents don't understand why the way THEY were raised isn't working for anyone anymore.
I think DiMartino did an excellent job at explaining simply what the dual mandate is and why the Fed shouldn't even try to influence unemployment. She explains a lot of terms simply and beautifully. I do think, however, that she waited a little too long to give some of those explanations. She'd bring up a term or piece of history, and instead of explaining it in the next paragraph or sometime around then, she'd wait a whole chapter or longer to bring up the term again and THEN explain it. It made the writing feel a bit too scattered and unaware of its own chronology and progression at times.
I can't stand how out of touch the Fed is and how obvious it is that most of the members want to appease Wall Street because they will be working there after they inevitably leave the Fed, and how those who want to stay at the Fed need to therefore appease politicians. Everyone is beholden to someone and the Fed is definitely not independent. I loved the last chapter and all of DiMartino's demands for change. It was a great summation and laid out the impetus of the book super well.
There are a lot of ideas that DiMartino suggests, and some others she outright says, that I'm not sure I agree with. Or really just how I'm supposed to feel about the suggestion. For example, to have DiMartino explain it, it seems like by the time alarm bells were sounding in 2008, the government already had no choice but to bail out the Wall Street giants because the government had allowed so much capital and the fates of average Americans' financial lives to get tied up in those giants starting years before the collapse - which is why, according to DiMartino, letting Lehman fail was a mistake. And I'm guessing, why letting all of the banks and hedge funds fail would have definitely been a mistake.
But then, as DiMartino posits in her 2010 "Fallacy" paper, she says that the housing market should've been allowed to totally collapse on its own. Which sounds to me like - Wall Street needed to be saved, but leave Main Street to the wolves because in that case, the natural order is better. While at the same time, DiMartino disparages "welfare street." Which all sounds to me like - screw the poor and struggling, let them lose their homes, let them not be able to pay rent, and poo on them for needing handouts as a result. Not everyone in the US has a safety net they can fall into when things go pear-shaped. Have you ever tried making rent on less than 20k a year, much less make a mortgage payment when you're living paycheck to paycheck, whatever the income? And had something, ONE thing, unexpected happen that renders you unable to make one payment, and therefore leaving you chronically behind until you're either evicted or foreclosed?
Sure, let the housing market fail, but then why let the streets run with blood so we fortunate can feel correct in wrinkling our noses at those who have less, however they may have gotten there? It's this kind of attitude that turns me off to conservative viewpoints even if the logic is sound at the broad economic level. It costs a lot less to prop up the poor and struggling than it does to bail out a hedge fund or bloat a bond portfolio by the hundreds of billions. Sometimes reading books like this leaves me with the feeling that people in the financial world truly believe that we need to have an impoverished class to trod upon so that a comfortable middle and upper middle class can exist.
Also, what was up with Kotok and his 8 slots "for women" out of the 40 economists he invites to his fishing getaway? Y'all can't muster more than 8 women in all the world of finance and beyond? I cringed when DiMartino said she felt "lucky" or whatever word she used.
Overall, I felt that the historic, political, and financial analysis presented in this book is super informative and really got me thinking. There's just other Stuff mixed in that sometimes bolstered but also sometimes tarnished the quality of the whole for me. No matter what though, it's a good book to read for our current economic situation, and definitely made me want to read carefully and critically.
I really liked this book and how DiMartino spins out the narrative of the progression of the Fed and its various important players over the course of about 10 years. I feel like I learned a lot about the dearth of qualitative understanding of business and markets at least among statisticians at the Fed, and then of course, I learned a lot about the 2008 crisis (I was in middle school and high school at the time and didn't understand much of what was happening), about Wall Street, about how financial markets can signal emerging problems, about politics, and more. Fed Up is very well written and accessible.
Considering what went down in 2020 and how the Fed is finally starting to taper (via attrition), and how it's possible it could be too late at this point, I think this book is a timely read. Not to mention the housing bubble... housing nuclear explosion... whatever in the world is going on in the housing market right now. And the desperation for increasingly risky assets (crypto, options and futures, meme stocks) in order to generate big yield, fast. There's a lot going on with the economy right now that feels predicted and validated by what's outlined in this book.
I liked how DiMartino takes the reader through the steps of her career and her struggles in her personal life. What held this part back for me was the little comments she'd insert here and there that reeked of internalized misogyny (easy to see how any woman working on Wall Street would develop some, easier still in the case of a Christian woman with conservative leanings). And the little twee comments that made it clear that DiMartino was once a columnist for a newspaper, but could get really annoying in this book.
DiMartino also had what really felt like a personal vendetta against Janet Yellen, and while I agree with DiMartino that Yellen was not doing a great job at the Fed and failed to uphold her personal mandate of "looking out for the real people behind the statistics," the sarcasm and vitriol dripping from DiMartino's writing got to be kind of a lot and made a lot of the internalized misogyny jump out when it didn't have to. It was just very weird and jarring whenever DiMartino would talk about Yellen.
I'm glad that DiMartino touches on what her and Fisher's alternatives to econometric modeling were - but she only touches on her methods of transforming and analyzing data, and while I know this book isn't meant to be a technical dissertation at the mathematics level, I would've liked more. I also got the sense that DiMartino and several of the people she spoke to and quoted don't fully understand what models, or econometric models, are. I think her arguments could have been strengthened even more if the book demonstrated some understanding of the design of typical econometric models (usually, quarterly or monthly time series - for rate or probability models, probably logit/probit models, or MC models). I also thought it was strange how DiMartino never seemed to be able to pull her own data and kept having to phone it in. Hopefully in the latter half of the book, she was able to leverage modern technology and APIs rather than needing to call up friends who had Bloomberg terminals.
After reading Trillion Dollar Triage and being pretty disappointed at the author's total disconnect to how Main Street works for anyone who isn't a mid-sized business, I was relieved at how DiMartino talked about Main Street and how the Fed is completely delusional in thinking that interest rates can solve regular people's problems. Sure, the Fed helped CAUSE regular people's economic/financial problems in 2008 onward, but bonds and interest rates are not the balm, and DiMartino is 100% right in highlighting how the Fed's (likely disingenuous) efforts have only exacerbated wealth inequality in the US.
It's frustrating how not even DiMartino, however, toys with the idea of policy for corporations and how they pay and provide benefits to their employees. Neither did Timiraos. I agree that businesses need the freedom to fail and acquire and be acquired and try new things in order to function properly in the economy, but wealth inequality and poverty in the US is going to continue whether or not the Fed manages to raise interest rates and keep its nose out of the economy, unless the profits generated by businesses is redirected reasonably and fairly to those who put in the work to generate it, rather than to stock buybacks, millionaire CEOs, and frivolities. And as cynical as it sounds, that's not going to happen without legislation, especially with how enormous and powerful the US' largest and richest companies have become.
I definitely had an existential crisis when DiMartino pointed out that everyone has had to take on much more risk than anyone has ever had to in history just to generate enough yield to even hope to beat inflation since I've been alive. It turns out it's NOT normal to need to shove cash into index funds as the main option for diversified risk, rather than into ACTUAL "high yield" savings accounts, or CDs, or moneymarket accounts. It makes me upset to know that my generation is being raised to either save to no avail, or get used to risk that can literally destroy your future if you don't know how to handle that risk financially or emotionally. We don't even know what the good old days were anymore, and our parents don't understand why the way THEY were raised isn't working for anyone anymore.
I think DiMartino did an excellent job at explaining simply what the dual mandate is and why the Fed shouldn't even try to influence unemployment. She explains a lot of terms simply and beautifully. I do think, however, that she waited a little too long to give some of those explanations. She'd bring up a term or piece of history, and instead of explaining it in the next paragraph or sometime around then, she'd wait a whole chapter or longer to bring up the term again and THEN explain it. It made the writing feel a bit too scattered and unaware of its own chronology and progression at times.
I can't stand how out of touch the Fed is and how obvious it is that most of the members want to appease Wall Street because they will be working there after they inevitably leave the Fed, and how those who want to stay at the Fed need to therefore appease politicians. Everyone is beholden to someone and the Fed is definitely not independent. I loved the last chapter and all of DiMartino's demands for change. It was a great summation and laid out the impetus of the book super well.
There are a lot of ideas that DiMartino suggests, and some others she outright says, that I'm not sure I agree with. Or really just how I'm supposed to feel about the suggestion. For example, to have DiMartino explain it, it seems like by the time alarm bells were sounding in 2008, the government already had no choice but to bail out the Wall Street giants because the government had allowed so much capital and the fates of average Americans' financial lives to get tied up in those giants starting years before the collapse - which is why, according to DiMartino, letting Lehman fail was a mistake. And I'm guessing, why letting all of the banks and hedge funds fail would have definitely been a mistake.
But then, as DiMartino posits in her 2010 "Fallacy" paper, she says that the housing market should've been allowed to totally collapse on its own. Which sounds to me like - Wall Street needed to be saved, but leave Main Street to the wolves because in that case, the natural order is better. While at the same time, DiMartino disparages "welfare street." Which all sounds to me like - screw the poor and struggling, let them lose their homes, let them not be able to pay rent, and poo on them for needing handouts as a result. Not everyone in the US has a safety net they can fall into when things go pear-shaped. Have you ever tried making rent on less than 20k a year, much less make a mortgage payment when you're living paycheck to paycheck, whatever the income? And had something, ONE thing, unexpected happen that renders you unable to make one payment, and therefore leaving you chronically behind until you're either evicted or foreclosed?
Sure, let the housing market fail, but then why let the streets run with blood so we fortunate can feel correct in wrinkling our noses at those who have less, however they may have gotten there? It's this kind of attitude that turns me off to conservative viewpoints even if the logic is sound at the broad economic level. It costs a lot less to prop up the poor and struggling than it does to bail out a hedge fund or bloat a bond portfolio by the hundreds of billions. Sometimes reading books like this leaves me with the feeling that people in the financial world truly believe that we need to have an impoverished class to trod upon so that a comfortable middle and upper middle class can exist.
Also, what was up with Kotok and his 8 slots "for women" out of the 40 economists he invites to his fishing getaway? Y'all can't muster more than 8 women in all the world of finance and beyond? I cringed when DiMartino said she felt "lucky" or whatever word she used.
Overall, I felt that the historic, political, and financial analysis presented in this book is super informative and really got me thinking. There's just other Stuff mixed in that sometimes bolstered but also sometimes tarnished the quality of the whole for me. No matter what though, it's a good book to read for our current economic situation, and definitely made me want to read carefully and critically.
April 26, 2020
Fed Up – Danielle DiMartino Booth
For the financial markets enthusiasts, enough has been said and written about the run up to the Global Financial Crisis and its aftermath. Commentators have firmed up their views on whether Greenspan was the greatest thing to happen to America or led it to the brink of disaster. And whether his successor Bernanke, by hitting the zero bound, gave up the last vestige of control that monetary policy had and climbed on a tiger that he couldn’t get off.
Author Danielle Booth is clearly in the camp which thought that Greenspan was the father of the US housing crisis and the resultant global financial crisis, with his easy money policy. And Bernanke continued the good work of his predecessor and soon had lost touch with reality. So much so that the Fed’s decisions ignored the negative impact they had on the Main Street (as against the Wall Street).
Danielle takes a rather aggressive stance against the Fed’s decision-making process and doesn’t mince words when she calls out Bernanke and later Yellen for their perceived lack of intellectual integrity. She claims that these two Fed Chiefs preferred to use wrong data so that they could continue on their predetermined path rather than be receptive to signals from the economy. She accuses them of politicking and bullying to get the rest of the voting members of the Fed Governors to fall in line.
She also paints a rather sad picture of the economists within the Fed who, she believes, are too steeped in theoretical models and totally out of touch with the real world. Which is why, no one in the Fed had any understanding of the size of the shadow economy which had been created by Wall Street banks via a complex framework of entities.
The book begins rather promisingly when it talks about the impact of the rate cuts on senior citizens, pensioners, and pension funds. And how it forces them to either take higher risks or exposes them at a stage in life when they are most vulnerable. For a while, one gets the feeling that the author will explore the impact of the Fed’s decisions in the run-up and aftermath of the GFC on the real economy. However, it soon gets lost in a chronological account of various Fed meetings and events interspersed with the happenings on Wall Street.
An average book, overall, but worthwhile for getting an insight into the Fed before and after the GFC.
For the financial markets enthusiasts, enough has been said and written about the run up to the Global Financial Crisis and its aftermath. Commentators have firmed up their views on whether Greenspan was the greatest thing to happen to America or led it to the brink of disaster. And whether his successor Bernanke, by hitting the zero bound, gave up the last vestige of control that monetary policy had and climbed on a tiger that he couldn’t get off.
Author Danielle Booth is clearly in the camp which thought that Greenspan was the father of the US housing crisis and the resultant global financial crisis, with his easy money policy. And Bernanke continued the good work of his predecessor and soon had lost touch with reality. So much so that the Fed’s decisions ignored the negative impact they had on the Main Street (as against the Wall Street).
Danielle takes a rather aggressive stance against the Fed’s decision-making process and doesn’t mince words when she calls out Bernanke and later Yellen for their perceived lack of intellectual integrity. She claims that these two Fed Chiefs preferred to use wrong data so that they could continue on their predetermined path rather than be receptive to signals from the economy. She accuses them of politicking and bullying to get the rest of the voting members of the Fed Governors to fall in line.
She also paints a rather sad picture of the economists within the Fed who, she believes, are too steeped in theoretical models and totally out of touch with the real world. Which is why, no one in the Fed had any understanding of the size of the shadow economy which had been created by Wall Street banks via a complex framework of entities.
The book begins rather promisingly when it talks about the impact of the rate cuts on senior citizens, pensioners, and pension funds. And how it forces them to either take higher risks or exposes them at a stage in life when they are most vulnerable. For a while, one gets the feeling that the author will explore the impact of the Fed’s decisions in the run-up and aftermath of the GFC on the real economy. However, it soon gets lost in a chronological account of various Fed meetings and events interspersed with the happenings on Wall Street.
An average book, overall, but worthwhile for getting an insight into the Fed before and after the GFC.
August 4, 2020
After all the publicity hype about "an insider's view of the Fed Reserve" I started to turn the pages to get to "insights" by Danielle, sadly to be disappointed. She started off by introducing her own background and with a great deal of "humility" establishes how she might have been perceived as a misfit in the corridors of power, perpetuated by politics, Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street entities, and, renowned academics with great theoretical learning but mostly lacking relevant experience in banking, finance or trade.
Danielle keeps repeating her own background in almost each chapter but other than the briefest commentary on some bosses and colleagues, shies away from any "revelatory" insights. The book has not added to any anything that is not already known about the Fed and how its "leaders" are selected/nominated and operate.
Disappointed!
Danielle keeps repeating her own background in almost each chapter but other than the briefest commentary on some bosses and colleagues, shies away from any "revelatory" insights. The book has not added to any anything that is not already known about the Fed and how its "leaders" are selected/nominated and operate.
Disappointed!
March 23, 2017
The Fed: full of itself, but without the slightest success.
Finally an insiders view clearly describing that the Fed system is in the interest of the big banks only where bunch of academic idiots is working. The book is full of insight how the Fed is not only a political institution, also from a point of view of careers and hierarchy, but full of academic myopian fools. Who are, in true Fed speak,by definition and always behind the curve. And who have systemstically proven themselves not being able to predict the future of the US economy, but always state that predicting it is their true and exclusive expertise.
Finally an insiders view clearly describing that the Fed system is in the interest of the big banks only where bunch of academic idiots is working. The book is full of insight how the Fed is not only a political institution, also from a point of view of careers and hierarchy, but full of academic myopian fools. Who are, in true Fed speak,by definition and always behind the curve. And who have systemstically proven themselves not being able to predict the future of the US economy, but always state that predicting it is their true and exclusive expertise.
March 14, 2020
DiMartino Booth provides very interesting insights about workings of the Fed and personalities of some recent figures who ran the place. However the book devoted way too much time to a summary of the 2008 Financial Crisis - covered much better in many other books - and her own hostility against some of her former colleagues. I wish it had been more focused and shorter but worth reading at least the first couple of chapters.
May 29, 2022
A book on how the Federal Reserve operates, on the inside, written by a former high-level advisor to the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Also an insider's history on the Fed's response to the financial crisis that began in 2008.
It's worth noting that the author here is not an "end the Fed" person - she was a Fed insider, she believes in properly functioning central banks. And she is not a "regulations are bad" absolutist, though she thinks many of our present regulations benefit the wealthy and connected and do more harm than good to everyone else.
But the Federal Reserve itself is badly broken today, that is what you learn in this book. Sometimes conservatives look at our misbehaving state and wonder, "is it incompetence, or malice?" Far as the Federal Reserve is concerned, Booth would probably say "both", but with a particularly heavy dosing of incompetence. Actually her detailing of the inner workings of the Fed reminded me a lot of what we've seen from public health these last few years:
1. Institutions that are supposed to function as basically apolitical experts are instead highly politicized.
2. Institutions that are supposed to be independent instead spend of lot of time helping their buddies (big financial firms, in this case).
3. Experts that are supposed to be, well, expert on what is *really happening* are instead glued to the models they learned in college and the models everyone else uses and really prefer the world of the models to reality.
4. Groupthink within these institutions is, by far, the norm. Very few people dare to deviate from what everyone else is saying or doing. And, especially within the Fed, a very few universities produce almost all of the employees. Everyone has the same training, everyone is wrong together.
5. Both public health and the Fed essentially ran gigantic, nationwide experiments in which they messed with highly complex systems nobody really understands and so, unsurprisingly, provoked outcomes they didn't anticipate. (But, also in both cases, the wealthy and connected were able to personally avoid most of the harm, or even profit from it.)
6. And finally, people who are often not particularly smart or competent are very eager to be seen as the smartest people in the room.
It might be noted in particular that Janet Yellen is revealed in this book to be someone who has been particularly bad at her job going back to the early 2000s, and now she is Treasury Secretary. She has been failing upward in our present bureaucracy for a long time now.
It's worth noting that the author here is not an "end the Fed" person - she was a Fed insider, she believes in properly functioning central banks. And she is not a "regulations are bad" absolutist, though she thinks many of our present regulations benefit the wealthy and connected and do more harm than good to everyone else.
But the Federal Reserve itself is badly broken today, that is what you learn in this book. Sometimes conservatives look at our misbehaving state and wonder, "is it incompetence, or malice?" Far as the Federal Reserve is concerned, Booth would probably say "both", but with a particularly heavy dosing of incompetence. Actually her detailing of the inner workings of the Fed reminded me a lot of what we've seen from public health these last few years:
1. Institutions that are supposed to function as basically apolitical experts are instead highly politicized.
2. Institutions that are supposed to be independent instead spend of lot of time helping their buddies (big financial firms, in this case).
3. Experts that are supposed to be, well, expert on what is *really happening* are instead glued to the models they learned in college and the models everyone else uses and really prefer the world of the models to reality.
4. Groupthink within these institutions is, by far, the norm. Very few people dare to deviate from what everyone else is saying or doing. And, especially within the Fed, a very few universities produce almost all of the employees. Everyone has the same training, everyone is wrong together.
5. Both public health and the Fed essentially ran gigantic, nationwide experiments in which they messed with highly complex systems nobody really understands and so, unsurprisingly, provoked outcomes they didn't anticipate. (But, also in both cases, the wealthy and connected were able to personally avoid most of the harm, or even profit from it.)
6. And finally, people who are often not particularly smart or competent are very eager to be seen as the smartest people in the room.
It might be noted in particular that Janet Yellen is revealed in this book to be someone who has been particularly bad at her job going back to the early 2000s, and now she is Treasury Secretary. She has been failing upward in our present bureaucracy for a long time now.
May 21, 2024
So I will start out with why this book is not a five start: 1) it really, really needs a glossary of terms, 2) gets a little technical at times without better explanation. Other than those two points, everyone should be reading this book.
The longer I read the book the more infuriating I got at both the idiots in the Federal Reserve system and the bigger morons in Congress that have completely abdicated their proper role in holding the bureaucracy accountable.
From the insider's view, Danielle Booth pulled back the curtain and revealed that wizard was a clueless bunch of people, most of which were there only to enrich themselves and their cronies. The Federal Reserve literally stumbled its way through the housing bubble crash and were making it all up as they went. They had no idea what was going on or how to fix it.
One of the things that really loved about how Booth wrote the booth was starting each chapter with a quote from mostly Ben Bernanke or Janet Yellen on how nothing like the housing bubble could ever happen and if it did they were well prepared to handle it. Oops, missed the mark on that one.
This book should be mandatory reading in government classes on how the government is not always the answer and many times is the problem. It was fascinating and horrifying reading at the same time how the decision-makers literally stumbled their way from one crisis to the next. So caught up in their own infallibility that they failed to see the emperor had no cloths.
I wish I could say that we hopefully learned from that crash in 2008 but one of the most clueless people (just read her quotes alone in the book will make you shake your head) but instead Janet Yellen is now the secretary of the treasury continuing to push deeply flawed monetary policy.
I used to say that thankfully I would no live long enough to see the economic collapse of this country. After reading this book, I truly amazed it has not happened yet. Our politicians continue the spend like there is no tomorrow and that there will not eventually come a reckoning but, unfortunately, with the debt clock spinning like a fan this book makes you realize they are all just flying by the seat of the pants in DC.
The longer I read the book the more infuriating I got at both the idiots in the Federal Reserve system and the bigger morons in Congress that have completely abdicated their proper role in holding the bureaucracy accountable.
From the insider's view, Danielle Booth pulled back the curtain and revealed that wizard was a clueless bunch of people, most of which were there only to enrich themselves and their cronies. The Federal Reserve literally stumbled its way through the housing bubble crash and were making it all up as they went. They had no idea what was going on or how to fix it.
One of the things that really loved about how Booth wrote the booth was starting each chapter with a quote from mostly Ben Bernanke or Janet Yellen on how nothing like the housing bubble could ever happen and if it did they were well prepared to handle it. Oops, missed the mark on that one.
This book should be mandatory reading in government classes on how the government is not always the answer and many times is the problem. It was fascinating and horrifying reading at the same time how the decision-makers literally stumbled their way from one crisis to the next. So caught up in their own infallibility that they failed to see the emperor had no cloths.
I wish I could say that we hopefully learned from that crash in 2008 but one of the most clueless people (just read her quotes alone in the book will make you shake your head) but instead Janet Yellen is now the secretary of the treasury continuing to push deeply flawed monetary policy.
I used to say that thankfully I would no live long enough to see the economic collapse of this country. After reading this book, I truly amazed it has not happened yet. Our politicians continue the spend like there is no tomorrow and that there will not eventually come a reckoning but, unfortunately, with the debt clock spinning like a fan this book makes you realize they are all just flying by the seat of the pants in DC.
May 23, 2020
This book is a revelation that you can't always trust institutions whose mandate is to act in your -the public- best interest. The Fed's policies seem to have caused more harm than good to ordinary Americans and exponentially widened the rift between the haves and have-nots. It has also been eyeopening for me to see through the lens of this book that Economic models, even if formulated by the brightest of minds aren't without their limitations. People's behavior don't always conform to these Economic prognostications. The ordinary citizen isn't as 'Homo Economicus' as Economists would have us believe. They are very nuanced and affected by factors outside Economists' realm of sagacity.
I was however disappointed by the author's cursory brush through the canvas of potential panaceas or recommendations for reinventing the Fed and its objective(s) in the final chapter. Seeing as she has worked in the Fed for a lengthy period of time and seen the rot within first hand, I feel the author could have done a bit better in suggesting solutions. Nonetheless, this is a good book to get a sneak peak into the inner workings and intricacies of the Fed.
I was however disappointed by the author's cursory brush through the canvas of potential panaceas or recommendations for reinventing the Fed and its objective(s) in the final chapter. Seeing as she has worked in the Fed for a lengthy period of time and seen the rot within first hand, I feel the author could have done a bit better in suggesting solutions. Nonetheless, this is a good book to get a sneak peak into the inner workings and intricacies of the Fed.
May 31, 2020
This was a tough read. The subject is very interesting to me, and I remember well the 2008 economic crisis. I found this book, accidentally, through reading an internet article by the author, which I found well written and insightful. I researched her literary work and found this book.
The author takes us through her journey of working with the US FED before, during and after the crisis. Her insights are riveting and her descriptions of the events and the various players are excellent.
There is quite a bit of economic "jargon" and many uses of acronyms. This is always a pet peeve of mine. I think the rule is to use the full title with acronym in parenthesis, and from then forward, just use the acronym. This doesn't work for me unless I keep a list of the acronyms beside me when I read. I wish authors, especially in highly technical books, would continue to use the full name or title. It makes the reading process much more enjoyable for me.
Regardless, if you enjoy this type of literature, economic history, then you will appreciate this book.
I bought the audio version, which is narrated by the author, the quality of which is low.
The author takes us through her journey of working with the US FED before, during and after the crisis. Her insights are riveting and her descriptions of the events and the various players are excellent.
There is quite a bit of economic "jargon" and many uses of acronyms. This is always a pet peeve of mine. I think the rule is to use the full title with acronym in parenthesis, and from then forward, just use the acronym. This doesn't work for me unless I keep a list of the acronyms beside me when I read. I wish authors, especially in highly technical books, would continue to use the full name or title. It makes the reading process much more enjoyable for me.
Regardless, if you enjoy this type of literature, economic history, then you will appreciate this book.
I bought the audio version, which is narrated by the author, the quality of which is low.
July 17, 2017
Not a book for everyone. Ever want to know what the Federal Reserve Bank does? Me too. Now I know so much that my head wants to explode. The author intertwines her personal career at the Fed with history that I lived through but had little understanding of what was going on with the US economy. I just never realized how much power the Fed has over our lives. The power can be summarized in an inside joke at the Fed. "Who is the president of the People's Republic of China central bank? The answer is: "Ben Bernanke or now Janet Yellen". The decisions that the chairman of the US Fed makes affect the whole world. Ms Booth's writing was both entertaining and detailed beyond belief. I am glad that I read it, but now I see the downside. We are totally dependent on the poor decisions and poor choices that a few elite "central planners" make with no opportunity or voice to correct them. Ms Booth offers some suggestions that might improve Fed, but I don't see any of that happening in my lifetime.
September 13, 2017
I had wondered, to some extent, what really happened in 2005 and up. I sadly found out. This lady has a knack for explaining in the most understandable words, the mess between "The Feds, the investment banks, and that superiority complex they have. I have a friend who compared Bernanke and John Law as twins separated by 300years. When I sent the quote that Yellen is worse than Bernanke and Greenspan Combined. He was horrified. I didn't think it was possible to be worse than Greenspan. Sorry I do not have a PhD, especially in economics, but I have common sense. I do not like computers as these learned people do. We do need to blame Washington elected officials. How do we get out? Get rid of all the John Maynard Keynes working at the feds, let's audit the gold not only ours but the other countries. Why is Germany feel it is necessary to melt the repatriated gold. We could have this person write a book about this subject
March 6, 2021
I told myself I wanted to read a book or two about economics this year and I could not have picked a better book to start with. The author's voice is distinctive and inviting. She takes complex topics and breaks them down so that anyone can follow them without talking down to the reader.
The book draws clear lines between the actions of bankers, money markets, and the Federal Reserve and the real (if sometimes seemingly indirect) consequences on issues like housing and job growth. She connects the dots on exactly why the rich have gotten richer and the poor and middle classes have gotten poorer in the last twenty or so years.
It was fascinating to learn exactly what isn't working and why, who has tried to fix it and why they've failed, who *should* be trying to fix things but isn't, and what Americans should be calling for if they want change. (Spoilers: it's not abolishing the Fed.)
This was magnificently well written and I absolutely recommend it.
The book draws clear lines between the actions of bankers, money markets, and the Federal Reserve and the real (if sometimes seemingly indirect) consequences on issues like housing and job growth. She connects the dots on exactly why the rich have gotten richer and the poor and middle classes have gotten poorer in the last twenty or so years.
It was fascinating to learn exactly what isn't working and why, who has tried to fix it and why they've failed, who *should* be trying to fix things but isn't, and what Americans should be calling for if they want change. (Spoilers: it's not abolishing the Fed.)
This was magnificently well written and I absolutely recommend it.
April 17, 2020
"Nobody could have predicted the housing bubble" except all the people who DID, yet were mocked or ignored. But never mind them, you should only be listening to the ivory tower experts with academic theories and skewed data computer models. They delude themselves into thinking the economy can be incrementally dialed up or down like a thermostat. Lots of fancy jargon is used to obfuscate their actions. They know most people's eyes glaze over after a few minutes of monetary legalese- the almost Orwellian "Fed Speak." Any "stimulus" the government hands out will inevitably cost us much more in the long run. The wealth effect is merely a trick and not true prosperity. All the same mistakes will be made AGAIN whenever this reinflated bubble pops. Once you get on the quantitative easing train there's no stopping until the inevitable crash.
August 14, 2017
Though the author occasionally comes across as a know-it-all with a chip on her shoulder, her arguments against the Fed's recent performance are compelling. Her insider knowledge of the organization is fascinating, and it adds an additional level of credibility to her criticisms. Her conclusions won't necessarily satisfy those in the Ron Paul/End-The-Fed camp (she argues for a strong central bank that is more focused on inflation management than unemployment and spending habits), but they will still cheer for her criticism of the recent Fed leadership and their Ivory Tower Keynesianism.
January 29, 2020
Excellent history of the Federal Reserve, from someone who was working inside at the Dallas branch. Unfortunately, she reveals the central bank is staffed with highly intellectual arrogant people who are "clueless" about the real economy and the real world.
Add her voice to the rising chorus of reformers who complain the Fed does more harm than good and is only in place to protect arrogant greedy elites from their never ending catastrophes from trying to engineer money from trading schemes instead of real production of goods and services.
Add her voice to the rising chorus of reformers who complain the Fed does more harm than good and is only in place to protect arrogant greedy elites from their never ending catastrophes from trying to engineer money from trading schemes instead of real production of goods and services.
March 25, 2024
Timely Read the Fed is out of control
I felt like I was in the room with the author. I have been the contra thinker in the room like Danielle. It's a scary proposition wondering if the conventional wisdom will find a way to dismiss you. This book is for anyone trying understand the economy and the markets. That should be anyone with an ounce of curiosity. It seems like 2008-2014 all over again. The fix is in and the big money titans get rich again. Time for the Fed supervisory to staff up and work overtime.
I felt like I was in the room with the author. I have been the contra thinker in the room like Danielle. It's a scary proposition wondering if the conventional wisdom will find a way to dismiss you. This book is for anyone trying understand the economy and the markets. That should be anyone with an ounce of curiosity. It seems like 2008-2014 all over again. The fix is in and the big money titans get rich again. Time for the Fed supervisory to staff up and work overtime.
October 7, 2024
With its subtitle of 'An Insider's Take on Why the Federal Reserve is Bad for America' I was looking to learn the mechanics of how the Fed works. DiMartino provided some basic lay of the land, but focused instead on the global financial crisis - meaning the actions taken at a particular time by some people, rather than a systemic explanation of where the shortcomings are. Admittedly, my knowledge of the financial sector and the 2008 period or fairly superficial, so I may have not understood a lot of things.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 8, 2020
Picked up this book to learn about the mystery of the Federal Reserve... a seemingly important and influential organization that I couldn’t have told you 2 things about. It’s well-written and impassioned by someone who sees the importance in what she’s talking about. But it is dry. It’s about the Fed, what do you expect? Readers wanting a 5,000 foot level could read the first 2 and last 2 chapters and probably retain as much as the person who reads it all.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews