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Permanent Distortion: How the Financial Markets Abandoned the Real Economy Forever
A riveting exposé of a permanent financial dystopia, its causes, and real-world consequences It is abundantly clear that our world is divided into two very different economies. The real one, for the average worker, is based on productivity and results. It behaves according to traditional rules of money and economics. The other doesn’t. It is the product of years of loose money, poured by central banks into a system dominated by financial titans. It is powerful enough to send stock markets higher even in the face of a global pandemic and threats of nuclear war.
This parting from reality has its roots in an emergency response to the financial crisis of 2008. “Quantitative Easing” injected a vast amount of cash into the economy—especially if you were a major Wall Street bank. What began as a short-term dependency became a habit, then a compulsion, and finally an addiction.
Nomi Prins relentlessly exposes a world fractured by policies crafted by the largest financial institutions, led by the Federal Reserve, that have supercharged the financial system while selling out regular citizens and leading to social and political reckonings. She uncovers a newly polarized world of the mega rich versus the never rich, the winners and losers of an unprecedented distortion that can never return to “normal.”
This parting from reality has its roots in an emergency response to the financial crisis of 2008. “Quantitative Easing” injected a vast amount of cash into the economy—especially if you were a major Wall Street bank. What began as a short-term dependency became a habit, then a compulsion, and finally an addiction.
Nomi Prins relentlessly exposes a world fractured by policies crafted by the largest financial institutions, led by the Federal Reserve, that have supercharged the financial system while selling out regular citizens and leading to social and political reckonings. She uncovers a newly polarized world of the mega rich versus the never rich, the winners and losers of an unprecedented distortion that can never return to “normal.”
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Published October 11, 2022
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About the author
Nomi Prins
15 books225 followersNomi Prins is a former global investment banker, financial journalist, and sought-after international speaker and economic advisor, Her new book Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World is out May 1, 2018. Her previous books include All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power , It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America, a devastating expose into corporate corruption, political collusion and Wall Street deception which was chosen as a Best Book of 2004 by The Economist, Barron's and The Library Journal., Jacked, and the thriller, The Trail, published under her pseudonym, Natalia Prentice which was selected to Forbes CEO Book Club in April, 2008.
Before becoming a journalist, Nomi worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, and a Senior managing director running the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London. She has appeared internationally on BBC World and BBC Radio and nationally in the U.S. on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, PBS, CSPAN and other TV stations and been featured on dozens of radio shows including CNNRadio, Marketplace Radio, Air America, NPR, and various BBC stations. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Newsday, Fortune, Forbes, Mother Jones, Slate.com, The Guardian UK, The Nation, The American Prospect, and other publications.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
October 6, 2022
Nomi Prins has a very clear idea of why inequality has become so severe. In Permanent Distortion, she lays the blame squarely on central banks, and in particular the Federal Reserve Bank in the USA (Fed). In patient and detailed summaries of events, the conclusion, especially in hindsight, is crystal clear. Bankers stick together and share the wealth. The rest be damned.
To anyone in the UK, this is in no way a discovery. The old boys network rules, period. For the USA, it has become increasingly obvious as well. But not, it seems, to the Fed itself. The Fed has acted and continues to act as if on behalf of the greater good. Nothing could be further from the truth. It acts purely on behalf of other bankers, making them all fabulously wealthy even as the world burns.
A few dozen people have more money than the entire lower income half of the world. And it continues to worsen daily. When economies are humming, they make lots of money. And when things are bad, they make lots more money, thanks to the central banks. Even just the notion of a free market, she says, has become irrelevant.
This is not a textbook. Prins doesn’t use dismal economic theories to demonstrate various opposing forces (outside of a brief topline explanation of modern monetary theory). Instead, she recaps recent news, from the 2008 financial crisis to the present (including a long and ultimately pointless recitation of the history of bitcoin and alt-coins). The Fed’s own actions are more than sufficient to prove her point (which is why the bitcoin story is largely irrelevant), not to mention the copycat moves by central banks around the world, damaging their own economies even more. Central banks exacerbate inequality like nothing else does.
The real reason the Fed strives to exclude bitcoin and the rest from its calculations is simply control. The Fed has no control over bitcoin. And if it can’t manipulate a currency, it must therefore not be a currency. Or not allowed to be considered or become one. So recapping the history of bitcoin over numerous pages is ultimately a waste of time. It plays no role here whatsoever.
She says in summary: “Today’s financial system is as unhinged from the realities of classic capitalism as it is from the economy.” This is her way of summing up the centuries-old battle between Wall Street and Main Street. Only she takes it a step further: even capitalism would be shocked at the action of the Fed. Because the Fed has settled on a headscratching and bizarre course of action - save the banks at all cost, and merely hope that some money finds its way from them into the economy. Whether it is called trickle down or science fiction, that is the aegis under which the whole world now operates, from Brazil to China and everywhere in between. This one tactic is the root of galloping inequality globally.
Prins, who has been a banker for the biggest banks, says “After more than a decade of artificial monetary policy experiments, one thing was clear: central bankers had demonstrated gross negligence. Central banks didn’t invent inequality or instability, but ten years of evidence was surely enough to prove their policies had aggravated the gap between the haves and the have-nots.”
Here’s how it works:
Banks have one operating rule – find a way around the law, especially around the intent of the law. No matter how strongly countries try to rein in their banks, the banks worm their way out and enrich themselves by doing things quasi-legally or outright fraudulently. Everyone must follow or be left behind. This becomes a bubble, and the bubble bursts. The banks then cry for help, along with the entire economy they have brought to its knees. The banks are too precious to go down, too big to fail, etc. The Fed comes to their rescue. It throws money at the banks to prevent them from closing up and disrupting the flow of money to the largest corporations. Bankers don’t get arrested. They don’t get booted out. They mostly don’t even get fined, and when they do, it’s their banks that pay, not them personally.
With their cash river restored, and with no requirement from the Fed to use the money wisely this time, the whole cycle repeats. Ad nauseam.
On the other side of the ledger is Main Street – the economy. Despite its own cries for help, with unemployment rising, bankruptcies everywhere, intractable government deficits due to lower tax receipts, infrastructure crumbling (causing lower productivity) and budgets eviscerated by inflation, the Fed only helps its fellow bankers – who caused the whole mess all by themselves.
Because the Fed has a unique trick. It can print money at will. It’s just a keystroke. It can and does purchase billions of dollars of bonds every month (called Quantitative Easing or QE), putting cash in the hands of the sellers of those bonds. There is so much cash around that the sellers have no choice but to put it - in banks. Banks are so flush they long ago decided not to even bother with mid-size, let alone small business. These crumbs have been left to new entities called business development corporations. And the banks are their biggest investors. Everything about banking is distorted.
The Fed has kept interest rates at or near zero, to encourage inexpensive borrowing. That borrowing is all done by huge corporations and banks, for their own benefit. It often goes to public companies, which use it to buy up their own stock instead of improving or expanding their businesses. This avoids messy hiring and training, unprofitable new building and expansion, and expensive operations. Instead, stock prices keep rising, even as the economy crumbles. The richest benefit the most. Again. And banks howl at the slightest hint of higher rates.
Even though the Fed naively hopes the banks will share the wealth, there can be no trickle down – the banks refuse. Prins found that 70% of the payouts from public companies went to buying back their own stock because they don’t know what else to do with it that will add as much to their own wealth. This very much includes the members of the Fed, former private bankers all. They all seem to get caught spending an inordinate amount of time trading for their own accounts. After all, they know what’s coming better than anyone.
Even the disbursement of the trillions by the Fed is corrupt. It hired Blackstone, a multitrillion dollar banking firm, to make its bond purchases for it, instead of purchasing them directly in the market. Blackstone uses new Fed dollars to purchase shares in its own ETFs – exchange-traded funds - that look and act just like stocks. It is those ETFs that actually purchase the bonds with the Fed’s new money. Meanwhile, the Fed pays Blackstone two cents per hundred dollar expenditure to buy them on its behalf. As the total amount of Fed largess is in the trillions, this makes Blackstone additional tens of billions on top of the investments themselves. It helps keep it all in the family.
Yes, government finally got annoyed. With the COVID pandemic, it took the unprecedented step of sending ordinary people and small firms wads of cash to help them get over things like lockdowns, unfunded payrolls and overdue rents. One of the reasons was that hundreds of millions of people screamed during the last recession that they would help the economy far more than banks if the Fed’s aid was given directly to them to actually spend in the economy rather than to rich banks that used it for stock buybacks for themselves.
But wait; there’s more.
This mess is the permanent distortion of the book’s title, in vivid action. But it doesn’t stop here. Prins points to the rest of the world being forced to follow the Fed: “During 2019, sixty-seven central banks eased monetary policy—by either cutting rates, lowering reserve requirements, initiating loan programs, or restarting asset purchases. Yet this exercise only added half a percentage point to global economic growth, according to the IMF.” Meanwhile, global debt has risen to an unimaginable $225 trillion as issuers know that central banks will buy up their paper. Si it is no exaggeration to say the world is awash in money. And clearly, that money is not going to improving common lives.
We all see and recognize this does not work, but we continue to allow the Fed to do ever more of it, keeping interest rates low so the banks won’t scream. Their screams count more than the screams of seven billion people put at risk by its actions. It is so ingrained that even when the Fed announces its intention to raise interest rates, the bond market not only doesn’t fall, it often rises, and dramatically so. The spread between the two year treasury and the 30 year is actually negative. You get a higher payout from the two than the 30 (or from any other treasury note). This means the bond market recognizes interest rates have risen, but expects the Fed to reverse course and restore nearly free money after a year or two. This cannot be a long term trend, is the message from the bond market. It fully expects the Fed to cave in to aid their poor bank bros again soon. And the bond market is not often wrong.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Fed Chairman does not see it that way: “In February 2020, as he spoke before the Senate Banking Committee, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell claimed ‘there is nothing about this economy that is out of kilter or imbalanced.’” This despite the fact the Fed alone now owned a quarter of the government bonds in the market. Not China, not investment banks – the Fed.
Even God had had enough by then, and the COVID pandemic caused the stock market to crater just three weeks after Powell’s testimony. But not to worry. Prins cites Dennis Kelleher, who runs a markets watchdog service as saying “that the pandemic has been very good for banks and their shareholders, even as it has devastated millions of America’s workers, homeowners, renters, and Main Street businesses.” And he was just referring to the bogus stress tests the banks were pre-prepared for by the Fed. But none of this is a revelation to anyone in finance.
Prins tries really hard to make it understandable. She is forever offering allusions to more familiar phrases so the reader might understand what the Fed and the banks are actually doing. She says that Fed actions are like watering selected plants in the garden, for example, if that is helpful. But sometimes, her efforts get so strained they become comical: “The pandemic aggravated the existing distortion between the real economy and the market in the same way that scratching off a scab can result in a permanent scar.” …um…okay…
This is about as insightful as beavers in the closet. (And if you know that reference, you are likely the only other person in the world who appreciated it, and my hat comes off to you.)
There are also things to disagree with, like: “The metaverse, or immersive techno-reality, is a symptom and outcome of today’s distortion. At its core, it represents a virtual and technological protest against central banks, private megabanks, and the cronyism between governments and companies.” No, the metaverse is a profit center. It is there to bilk people out of billions of dollars. It is simple capitalism in action.
The proof of the Fed nonsense is in the stats, and Prins has them. She says the US economy grew 2.2% in 2012, while the S&P 500 index rose 13.4%. The same thing was happening all over the world. It made no sense, until you plugged in the central bank buying and subsequent share buybacks, distorting the free market beyond recognition.
After this strong showing, the conclusion of Permanent Distortion is unexpectedly weak, pointing to five areas where economies will focus in the future, and basically ignoring what needs to be done about the central bank distortions, the actual subject of preceding book. Regardless, readers will get the impression those distortions are not only here to stay, they have only just begun. That is the most damning of all.
David Wineberg
If you liked this review, I invite you to read more in my book The Straight Dope. It’s an essay collection based on my first thousand reviews and what I learned. Right now it’s FREE for Prime members, otherwise — cheap! Reputed to be fascinating and a superfast read. And you already know it is well-written. https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-...
To anyone in the UK, this is in no way a discovery. The old boys network rules, period. For the USA, it has become increasingly obvious as well. But not, it seems, to the Fed itself. The Fed has acted and continues to act as if on behalf of the greater good. Nothing could be further from the truth. It acts purely on behalf of other bankers, making them all fabulously wealthy even as the world burns.
A few dozen people have more money than the entire lower income half of the world. And it continues to worsen daily. When economies are humming, they make lots of money. And when things are bad, they make lots more money, thanks to the central banks. Even just the notion of a free market, she says, has become irrelevant.
This is not a textbook. Prins doesn’t use dismal economic theories to demonstrate various opposing forces (outside of a brief topline explanation of modern monetary theory). Instead, she recaps recent news, from the 2008 financial crisis to the present (including a long and ultimately pointless recitation of the history of bitcoin and alt-coins). The Fed’s own actions are more than sufficient to prove her point (which is why the bitcoin story is largely irrelevant), not to mention the copycat moves by central banks around the world, damaging their own economies even more. Central banks exacerbate inequality like nothing else does.
The real reason the Fed strives to exclude bitcoin and the rest from its calculations is simply control. The Fed has no control over bitcoin. And if it can’t manipulate a currency, it must therefore not be a currency. Or not allowed to be considered or become one. So recapping the history of bitcoin over numerous pages is ultimately a waste of time. It plays no role here whatsoever.
She says in summary: “Today’s financial system is as unhinged from the realities of classic capitalism as it is from the economy.” This is her way of summing up the centuries-old battle between Wall Street and Main Street. Only she takes it a step further: even capitalism would be shocked at the action of the Fed. Because the Fed has settled on a headscratching and bizarre course of action - save the banks at all cost, and merely hope that some money finds its way from them into the economy. Whether it is called trickle down or science fiction, that is the aegis under which the whole world now operates, from Brazil to China and everywhere in between. This one tactic is the root of galloping inequality globally.
Prins, who has been a banker for the biggest banks, says “After more than a decade of artificial monetary policy experiments, one thing was clear: central bankers had demonstrated gross negligence. Central banks didn’t invent inequality or instability, but ten years of evidence was surely enough to prove their policies had aggravated the gap between the haves and the have-nots.”
Here’s how it works:
Banks have one operating rule – find a way around the law, especially around the intent of the law. No matter how strongly countries try to rein in their banks, the banks worm their way out and enrich themselves by doing things quasi-legally or outright fraudulently. Everyone must follow or be left behind. This becomes a bubble, and the bubble bursts. The banks then cry for help, along with the entire economy they have brought to its knees. The banks are too precious to go down, too big to fail, etc. The Fed comes to their rescue. It throws money at the banks to prevent them from closing up and disrupting the flow of money to the largest corporations. Bankers don’t get arrested. They don’t get booted out. They mostly don’t even get fined, and when they do, it’s their banks that pay, not them personally.
With their cash river restored, and with no requirement from the Fed to use the money wisely this time, the whole cycle repeats. Ad nauseam.
On the other side of the ledger is Main Street – the economy. Despite its own cries for help, with unemployment rising, bankruptcies everywhere, intractable government deficits due to lower tax receipts, infrastructure crumbling (causing lower productivity) and budgets eviscerated by inflation, the Fed only helps its fellow bankers – who caused the whole mess all by themselves.
Because the Fed has a unique trick. It can print money at will. It’s just a keystroke. It can and does purchase billions of dollars of bonds every month (called Quantitative Easing or QE), putting cash in the hands of the sellers of those bonds. There is so much cash around that the sellers have no choice but to put it - in banks. Banks are so flush they long ago decided not to even bother with mid-size, let alone small business. These crumbs have been left to new entities called business development corporations. And the banks are their biggest investors. Everything about banking is distorted.
The Fed has kept interest rates at or near zero, to encourage inexpensive borrowing. That borrowing is all done by huge corporations and banks, for their own benefit. It often goes to public companies, which use it to buy up their own stock instead of improving or expanding their businesses. This avoids messy hiring and training, unprofitable new building and expansion, and expensive operations. Instead, stock prices keep rising, even as the economy crumbles. The richest benefit the most. Again. And banks howl at the slightest hint of higher rates.
Even though the Fed naively hopes the banks will share the wealth, there can be no trickle down – the banks refuse. Prins found that 70% of the payouts from public companies went to buying back their own stock because they don’t know what else to do with it that will add as much to their own wealth. This very much includes the members of the Fed, former private bankers all. They all seem to get caught spending an inordinate amount of time trading for their own accounts. After all, they know what’s coming better than anyone.
Even the disbursement of the trillions by the Fed is corrupt. It hired Blackstone, a multitrillion dollar banking firm, to make its bond purchases for it, instead of purchasing them directly in the market. Blackstone uses new Fed dollars to purchase shares in its own ETFs – exchange-traded funds - that look and act just like stocks. It is those ETFs that actually purchase the bonds with the Fed’s new money. Meanwhile, the Fed pays Blackstone two cents per hundred dollar expenditure to buy them on its behalf. As the total amount of Fed largess is in the trillions, this makes Blackstone additional tens of billions on top of the investments themselves. It helps keep it all in the family.
Yes, government finally got annoyed. With the COVID pandemic, it took the unprecedented step of sending ordinary people and small firms wads of cash to help them get over things like lockdowns, unfunded payrolls and overdue rents. One of the reasons was that hundreds of millions of people screamed during the last recession that they would help the economy far more than banks if the Fed’s aid was given directly to them to actually spend in the economy rather than to rich banks that used it for stock buybacks for themselves.
But wait; there’s more.
This mess is the permanent distortion of the book’s title, in vivid action. But it doesn’t stop here. Prins points to the rest of the world being forced to follow the Fed: “During 2019, sixty-seven central banks eased monetary policy—by either cutting rates, lowering reserve requirements, initiating loan programs, or restarting asset purchases. Yet this exercise only added half a percentage point to global economic growth, according to the IMF.” Meanwhile, global debt has risen to an unimaginable $225 trillion as issuers know that central banks will buy up their paper. Si it is no exaggeration to say the world is awash in money. And clearly, that money is not going to improving common lives.
We all see and recognize this does not work, but we continue to allow the Fed to do ever more of it, keeping interest rates low so the banks won’t scream. Their screams count more than the screams of seven billion people put at risk by its actions. It is so ingrained that even when the Fed announces its intention to raise interest rates, the bond market not only doesn’t fall, it often rises, and dramatically so. The spread between the two year treasury and the 30 year is actually negative. You get a higher payout from the two than the 30 (or from any other treasury note). This means the bond market recognizes interest rates have risen, but expects the Fed to reverse course and restore nearly free money after a year or two. This cannot be a long term trend, is the message from the bond market. It fully expects the Fed to cave in to aid their poor bank bros again soon. And the bond market is not often wrong.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Fed Chairman does not see it that way: “In February 2020, as he spoke before the Senate Banking Committee, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell claimed ‘there is nothing about this economy that is out of kilter or imbalanced.’” This despite the fact the Fed alone now owned a quarter of the government bonds in the market. Not China, not investment banks – the Fed.
Even God had had enough by then, and the COVID pandemic caused the stock market to crater just three weeks after Powell’s testimony. But not to worry. Prins cites Dennis Kelleher, who runs a markets watchdog service as saying “that the pandemic has been very good for banks and their shareholders, even as it has devastated millions of America’s workers, homeowners, renters, and Main Street businesses.” And he was just referring to the bogus stress tests the banks were pre-prepared for by the Fed. But none of this is a revelation to anyone in finance.
Prins tries really hard to make it understandable. She is forever offering allusions to more familiar phrases so the reader might understand what the Fed and the banks are actually doing. She says that Fed actions are like watering selected plants in the garden, for example, if that is helpful. But sometimes, her efforts get so strained they become comical: “The pandemic aggravated the existing distortion between the real economy and the market in the same way that scratching off a scab can result in a permanent scar.” …um…okay…
This is about as insightful as beavers in the closet. (And if you know that reference, you are likely the only other person in the world who appreciated it, and my hat comes off to you.)
There are also things to disagree with, like: “The metaverse, or immersive techno-reality, is a symptom and outcome of today’s distortion. At its core, it represents a virtual and technological protest against central banks, private megabanks, and the cronyism between governments and companies.” No, the metaverse is a profit center. It is there to bilk people out of billions of dollars. It is simple capitalism in action.
The proof of the Fed nonsense is in the stats, and Prins has them. She says the US economy grew 2.2% in 2012, while the S&P 500 index rose 13.4%. The same thing was happening all over the world. It made no sense, until you plugged in the central bank buying and subsequent share buybacks, distorting the free market beyond recognition.
After this strong showing, the conclusion of Permanent Distortion is unexpectedly weak, pointing to five areas where economies will focus in the future, and basically ignoring what needs to be done about the central bank distortions, the actual subject of preceding book. Regardless, readers will get the impression those distortions are not only here to stay, they have only just begun. That is the most damning of all.
David Wineberg
If you liked this review, I invite you to read more in my book The Straight Dope. It’s an essay collection based on my first thousand reviews and what I learned. Right now it’s FREE for Prime members, otherwise — cheap! Reputed to be fascinating and a superfast read. And you already know it is well-written. https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-...
December 11, 2022
From the documented accounts in this book, Nomi Prins demonstrates that the stock market has little relation to, and even less impact on, the real economy where most people live. Although left brain bean counters will be right at home with the almost overload of quantitative information, readers without a financial background will also be able to follow these events that follow the money. Prins recounts event after event in which the markets are saved and usually come out stronger from financial melt downs such as that in 2008—while the real economy as measured by quality employment and financial security for those not playing the markets continues to decline. From causations documented in this book, Prins makes it clear that the real economy will never recover under this system. Increasing numbers of people are waking up to that every day—and they are starting to do something about it, including the use by some of digital currencies such as Bitcoin.
As implied in the book's title, Prins asserts there is no going back. The author identifies five main emerging economic sectors that overlap in functionality, material, and skills needed to implement them: 1. New energy, 2. Infrastructure, 3. Transformative technology, 4. New money, and 5. Meta-reality (Metaverse and artificial intelligence). Prins also identifies the sectors that are attracting public/private infrastructure investment in the real economy, and those are: 1. Sustainable power, 2. Technological innovation, 3. Virtual collaboration portals, and 4. Revolutionizing of money itself.
Of the several points made in this book, a prominent take away is the complete separation of the markets from the real economy—that when there is news of the market doing well, one must remember that has nothing to do with the real economy. Let's lean into the future and insist that all financial activity be put to genuine productive use.
As implied in the book's title, Prins asserts there is no going back. The author identifies five main emerging economic sectors that overlap in functionality, material, and skills needed to implement them: 1. New energy, 2. Infrastructure, 3. Transformative technology, 4. New money, and 5. Meta-reality (Metaverse and artificial intelligence). Prins also identifies the sectors that are attracting public/private infrastructure investment in the real economy, and those are: 1. Sustainable power, 2. Technological innovation, 3. Virtual collaboration portals, and 4. Revolutionizing of money itself.
Of the several points made in this book, a prominent take away is the complete separation of the markets from the real economy—that when there is news of the market doing well, one must remember that has nothing to do with the real economy. Let's lean into the future and insist that all financial activity be put to genuine productive use.
May 13, 2023
Let the record show that reading the “Books and Arts” section of a newspaper can actually be worth your time. Not that arts and books aren’t important. I love books. I love art. But, who has the time? If I hadn’t read the recommendation for Nomi Prins’ book in the Nation, I would have been worse off for it. And quite honestly, financial markets are a topic I have a hard time grasping (with my puny brain) so I always welcome a protracted analysis.
The first thing that stands out is that Prins herself is a former Wall Street executive. She also has a Ph.D. in political economy. What made her see the light and start writing books on the evils of Wall Street is anyone’s guess. But maybe she’s the right person to do it, because I suspect she’s as guilty of these infractions as the banks she’s accusing. But no matter.
The point Prins tries to make in Permanent Distortion is “simple.” Whenever a financial crisis strikes, the default reaction of governments is to give the large banks huge amounts of money so that they have they’re able to lend it to smaller businesses on main street. They do this by lowering the rates on money that banks can borrow (making it “cheap” money) in the form of bonds. Governments make these bond available by a process called QE, which seems like just making it up out of thin air. Kind of like going on a computer and adding extra zeros to your bank account. This adds to the inflation and makes things harder on regular folks because their dollars aren’t worth as much. Oh, and the money they make available to large banks comes with no strings attached. There is no oversight and no obligation of the banks to make the money available to anyone. What they do is make sure their stock goes up by buying it themselves (at least that’s the impression I’m getting and I wish Prins would expound on this phenomenon a little more, with some examples). This leads to surges in the stock market and little effect to the actual economy or GDP as it stagnantes. This is just a continuous cycle as banks go in search of cheap money anywhere they can find it (in their own country, or abroad) in order to maintain their dominance. If there are no consequences and no repercussions for their actions, this behavior will continue “forever.” At least, I’m hoping I understood all that correctly.
It's all fascinating stuff, and I have to highly recommend Permanent Distortion. I would have liked this book to be twice the size with a closer examination of where the money goes from the fed to the banks and how it’s split between the financial markets and GDP. As much as I enjoyed it, there are still questions that linger in my brain, or maybe the reality is just too outrageous to grasp. It’s scary stuff, that’s for sure.
3.5 stars
The first thing that stands out is that Prins herself is a former Wall Street executive. She also has a Ph.D. in political economy. What made her see the light and start writing books on the evils of Wall Street is anyone’s guess. But maybe she’s the right person to do it, because I suspect she’s as guilty of these infractions as the banks she’s accusing. But no matter.
The point Prins tries to make in Permanent Distortion is “simple.” Whenever a financial crisis strikes, the default reaction of governments is to give the large banks huge amounts of money so that they have they’re able to lend it to smaller businesses on main street. They do this by lowering the rates on money that banks can borrow (making it “cheap” money) in the form of bonds. Governments make these bond available by a process called QE, which seems like just making it up out of thin air. Kind of like going on a computer and adding extra zeros to your bank account. This adds to the inflation and makes things harder on regular folks because their dollars aren’t worth as much. Oh, and the money they make available to large banks comes with no strings attached. There is no oversight and no obligation of the banks to make the money available to anyone. What they do is make sure their stock goes up by buying it themselves (at least that’s the impression I’m getting and I wish Prins would expound on this phenomenon a little more, with some examples). This leads to surges in the stock market and little effect to the actual economy or GDP as it stagnantes. This is just a continuous cycle as banks go in search of cheap money anywhere they can find it (in their own country, or abroad) in order to maintain their dominance. If there are no consequences and no repercussions for their actions, this behavior will continue “forever.” At least, I’m hoping I understood all that correctly.
It's all fascinating stuff, and I have to highly recommend Permanent Distortion. I would have liked this book to be twice the size with a closer examination of where the money goes from the fed to the banks and how it’s split between the financial markets and GDP. As much as I enjoyed it, there are still questions that linger in my brain, or maybe the reality is just too outrageous to grasp. It’s scary stuff, that’s for sure.
3.5 stars
December 14, 2022
This is an immensely important book to understand money, the distribution of wealth, and the imbalances of our world, in the current dispensation. Namely, the advent of crypto is wonderfully and very solidly, established. I did find the writing a bit dry, but Nomi Prins was trying to establish facts, a tsunami of them, in a narrative punctuated with recent financial history, so I guess it is a small price to pay for the ultimate payout.
This kind of extremely well thought of and grounded books, as this emphatically is, makes me always think about Bertrand Russell's observation that "If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way." I suppose that even after munching all the evidence offered herein, there will be people that will not accept the red pill being extended.
"The Fed’s policy of creating money was like putting air in old tires. If you continue pumping air into them, they can burst, but if you don’t pump enough, they won’t get you where you need to go. When bubbles that are artificially inflated pop, fragile financial systems and their underlying economies are thrown into panic, crisis, recession, or depression. (...) After more than a decade of artificial monetary policy experiments, one thing was clear: central bankers had demonstrated gross negligence. Central banks didn’t invent inequality or instability, but ten years of evidence was surely enough to prove their policies had aggravated the gap between the haves and the have-nots. These policies had triggered major repercussions, including social unrest, the Brexit vote, the Yellow Vests movement in France, and street battles for Hong Kong’s sovereignty. Meanwhile, stock indices soared to new heights, building a false sense of security on fabricated capital. The assumption that their policies would evoke real growth ignored what was happening on the ground. The threat of a collapse larger than the 2008 financial crisis loomed because of the plethora of asset bubbles that central banks had fueled. What they set was the scene for a more disastrous fall from a higher height of artificially inflated stock and debt markets whenever the next market calamity arrived."
"By September 2019 global manufacturing was exhibiting its longest downturn in seven years. Overall, global economic growth was contracting. Central banks’ desperate moves had buoyed the investor class, yet being “market friendly” was not the same as being “pro-growth,” especially when it came to swelling inequality and those who were being left behind. Monetary policy had become a driver of financial globalization and power. Manufactured money flowed disproportionately to the ultrawealthy and into market-based assets, rather than to boosting struggling workers and funding long-term development projects. The result was that monetary policy contributed to rising inequality, geopolitical tension, civil unrest, nationalism, trade wars, and corporate uncertainty. Social anxiety meant greater civil unrest as people were left behind economically by their governments, central banks, and the financial system."
"The American financial system was broken. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, major central bankers had deployed extreme monetary interventions on behalf of the biggest banks and the markets in which they operated. But what began as a rescue mission had become a perilous habit that increased economic and financial distortion. Ultra-loose monetary policy fueled asset and debt bubbles.74 The world, bloated and tottering on its magic money, desperately needed a period of real economic growth and calm stability. But the global economy was on far from solid ground. Instead it was like a mountain climber unaware that he is standing on a crust of ice atop a crevasse and that the ice could give way at any moment. As 2019 became 2020, the thin supporting layer of ice gave way and the fall began."
And then, the pandemic hit (and later on, the war in Ukraine): "If the 2008 financial crisis had exposed the biggest banks on Wall Street as entities that were “too big to fail,” during the pandemic the policies of the Fed and other key central banks had been exposed as “too big to correct.” Ultimately, the failure of these monetary policies occurs because the stock market of the modern era has relatively little to do with long-term, productive, economy-fortifying investment. Wall Street firms, stock investments, and equities have almost nothing to do with a company deploying capital for research, development, wages, and benefits."
And it kept going downhill for the majority of us, because of political choices, either by the governments, or the central bankers: "Over at the Fed, in September, chairman Jerome Powell, under scrutiny for individual securities purchases made by key Fed leaders, ordered an ethics review. It turned out that two regional Fed presidents held assets similar to those bought by the Fed’s purchase program during the height of the pandemic. Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren held between $151,000 and $800,000 worth of real estate investment trusts (REITs) that owned mortgage-backed securities, even as the Fed purchased about $700 billion of mortgage-backed securities. Only weeks after his personal trading came under question, Rosengren announced his sudden retirement. Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan, a former vice chairman at Goldman Sachs, whose trading far exceeded that of Rosengren and his Fed president colleagues at the time, made dozens of individual stock trades totaling $1 million or more in 2020 as the pandemic raged and the Fed and US government unleashed epic levels of stimulus. Kaplan retired the following month, citing the focus on his financial dealings.
The Fed’s code of conduct states that Fed officials “should be careful to avoid any dealings or other conduct that might convey even an appearance of conflict between their personal interests, the interests of the system, and the public interest.” Yet CNBC found that Powell held $1.25–$2.5 million worth of the kind of municipal bonds the Fed bought for its own book in 2020. They were purchased before the pandemic but held through the 2020 period, in which the Fed added $5 billion worth of municipal bonds. There are some gray lines here, to be sure. Since the securities were all bought before the pandemic, not selling them wasn’t necessarily against the law. But the situation showed that there is not enough air between what central bankers can do with their personal finances and what they get to do on behalf of the Fed’s broader book and policies. The same goes for legislators, whether the trades they made were smaller than those required to be reported or not. The very possibility of them benefiting from their own legislation or access to sensitive intelligence is a form of corruption." Yeah, don't say...
And it goes and goes... This is depressing reading, for sure, I couldn't read the book in one go, as I kept feeling repulsed, angry, impotent. I had to stop and force myself to keep going, after long pauses with other distractions. But it is indeed a work of true public service, an essential piece of financial literature to help understand the unimaginable mess we find ourselves into.
This kind of extremely well thought of and grounded books, as this emphatically is, makes me always think about Bertrand Russell's observation that "If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way." I suppose that even after munching all the evidence offered herein, there will be people that will not accept the red pill being extended.
"The Fed’s policy of creating money was like putting air in old tires. If you continue pumping air into them, they can burst, but if you don’t pump enough, they won’t get you where you need to go. When bubbles that are artificially inflated pop, fragile financial systems and their underlying economies are thrown into panic, crisis, recession, or depression. (...) After more than a decade of artificial monetary policy experiments, one thing was clear: central bankers had demonstrated gross negligence. Central banks didn’t invent inequality or instability, but ten years of evidence was surely enough to prove their policies had aggravated the gap between the haves and the have-nots. These policies had triggered major repercussions, including social unrest, the Brexit vote, the Yellow Vests movement in France, and street battles for Hong Kong’s sovereignty. Meanwhile, stock indices soared to new heights, building a false sense of security on fabricated capital. The assumption that their policies would evoke real growth ignored what was happening on the ground. The threat of a collapse larger than the 2008 financial crisis loomed because of the plethora of asset bubbles that central banks had fueled. What they set was the scene for a more disastrous fall from a higher height of artificially inflated stock and debt markets whenever the next market calamity arrived."
"By September 2019 global manufacturing was exhibiting its longest downturn in seven years. Overall, global economic growth was contracting. Central banks’ desperate moves had buoyed the investor class, yet being “market friendly” was not the same as being “pro-growth,” especially when it came to swelling inequality and those who were being left behind. Monetary policy had become a driver of financial globalization and power. Manufactured money flowed disproportionately to the ultrawealthy and into market-based assets, rather than to boosting struggling workers and funding long-term development projects. The result was that monetary policy contributed to rising inequality, geopolitical tension, civil unrest, nationalism, trade wars, and corporate uncertainty. Social anxiety meant greater civil unrest as people were left behind economically by their governments, central banks, and the financial system."
"The American financial system was broken. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, major central bankers had deployed extreme monetary interventions on behalf of the biggest banks and the markets in which they operated. But what began as a rescue mission had become a perilous habit that increased economic and financial distortion. Ultra-loose monetary policy fueled asset and debt bubbles.74 The world, bloated and tottering on its magic money, desperately needed a period of real economic growth and calm stability. But the global economy was on far from solid ground. Instead it was like a mountain climber unaware that he is standing on a crust of ice atop a crevasse and that the ice could give way at any moment. As 2019 became 2020, the thin supporting layer of ice gave way and the fall began."
And then, the pandemic hit (and later on, the war in Ukraine): "If the 2008 financial crisis had exposed the biggest banks on Wall Street as entities that were “too big to fail,” during the pandemic the policies of the Fed and other key central banks had been exposed as “too big to correct.” Ultimately, the failure of these monetary policies occurs because the stock market of the modern era has relatively little to do with long-term, productive, economy-fortifying investment. Wall Street firms, stock investments, and equities have almost nothing to do with a company deploying capital for research, development, wages, and benefits."
And it kept going downhill for the majority of us, because of political choices, either by the governments, or the central bankers: "Over at the Fed, in September, chairman Jerome Powell, under scrutiny for individual securities purchases made by key Fed leaders, ordered an ethics review. It turned out that two regional Fed presidents held assets similar to those bought by the Fed’s purchase program during the height of the pandemic. Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren held between $151,000 and $800,000 worth of real estate investment trusts (REITs) that owned mortgage-backed securities, even as the Fed purchased about $700 billion of mortgage-backed securities. Only weeks after his personal trading came under question, Rosengren announced his sudden retirement. Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan, a former vice chairman at Goldman Sachs, whose trading far exceeded that of Rosengren and his Fed president colleagues at the time, made dozens of individual stock trades totaling $1 million or more in 2020 as the pandemic raged and the Fed and US government unleashed epic levels of stimulus. Kaplan retired the following month, citing the focus on his financial dealings.
The Fed’s code of conduct states that Fed officials “should be careful to avoid any dealings or other conduct that might convey even an appearance of conflict between their personal interests, the interests of the system, and the public interest.” Yet CNBC found that Powell held $1.25–$2.5 million worth of the kind of municipal bonds the Fed bought for its own book in 2020. They were purchased before the pandemic but held through the 2020 period, in which the Fed added $5 billion worth of municipal bonds. There are some gray lines here, to be sure. Since the securities were all bought before the pandemic, not selling them wasn’t necessarily against the law. But the situation showed that there is not enough air between what central bankers can do with their personal finances and what they get to do on behalf of the Fed’s broader book and policies. The same goes for legislators, whether the trades they made were smaller than those required to be reported or not. The very possibility of them benefiting from their own legislation or access to sensitive intelligence is a form of corruption." Yeah, don't say...
And it goes and goes... This is depressing reading, for sure, I couldn't read the book in one go, as I kept feeling repulsed, angry, impotent. I had to stop and force myself to keep going, after long pauses with other distractions. But it is indeed a work of true public service, an essential piece of financial literature to help understand the unimaginable mess we find ourselves into.
April 1, 2023
This book is a great example of how having knowledge, information, and data DOES NOT MEAN having critical analysis and the ability to interpret the world and its events.
I wouldn’t say that her main point (actually, her only point which is rambled on for 250 pages in an exhaustive and repetitive manner) is wrong. I do believe that there is a disconnect between the real economy and the financial markets. However, the lens through which the analyses the past two decades is absolutely myopic.
The entire book is just criticism after criticism that the central banks and the big boys in the financial markets just don’t care about anyone else and would never do anything other than benefit themselves. On the other hand, Prins also criticizes financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank for forgiving/refinancing indebted countries in exchange for austerity and fiscal responsibility. I mean, seriously? That’s maddeningly inconsistent. She never presents any concrete ideas to really improve the situation or even alternative to what could have been done.
Bad to bail out the entire financial system (which not even once does acknowledge or consider that not bailing out would hurt the entire economy in unimaginable ways and that the 2008 crisis would have been way worse than the 1929 one), but fine to invest imaginary money into the economy without worrying about the debt? F fiscal responsibility?
The book has a LOT of information, but basically no new ideas or insights, and it’s a billion percent biased and therefore does not present a lucid, enlightening reflection on this “permanent distortion”.
Not worth the read at all.
Reading The Economist will be a better use of your time and you will understand better and have a much more holistic idea of the things she talks about.
I wouldn’t say that her main point (actually, her only point which is rambled on for 250 pages in an exhaustive and repetitive manner) is wrong. I do believe that there is a disconnect between the real economy and the financial markets. However, the lens through which the analyses the past two decades is absolutely myopic.
The entire book is just criticism after criticism that the central banks and the big boys in the financial markets just don’t care about anyone else and would never do anything other than benefit themselves. On the other hand, Prins also criticizes financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank for forgiving/refinancing indebted countries in exchange for austerity and fiscal responsibility. I mean, seriously? That’s maddeningly inconsistent. She never presents any concrete ideas to really improve the situation or even alternative to what could have been done.
Bad to bail out the entire financial system (which not even once does acknowledge or consider that not bailing out would hurt the entire economy in unimaginable ways and that the 2008 crisis would have been way worse than the 1929 one), but fine to invest imaginary money into the economy without worrying about the debt? F fiscal responsibility?
The book has a LOT of information, but basically no new ideas or insights, and it’s a billion percent biased and therefore does not present a lucid, enlightening reflection on this “permanent distortion”.
Not worth the read at all.
Reading The Economist will be a better use of your time and you will understand better and have a much more holistic idea of the things she talks about.
December 26, 2022
As someone who's been paying attention, nothing in this book was news to me. If you haven't been paying attention since about 2008, this book will catch you up nicely. At least to just recently, it doesn't cover the most recent China lockdowns because of their silly COVID-0 derangement. Not will it cover the SBF/FTX collapse.
In some instances I felt the reporting could have used a bit more depth in the analysis. Where she is talking about the COVID time frame it is unclear if the massive monetary stimulus was happening before, or not. I've heard from others that we were facing a liquidity crisis going into the pandemic and was just exacerbated by it. Kind of lazy writing IMO.
The premise is simply that since 2008 we've entered a period of permanent distortion from what we've known (as a money using species) for thousands of years. That the financial market no long reflects the real economy. She even hints that you could say that changed in 1971 when we went full fiat. She offers no hope for things going back, there is only forward, and we don't know what that will look like. I'm kind of disappointed in that, it ends the book rather weekly.
But, knowing that there is nothing new under the sun, I wonder if societies have been through things like this before. Well not exactly this, I mean you couldn't have crypto currency before, but analogs of what we are seeing. I'm just not convinced that such distorting influences as financialization and central banks can continue unabated before we collectively as a society simply say "this isn't working" and force a reset. I plan to read This Time It's Different and see what 800 years of history on this subject has to say.
In some instances I felt the reporting could have used a bit more depth in the analysis. Where she is talking about the COVID time frame it is unclear if the massive monetary stimulus was happening before, or not. I've heard from others that we were facing a liquidity crisis going into the pandemic and was just exacerbated by it. Kind of lazy writing IMO.
The premise is simply that since 2008 we've entered a period of permanent distortion from what we've known (as a money using species) for thousands of years. That the financial market no long reflects the real economy. She even hints that you could say that changed in 1971 when we went full fiat. She offers no hope for things going back, there is only forward, and we don't know what that will look like. I'm kind of disappointed in that, it ends the book rather weekly.
But, knowing that there is nothing new under the sun, I wonder if societies have been through things like this before. Well not exactly this, I mean you couldn't have crypto currency before, but analogs of what we are seeing. I'm just not convinced that such distorting influences as financialization and central banks can continue unabated before we collectively as a society simply say "this isn't working" and force a reset. I plan to read This Time It's Different and see what 800 years of history on this subject has to say.
January 28, 2023
As one of my favorite philosophers said in a public talk he gave about rewriting the same book over and over again, Prins revisits the so-called once in a generation Financial Crisis of 2008 and the steps that central banks across the world took to stabilize faltering markers. However, rather than providing help to the average citizen, the Fed's QE policies buoyed the markets and locked out the majority from sharing in the skyrocketing wealth. This distortion caused by central bankers' easy money policies proved permanent when stock markets, addicted to the abundant and cheap flows of fictive capital, ultimately took hostage the governments of the world. Tapering, or reducing the amount of assets the Fed would purchase, threatened to cause the market to bottom out, hurting not only elite investors but retirees and working families by threatening lay offs and by reducing the size of their pensions.
In Permanent Distortion, Prins revisits the history of how central banks became so powerful and how their decisions shaped the responses by those left behind. Populations, indebted and neglected by their political representatives, became politically polarized or otherwise turned to new and burgeoning technologies (i.e., Blockchain currencies) to achieve a semblance of agency. Casting her eyes to the future, Prins warns that low interest rate policies by the Fed may hurt the ability of the Central banks to respond to future financial crises but that the resulting loss of faith in political and financial institutions may spur innovations to transform our relationship with money and capital.
In Permanent Distortion, Prins revisits the history of how central banks became so powerful and how their decisions shaped the responses by those left behind. Populations, indebted and neglected by their political representatives, became politically polarized or otherwise turned to new and burgeoning technologies (i.e., Blockchain currencies) to achieve a semblance of agency. Casting her eyes to the future, Prins warns that low interest rate policies by the Fed may hurt the ability of the Central banks to respond to future financial crises but that the resulting loss of faith in political and financial institutions may spur innovations to transform our relationship with money and capital.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 8, 2023
"Permanent Distortion" by Nomi Prins is a compelling and insightful exploration of the global financial system and its underlying flaws. Prins, a former Wall Street insider turned investigative journalist, provides a nuanced and well-researched analysis of the intricate web of power and money that dominates the world's economies.
One of the book's greatest strengths is its ability to explain complex financial concepts and structures in a way that is accessible to non-experts. Prins breaks down the history and mechanics of the financial system, from the rise of the Federal Reserve to the development of modern-day debt markets. Through her analysis, she exposes the ways in which the system is rigged to benefit a wealthy elite at the expense of ordinary people.
Another powerful aspect of the book is Prins' critique of the neoliberal ideology that has driven economic policy in recent decades. She argues that the emphasis on deregulation, privatization, and globalization has led to an unprecedented concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few. Moreover, she shows how this concentration of power has distorted the political process, leading to a situation in which democracy is increasingly threatened.
Overall, "Permanent Distortion" is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the forces that shape our world. Prins' insightful analysis and engaging writing style make it an enjoyable and thought-provoking read, even for those who are not experts in finance or economics. Highly recommended.
One of the book's greatest strengths is its ability to explain complex financial concepts and structures in a way that is accessible to non-experts. Prins breaks down the history and mechanics of the financial system, from the rise of the Federal Reserve to the development of modern-day debt markets. Through her analysis, she exposes the ways in which the system is rigged to benefit a wealthy elite at the expense of ordinary people.
Another powerful aspect of the book is Prins' critique of the neoliberal ideology that has driven economic policy in recent decades. She argues that the emphasis on deregulation, privatization, and globalization has led to an unprecedented concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few. Moreover, she shows how this concentration of power has distorted the political process, leading to a situation in which democracy is increasingly threatened.
Overall, "Permanent Distortion" is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the forces that shape our world. Prins' insightful analysis and engaging writing style make it an enjoyable and thought-provoking read, even for those who are not experts in finance or economics. Highly recommended.
April 18, 2023
Nomi gives a dire picture of the current Central Bank policies. The inept response of decreasing interest rates to artificially increase asset valuation has created not only worsening income inequality (between countries and within countries) but at the same time has only prolonged (and in some cases worsened) the inevitable collapse of the world economy and the loss of USA hegemony as the world reserve currency.
Overall, I think Nomi gives an excellent overview of this problem. Although at times she can be a tad bit pedantic (like when she emphasizes again and again the lack of correlation between stock market value and economic growth) while at other times presents only a cursory overview when more detail would be warranted (how this problem came about, and why the central banks choose this option). Lastly, I wish Nomi would provide some insight on how this could have been prevented and what solutions lay ahead of us to fix this problem. But then again, it may already be too late. The brakes on the train maybe already broken and the only way to stop it is total derailment.
Overall, I think Nomi gives an excellent overview of this problem. Although at times she can be a tad bit pedantic (like when she emphasizes again and again the lack of correlation between stock market value and economic growth) while at other times presents only a cursory overview when more detail would be warranted (how this problem came about, and why the central banks choose this option). Lastly, I wish Nomi would provide some insight on how this could have been prevented and what solutions lay ahead of us to fix this problem. But then again, it may already be too late. The brakes on the train maybe already broken and the only way to stop it is total derailment.
October 9, 2025
This book explores the way that central banks and the people who control them have created and continue to exacerbate wealth inequality. I generally understand and agree with many components of the author's thesis and found her arguments valid and data-driven.
Unfortunately, the analytical sections of this book were a bit weaker than I expected - she presented great data but it felt like it was missing another round of scaffolding. As a result, the book feels a little pedantic - like she is always coming to the same conclusion but not making me feel more convinced of her perspective (and I am already more or less convinced, so it should be easier to give me a confirmation bias dopamine hit!). It's possible that some of this is coming from how recent some of the events she references are, as critical analysis can only go so far when the consequences are unfolding in real time.
I'll be curious to visit some of Prims's other work, as I appreciate her writing style and depth of expertise.
Unfortunately, the analytical sections of this book were a bit weaker than I expected - she presented great data but it felt like it was missing another round of scaffolding. As a result, the book feels a little pedantic - like she is always coming to the same conclusion but not making me feel more convinced of her perspective (and I am already more or less convinced, so it should be easier to give me a confirmation bias dopamine hit!). It's possible that some of this is coming from how recent some of the events she references are, as critical analysis can only go so far when the consequences are unfolding in real time.
I'll be curious to visit some of Prims's other work, as I appreciate her writing style and depth of expertise.
December 1, 2022
Metamorphosis the last chapter Is important
Metamorphosis, the last chapter Is the most important chapter. One thing I feel all these books miss is the innovation at the bottom of the financial heirarchy, the undocumented immigrants who manage to migrate, work, love, and those recruited by organizrd crimen prosper whereever they are. Income inequality and justice inequality invite organized crime to close the Gap and that Is how we have already lost our community, government, and countries.
Metamorphosis, the last chapter Is the most important chapter. One thing I feel all these books miss is the innovation at the bottom of the financial heirarchy, the undocumented immigrants who manage to migrate, work, love, and those recruited by organizrd crimen prosper whereever they are. Income inequality and justice inequality invite organized crime to close the Gap and that Is how we have already lost our community, government, and countries.
March 18, 2025
Permanent Distortion is a continuation from Collusion. The real economy and financial stock market are permanently distorted that there is no turning back. If we want to understand the reasons behind all the chaos we saw in the economy and financial markets for the past few years, this book is a must read. Nomi and team have done extensive research and it is very kind of them to expose the truth. For such a challenging topic, I think this book is very well written. It is surprisingly a page turner, and not difficult to understand. I love this book and totally recommend it.
August 24, 2025
The only reason this is 4 stars is because I didn't have enough of it. The book is printed with 335 pages but the actual content is only 241 pages (the rest are all notes, indexes..)
Nevertheless, I have to say that this book is packed with factual examples and explanation on our distorted world, between the haves and have nots.
I would recommend it
Nevertheless, I have to say that this book is packed with factual examples and explanation on our distorted world, between the haves and have nots.
I would recommend it
January 25, 2023
unraveling the Distortion
Book fills you in on why the money printing and other factors have put us in a place of extreme change. No review will be adequate for this book,you must read it. Enjoy!
Book fills you in on why the money printing and other factors have put us in a place of extreme change. No review will be adequate for this book,you must read it. Enjoy!
January 31, 2023
Exceptionally well written and researched book on the current state of our global economic systems... unfortunately the content reads like a real life horror story with politicians as scary clowns and central bankers as the serial killers already inside the house! Gripping read!!!
June 2, 2025
Nomi Prins is definitely one of the better "left wing" economists as someone who is very much on the right. I think she gets a decent amount of things right especially with regards to bailouts. Still I vastly prefer "Free Market" economists and there perspective on things.
December 2, 2022
This book is truly necessary for today! To understand some very important reasons around our current economic climate.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 9, 2023
A book that will be looked back to as prophetic.
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