A complex look at the future of the world's financial systems needs a steady voice to help listeners make sense of the intricate connections between banks and governments. Dan Woren is a capable narrator. His style is direct and measured, and his crisp diction makes long sentences easy to follow. These qualities increase the likelihood of the listener keeping up with the expansive ideas of one of the brightest economic minds of our times. The news is not good: Financial instability, political polarization, and inequalities loom on the horizon if the private banking sector does not clean up bad practices. Woren maintains a steady pace even throughout the most dire predictions of what is to come if nothing changes. M.R. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse
Narrated by Dan Woren
Mohamed A. El-ErianUnabridged — 9 hours, 15 minutes
The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse
Narrated by Dan Woren
Mohamed A. El-ErianUnabridged — 9 hours, 15 minutes
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Overview
“The one economic book you must read now . . . If you want to understand [our] bifurcated world and where it's headed, there is no better interpreter than Mohamed El-Erian.”-Time
Our current economic path is coming to an end. The signposts are all around us: sluggish growth, rising inequality, stubbornly high pockets of unemployment, and jittery financial markets, to name a few. Soon we will reach a fork in the road: One path leads to renewed growth, prosperity, and financial stability, the other to recession and market disorder.
In The Only Game in Town, El-Erian casts his gaze toward the future of the global economy and markets, outlining the choices we face both individually and collectively in an era of economic uncertainty and financial insecurity. Beginning with their response to the 2008 global crisis, El-Erian explains how and why our central banks became the critical policy actors-and, most important, why they cannot continue is this role alone. They saved the financial system from collapse in 2008 and a multiyear economic depression, but lack the tools to enable a return to high inclusive growth and durable financial stability. The time has come for a policy handoff, from a prolonged period of monetary policy experimentation to a strategy that better targets what ails economies and distorts the financial sector-before we stumble into another crisis.
The future, critically, is not predestined. It is up to us to decide where we will go from here as households, investors, companies, and governments. Using a mix of insights from economics, finance, and behavioral science, this book gives us the tools we need to properly understand this turning point, prepare for it, and come out of it stronger. A comprehensive, controversial look at the realities of our global economy and markets, The Only Game in Town is required reading for investors, policymakers, and anyone interested in the future.
Editorial Reviews
El-Erian expertly offers a balanced view, commending the central banks for their necessarily aggressive policy views while noting, for example, the failure of the Fed to recognize the pre-crisis housing bubble. But title aside, this is hardly just a book about central banks. Instead, El-Erian offers a grand tour of the challenges we face, along with ideal solutions and more likely outcomes…All in all, this is an accessible…cruise through pretty much all things economic.
01/04/2016
El-Erian, former CEO of investment firm Pimco, sets the stage for his well-informed, if sometimes overstretched, argument with a Larry Summers quote: "The world has largely exhausted the scope for central bank improvisation as a growth strategy." Central banks have pulled the world out of the Great Recession, but the critical task of creating sustainable global economic growth—not temporary money bubbles—remains. If governments don't accomplish this, they risk opening a geopolitical Pandora's Box: generational joblessness; worsening inequality; eroding institutional credibility; political dysfunction; and financial excess. El-Erian's formula for avoiding this is reduced to four basic prescriptions: seriously address economic growth; match ability and willingness to spend; reduce the burden of debt; and improve policy coordination. El-Erian is at his best when he sticks to what he knows: finance. But his thesis is that finance only takes you so far, so his book's last section finds him verging into trendy but less relevant territory with references to "cognitive diversity" and quotes from Sheryl Sandberg. These passages tend to deviate from his usual intellectual rigor with Oprah-like feel-good mantras. Nonetheless, this is a prescient warning against our current overreliance on central banks—and a call to action toward building a sustainable global economy. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (Feb.)
How come the global economy is now run largely by unelected central banks? In this highly intelligent analysis, the author, a respected investor and CEO, explains how elected governments are failing in their basic job to take care of the economy and why this might lead to a massive unmanageable crisis.”—Fareed Zakaria, CNN (book of the week)
“El-Erian expertly offers a balanced view, commending the central banks for their necessarily aggressive policy views while noting, for example, the failure of the Fed to recognize the pre-crisis housing bubble. But title aside, this is hardly just a book about central banks. Instead, El-Erian offers a grand tour of the challenges we face, along with ideal solutions and more likely outcomes. . . . We desperately need a system in which the central banks are no longer the only game in town.”—Steven Rattner, The New York Times Book Review
“What better moment could there be for a book subtitled ‘Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse’? And who better to write it than Mohamed El-Erian—the man who captured the essence of the present era of low growth, low inflation and low investment returns better than anyone else with his memorable concept of the ‘new normal’? . . . It is refreshing to read a policy book with the confidence to say that it is pointless to dispense elevator-pitch solutions to epochal economic challenges. . . . [A] sobering book.”—Financial Times
“A warning on the Federal Reserve’s limits . . . For those who consider Washington politicians incapable of acting effectively, [El-Erian’s] diagnosis is chilling. . . . What’s vital now, Mr. El-Erian argues, are large-scale investments in the ‘real economy’ with greater potential to create stable, widely distributed growth. They are measures only a president and Congress can take: improved public infrastructure, enhanced education and job training, an overhaul for a convoluted tax system rife with perverse incentives.”—The New York Times
“Mohamed El-Erian has had an extraordinary career as an investment analyst, investor, and market commentator. His ‘new normal’ concept was prescient, provocative, and has proven out. Agree or disagree, his go-forward thoughts contained in this bracing book are well worth considering.”—Lawrence H. Summers, former secretary of the U.S. Treasury
“The Only Game in Town achieves the nearly impossible: It takes complex financial issues and events and makes them both enlightening and entertaining. It’s a must-read for anyone who cares about the global economy and its future, raising critical questions, exploring all the relevant topics, and offering sound policy recommendations. It’s a terrific book.”—Jack Welch
“The Only Game in Town may well be the only book you need to read on how the global financial system works, the serious trouble we may be in, and what to do about it. El-Erian’s gift for clarity and his use of compelling examples make important economic issues accessible.”—Anne-Marie Slaughter, president and CEO, New America
“From the rise of Airbnb and disruptive technologies to worries about Russian foreign policy and turmoil in the Middle East to negative interest rates and ‘the new mediocre,’ the world is an increasingly confusing place. The job of policymakers is mind-bogglingly hard. Who better than Mohamed El-Erian, with his knowledge of markets, his knowledge of policy, and his brilliant mind, to help organize their (and our) thoughts. The Only Game in Town is a great read.”—Olivier Blanchard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics
“Today’s global economy is beset by low growth and rising inequality. By looking at the tools now being used by the world’s major central banks, Mohamed El-Erian shows how we can instead promote inclusive economic growth. This is a must-read from one of the most astute financial analysts of our time.”—Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs
“Widely regarded as one of the most astute observers of global economic trends, Mohamed El-Erian is famous for having coined the now-ubiquitous phrase ‘the new normal.’ Five years ago, he was worried that the global economy might take years to regain its footing. Now El-Erian worries it could fall off a cliff. The Only Game in Town is simply a must-read for anyone trying to understand how the global economy might unfold in the next five years.”—Kenneth Rogoff, Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, and former chief economist and director of research at the International Monetary Fund
“Mohamed El-Erian knows the global economy as an investor, a public servant, and as an analyst with a rare ability to grasp its essentials. He has an urgent message to convey here: Central banks cannot continue to carry the global economy on their backs for much longer without a high risk of a very bad global outcome. If he’s right—as he has often been before—all of us, governments, business, finance, and individuals, need to understand why and how to take evasive action.”—Jessica Mathews, former president, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
02/01/2016
El-Erian (chief economic adviser, Allianz; chair, President's Global Development Council) examines the subject of central banks in his latest book, following his award-winning When Markets Collide. Rather than providing a simple overview of central banks and their role, El-Erian uses the bank as a backdrop for discussing the current crossroads he sees in the global economy and the role these institutions could play in shaping the future. After presenting ten big issues, including those related to unemployment, economic expansion, and political dysfunction, El-Erian provides his ideas for what should happen next, but also for what is likely to happen, a distinction he explains as the difference between what is desirable and what is actually feasible given the current political environment. VERDICT This easy-to-read discussion from a well-respected financial industry insider on the current state of the economy and the role of central banks will satisfy anyone who wants to learn about economics or the policy decisions that affect financial stability.—Elizabeth Nelson, McHenry Cty. Coll. Lib., Crystal Lake, IL
A complex look at the future of the world's financial systems needs a steady voice to help listeners make sense of the intricate connections between banks and governments. Dan Woren is a capable narrator. His style is direct and measured, and his crisp diction makes long sentences easy to follow. These qualities increase the likelihood of the listener keeping up with the expansive ideas of one of the brightest economic minds of our times. The news is not good: Financial instability, political polarization, and inequalities loom on the horizon if the private banking sector does not clean up bad practices. Woren maintains a steady pace even throughout the most dire predictions of what is to come if nothing changes. M.R. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
2015-12-07
The chair of Barack Obama's Global Development Council warns that the economy is bound for more bumpiness, stress, and course-altering ahead, "potentially quite suddenly." El-Erian (When Markets Collide, 2008) charts the changing role of central banks in national economies and the global economy at large. Their overarching mission is to provide their home nations with a stable currency and, beyond that, stable monetary and financial operations—macro goals that are defined by government but then effected by bankers. The bankers have lately exercised more and more autonomy, though, without much direct political control and with ever expanding responsibilities to govern the "fate of the global economy." In the case of the Federal Reserve, for instance, stability is understood to involve providing for stable prices, economically productive interest rates, and a thriving job market while reducing risk—all good goals but hard to contain under one roof. In the new climate of a post-recessionary nervousness and a sluggish recovery without the elastic rebound of previous ones, the author suggests, we seem to be in a different mode than the business cycle of old. Consequently, central banks are experimenting, even making things up as they go along, in order to jump-start economies, for instance, by putting into place negative interest rates and other "unconventional monetary policies" without any precedent or historical examples to follow. The natural result is instability from above and below, from the supply side and the demand side, and a "new normal" that the author wishes could be seen as a "new abnormal." Central banks, their briefs thus much expanded, must do what they can to contain market volatility. As El-Erian's discussion moves on, it becomes increasingly technical so that, by the end, readers must contemplate the challenging implications of, say, limiting exposure to "any specific set of securities that has a repeated history of suddenly losing market liquidity." Fiscal-policy wonks will find this look at the financial system illuminating, though ordinary investors and civilians will find it daunting.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940171817183 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 03/29/2016 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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Chapter 1
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