Permanent Distortion: How the Financial Markets Abandoned the Real Economy Forever

by Nomi Prins

Overview

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.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541789067
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	10/11/2022
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

 Dr. Nomi Prins is an international economist, investigative journalist, geopolitical financial expert, and outspoken advocate for economic reform. She has published seven books, with her most recent bestseller being Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World.
 
She is a regular TV commentator and has appeared on the BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, MSNBC, CSPAN, Fox Business, and PBS. She has appeared in numerous documentaries featured in the US, Korea, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and more. Her writing has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, the Guardian, the Nation, and other major publications.
 
Her insights on financial and economic issues are sought by governments, policymakers, and investors worldwide. She’s delivered keynote speeches to a variety of outlets including the Federal Reserve, IMF, World Bank, UK Parliament, Mexican Senate, US Senate, Tokyo Stock Exchange, Google, Colombia University, and the London School of Economics.  
 
She was a global Wall Street executive for a decade-and-a-half. Nomi was once a managing director at Goldman Sachs. She ran the international analytics group as a senior managing director at Bear Stearns in London and worked as a senior strategist at Lehman Brothers and Chase Manhattan Bank.
 
You can learn more about Nomi here: nomiprins.com
 

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I Chaos

Chapter 1 The Frenzy 9

Chapter 2 The Interlude 39

Part II Addiction

Chapter 3 Drugs, Populism, and Power Plays 69

Chapter 4 Double-Dipping 95

Part III Overdrive

Chapter 5 The Pandemic Strikes 119

Chapter 6 "Whatever It Takes" Money 145

Chapter 7 The Three I's: Infrastructure, Inflation, and Inequality 163

Part IV Metamorphosis

Chapter 8 The Rise of the Retail Rebel 193

Chapter 9 The Crypto-Wars 209

Chapter 10 The Future Is Distortion 231

Acknowledgments 243

Notes 247

Index 319

Editorial Reviews

The timing of the release of Prins’ book could not be more appropriate as signs mount of how entrenched corruption has distorted the world in which we live to the point that it increasingly feels like a bad sci-fi movie…Prins brilliantly captures the insanity and mass hypnosis of regulators who have taken a hands-off approach to the Fed’s unlimited money spigot to the mega banks on Wall Street with indisputable facts and figures. She builds her case against the monetary policies of Bernanke and his successors (Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell) in the artful way that a master mason builds an exquisite rock wall—one carefully placed stone at a time.”—Wall Street on Parade

“Readers curious about recent history and potential futures of the global economy will find much to capture their interest in Nomi Prins's Permanent Distortion, which is expansively researched, clear-eyed and conversational in tone… This comprehensive recent history is an informative and valuable work of observation, research, analysis and warning to financial experts and novices alike—and all who care about the structures of economic power.”
 —Shelf Awareness

“A hard-hitting survey of the forces . . . that fuel financial markets at the expense of destabilizing the real economy. . . . Nomi Prins effectively dismantles the machinery of financial markets and explains how they operate in a secret world of their own.”—Kirkus

"Prins... [gives] language to a period of accelerationism we are all living through but struggle to name… Prins reminds us that that Fed is ‘an organization established by elite bankers and led by unelected government officials who [face] minimal accountability for their decisions.’ Until we can begin to imagine a truly democratic alternative, we will remain at the mercy of this financial distortion, and all of the monsters it will unleash.”
 —Jacobin

“Prins has done it again. In her newest book, Permanent Distortion, [she] takes a hard look at the conflicts and corruption in the global financial system and banks in particular. She provides a tour d’horizon of the past ten years. . . . This book is a must-read for anyone looking to understand what’s really behind the financial chaos of the past decade.”—James Rickards, author of Sold Out

“Prins breaks through the noise like no other historian. When I am looking to understand what’s really unfolding in the economy and finance, she’s where I turn. She’s from Wall Street and knows Washington—yet tells the truths that Main Street needs to hear.”—Robert Kiyosaki, bestselling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad

“Prins is one of the only people in the world qualified to explain one of the biggest stories in the world, if not the biggest: the manipulation of central banking policies around the world. . . . Permanent Distortion describes the gradual replacement of the real economy with a kind of permanent Ponzi scheme, fueled by cheap money and selective regulation, that rewards insiders and disburses riches by access, not merit.”—Matt Taibbi, award-winning author and investigative reporter

“Prins knows Wall Street. When she speaks, we should all listen. The story of Permanent Distortion exposes how corrupt our financial system is.”—Richard D. Wolff, professor of economics emeritus, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and founder of democracyatwork.info

“Prins, former Goldman Sachs big shot, has come out of the cold to let you in on the con—and the clear and present danger that the Magic Money junkies and their central-bank pushermen are pulling us into a strange counter-reality where fantastical finance creatures copulate with finance fairy dust, creating a cancerous economic monstrosity. Yet, it’s weirdly fun to fly through the crazed new world Prins reveals. Every chapter is a new freaky adventure. She even makes the words ‘Quantitative Easing’ and ‘crypto blockchain ETFs’ into a fascinating game show . . . where They win and you, Mr. and Ms. go-to-work schmuck, lose. Jump in, I guarantee you a helluva ride.”—Greg Palast, author of The Best Money Democracy Can Buy

“[P]ersuasive and intrinsically insightful… [Prins’s] literary style is readily accessible to both those well-versed in the nuances of the finance circles through which she moves so effortlessly as well as the generalist who is just looking to make sense of the economic realities they experience on a daily basis. I have always appreciated her ability to connect with the experienced professional as well as the unassuming novice; she is one of the best communicators I have ever had occasion to encounter in the publishing world.”—Aaron Hughey, Bowling Green Daily News

From the Publisher

2022-06-25
A hard-hitting survey of the “forces…that fuel financial markets at the expense of destabilizing the real economy.”

Prins has written several books about the lack of connection between the financial markets and the real world, including Other People’s Money and All the Presidents’ Bankers, and as a former Wall Street executive, she has plenty of experience to draw on. Here, she delves into the roots of the disjunction and considers the consequences. Much of the problem, she writes, can be traced to the response of the Federal Reserve to the 2008 financial crisis. The Fed poured money into the market, arguing that some of the leading institutions could not be allowed to fail. This worked reasonably well, although much of the money ended up in the pockets of bankers who were already wealthy. The real problem was that once the flow of cheap money started, it was difficult to stop it without causing another crisis. Prins explains how all this worked, looking at the mechanisms of quantitative easing and bond buybacks. The recovery and the subsequent boom were built on an ever growing mountain of debt, but that was a problem for another generation. The author sees a similar reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, as the economy was flooded with money as economic stimulus. “What started as an emergency response to two crises,” she writes, “became a permanent power grab…and while people and small businesses received some fiscal support on the fringes, the bulk of manufactured money zoomed into financial assets.” Prins is understandably worried about the future of the economy, with emerging disintermediation avenues and an increasing recognition of the widening gap between the mega-rich and the rest of us. The big banks might be flush with the largesse of their central bank sponsors, but, as the author clearly demonstrates, they should expect turbulent times ahead.

Prins effectively dismantles the machinery of financial markets and explains how they operate in a secret world of their own.

Kirkus Reviews