The Finance Curse
How global finance is making us all poorer
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
This is a book that none of us can afford to ignore – an agenda-setting, campaigning investigation that shows how global finance works for the few and not the many.
** A Financial Times Book of the Year **
‘Essential reading’ YANIS VAROUFAKIS
We need finance – but when finance grows too big it becomes a curse.
The City of London is the single biggest drain on our resources, sucking talent out of every sphere, siphoning wealth and hoovering up government time. Yet to be ‘competitive’, we’re told we must turn a blind eye to money laundering and appease big business with tax cuts.
Tracing the curse back through economic history, Nicholas Shaxson uncovers how we got to this point. Moving from offshore tax havens to the bizarre industry of wealth management, he tells the explosive story of how finance established a stranglehold on society – and reveals how we can begin to break free.
‘A radical, urgent and important manifesto for improving our country’
Oliver Bullough, Observer
‘Superbly written… A must-read’
Misha Glenny, author of McMafia
‘Hard-hitting, well written and informative’
Financial Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this deeply researched cri de coeur, British journalist Shaxson (Treasure Islands) equates the "resource curse" that impoverishes such mineral-rich countries as Angola with the "finance curse" currently afflicting Western economies that are too dependent on their financial sectors. Focusing on England and the U.S., Shaxson argues that the curse is to blame for rising inequality, shuttered public services, slower economic growth, and "the hollowing out of small towns and small businesses." He locates the seeds of the problem in the economic theories of Friedrich Hayek and the Chicago School, the surge in offshore tax havens from the 1950s through the 1980s, and lax antimonopoly laws that have helped to create "gargantuan" tech companies including Facebook and Google. Politicians have abetted the "financialization" of their economies, Shaxson argues, pointing to President Barack Obama's bailouts of "crashing megabanks" in 2008. Shaxson's solutions include "getting money out of politics," reviving antitrust laws, effectively measuring both the benefits and costs of tax reforms, and reining in the activities of tax havens. His urgent tone cuts through the financial jargon to produce clear, commonsense arguments. Though unlikely to change the minds of ardent free-marketeers, this impassioned account will be championed by progressives.
