Book Description

He has been cited by The New York Times Magazine as "probably the most important economist in the world" and by Time as "the world's best-known economist." He has advised an extraordinary range of world leaders and international institutions on the full range of issues related to creating economic success and reducing the world's poverty and misery. Now, at last, he draws on his entire twenty-five-year body of experience to offer a thrilling and inspiring big-picture vision of the keys to economic success in the world today and the steps that are necessary to achieve prosperity for all.

Marrying vivid eyewitness storytelling to his laserlike analysis, Jeffrey Sachs sets the stage by drawing a vivid conceptual map of the world economy and the different categories into which countries fall. Then, in a tour de force of elegance and compression, he explains why, over the past two hundred years, wealth has diverged across the planet in the manner that it has and why the poorest nations have been so markedly unable to escape the cruel vortex of poverty. The groundwork laid, he explains his methods for arriving, like a clinical internist, at a holistic diagnosis of a country's situation and the options it faces. Rather than deliver a worldview to readers from on high, Sachs leads them along the learning path he himself followed, telling the remarkable stories of his own work in Bolivia, Poland, Russia, India, China, and Africa as a way to bring readers to a broad-based understanding of the array of issues countries can face and the way the issues interrelate. He concludes by drawing on everything he has learned to offer an integrated set of solutions to the interwoven economic, political, environmental, and social problems that most frequently hold societies back. In the end, he leaves readers with an understanding, not of how daunting the world's problems are, but how solvable they are-and why making the effort is a matter both of moral obligation and strategic self-interest. A work of profound moral and intellectual vision that grows out of unprecedented real-world experience, The End of Poverty is a road map to a safer, more prosperous future for the world.

From "probably the most important economist in the world" (The New York Times Magazine), legendary for his work around the globe on economies in crisis, a landmark exploration of the roots of economic prosperity and the path out of extreme poverty for the world's poorest citizens. ... Read more

Reviews (14)

Poverty and the Professor's Plan
Jeffrey Sachs, the director of Columbia University's Earth Institute and special advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, tells us that about 20,000 people die daily due to extreme poverty (that's about 8 million people annually).Extreme poverty is defined as living on less than a dollar a day.About 1 billion people live on less than a dollar a day, one third of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.Thisbook makes us aware of the extent of this tragedy and it offers a global plan to do something about it.

The global plan, of course, requires big money and big debt relief.Sachs has calculated that it would take anywhere from $135 billion to $190 billion per year of donations from rich countriesover the next two decades in order to eliminate extreme poverty by 2025.

Not surprisingly, the conservative critics, such as the economist William Easterly, will disparage this plan as so much utopian social engineering and call instead for a more piecemeal approach (Neoconservatives, however, are different: they have a propensity for lavish spending and risky foreign adventures).

Sachs' plan is not entirely new.The development models of the 1960's and 70's were similar.Huge amounts of money were allocated for building infrastructure and human capital; instead this money ended up in the bank accounts of dictators and corrupt aid officials.The development focus of the 1980's and 90's was more toward ending corruption and state ownership, encouraging deficit spending and free trade.The results have been equally disappointing: still 20,000 die daily.

The Sachs' plan calls for some swift, aggressive, and large-scale "neoliberal" economic interventions.His recommendations on how this $135 to $195 billion should be spent are staggering: it goes from how to plant trees, to soil fertility, to antiviral therapy for Aids, to mosquito nets for malaria, to specially programmed cell phones, to battery charging stations - just to name a few.He proposes that the secretary general of the UN run the overall program (with the requisite oversights), and that this would lift poor countries out of the poverty trap by 2025.This is, admittedly, a tough sell in conservative circles.

It is disingenuous, however, for critics like Easterly and others in this column to call this plan utopian.The goal of ending "extreme" poverty is getting countries to the first rung of the economic ladder so that they can participate in the gobal economy.For example, Sachs considers sweatshop labor a step up from no labor at all - this is hardly a utopian goal.Ending extreme poverty only prepares people and countries for the marketplace, it doesn't make them wealthy.

It is true that an ambitious plan such as Sachs' would have its excesses and unforeseen consequences.One of Sachs' problems is that he accuses people who disagree with him of being uninformed, or, worse yet, in the case of Africa, racist.Surely, someone who became a tenured Harvard professor at aged 28 and saved a handful of countries from economic disaster is not lacking in ego.He would do well to be a little more diplomatic.

From this book one should remember the mission: to save 20,000 lives a day.Instead of labeling proposals left-wing or right-wing, liberal or conservative, we should look deeply within our technocratic selves to end extreme poverty.

Fighting Poverty, says J. Wallis, is a Moral Value.
Sojourners magazine editor Jim Wallis is also an evangelical who has lately been speaking out on the current administration's politics which infer that anything having to do with fighting gay rights or abortion is a moral, Christian thing to do. Wallis says that although he cannot find many references in the Bible regarding abortion or gays, he can find thousands of verses regarding poverty, and fighting poverty is a moral, religious issue folks everywhere should do what they can to end.

Coincidentally--and I don't know whether these gentlemen has ever met--we have another popular economist, Jeff Sachs who is head of Columbia University's Earth Institute--who coincidentally has a hot book out that's causing waves. Causing waves for the end of poverty in our lifetime. Already he's been seen rubbing elbows with Kofi Annan and Bono of U2. He probably would have been a better candidate for the US ambassador to the United Nations...but, I politicize. The main thrust of this work here is that taking into account geography, infrastructure, political leanings, corruption of public officials, and other development issues, we (rich nations) can conceivably end grinding poverty by 2025 in most of the worlds under developed countries. How? By supplying medicine and education in AIDs ravaged areas of Africa and Asia, by aiding production of foodstuffs in these rural area (rather than by putting big thinking growers who tend not to understand the region and the traditions of people), by control of for example mosquitos in South Africa. We will help the poor survive and teach them how to survive.

Sachs says that by taking a pro-active stance, addressing problems that are able to likely be solved with enough appropriate effort, we can improve lives. The Millenium Project Report under the UN is designed to help these areas solve their problems.

The book is about the nature of the world's poverty (in for example Bilar, Pakistan, India, Africa) some of Sach's general observations of the poor and the steps to take to curve poverty.

Why should you read this? Even if you are not a Christian, it seems that as a citizen of this world two of your responsibilities are to feed the hungry and to help the poor. This is a valuable, current day, rational dissertation on a 'zero poverty by 2025' goal. It also teaches that civilization will be judged on how it treats its poor. Let's avoid having a bad report card.

An Exciting Overview
A very exciting book.Professor Sachs describes his round the world adventures in working to solve some of the most severe economic conditions in modern history.Thrilling was his account of making his proposal to an unbathed Eastern European leader into the night (while the leader consumed a bottle of whiskey and smoked an untold number of packs of cigarettes), working through the night to have a written economic strategy proposal by morning and then, months later, watching with fingers crossed the behavior of the economy after his plan was put in place.Jeffrey Sachs is a high stakes player.The well-being of millions is often at stake.Disappointing was his account of how Russian and other world leaders ignored the majority of his proposals to transform the Russian economy.I've read books about Geronimo and Crazy Horse, climbing Everest, and revolutions, and this book was just as exciting.

Thrilling also is that it is possible to, maybe not eliminate, but greatly reduce the number of people living in extreme poverty.Disappointing is the fact that the necessary assistance from the wealthy governments of the world probably will not materialize.

This book is merely an overview of Professor Sachs's plan to eliminate the poorest of the poor.This is about how to give the absolute poorest of people (those living on less than $1 per day) a boost up to the bottom rung of the economic ladder of development.The poorest of the poor, Sachs claims, with no infrastructure, no education and no capital, are often achieving negative per capita economic growth.Sachs claims that, once on the bottom rung of the ladder, these poorest of the poor will then be able to begin climbing.

Professor Sachs suggests using "differential diagnosis" to determine the causes of deep poverty and devise a strategy to alleviate it and begin economic growth.Decades of experience have taught him that different countries and different regions and villages may be impoverished due to different causes.These impediments to growth must be first diagnosed through careful analysis followed by a strategy specifically designed to overcome these impediments.His method is not a one size fits all approach.

This book is not about enhancing development in economies that have are already on the economic ladder and growing.Countries like Bangladesh, although poor, are already on a path to economic growth and, with small accomplishments in read per capita GDP growth every year, will be able to continue to improve standards of living.

Criticism of this book began before the book was even available.It's not surprising that the harshest criticism comes from those who obviously have not read this book.Sachs is often criticized for failing in Russia.The critics never point out, probably because they are not aware, that neither the Russian government nor outside governments and institutions followed his advice.

A popular criticism of this book is that Sachs's solution involves merely throwing money at a problem.This is perhaps the most misguided criticism.Sachs's plan does involve development assistance from wealthy countries; however, the amount he suggests that is needed is no more than countries have already pledged to contribute.Moreover, Sachs is clear that financial aid without a development strategy will produce little results.Sachs proposes an analysis of the impediments to development at the village level followed by a diagnosis and strategy to overcome them.A stable, honest government is essential in carrying out the plan.

Another popular criticism is that aid has shown to be inadequate in addressing the problems of development.Sachs addresses this issue in the book.His argument is that the amount of aid has been so low in the most impoverished countries that it could not possibly have a significant long-term effect.The governments in the United States invest 30% of GDP in public goods - roads, bridges, ports, police and courts, education ($10,000+ per student in many areas) - in order to achieve a growth rate of 2% in real per capita GDP.Should we be surprised that an investment of a few dollars per citizen is ineffective in Africa?

Sachs is also criticized for suggesting that aid be given to corrupt governments where the money will merely end up in an off shore bank account.Sachs is very clear throughout the book that it is imperative that the recipient countries devise and implement a poverty reduction strategy and stick to it.Countries that are not committed to this "need not apply".

In the end, Professor Sachs has made a good proposal that WILL be effective in lifting hundreds of millions of people out of deep poverty and a track record to prove it.Unfortunately, his plan WILL NOT be implemented primarily because of resistance from Washington.

Fascinating look at development economics
Professor Sachs gives a great tour of the world and its economic problems.He gives personal accounts of helping the economies of Bolivia, Poland, India, Russia and to a limited extent China.Most attempts at helping were successful (Russia, which had deeper and more entrenched problems, was a notable exception).Sachs gives sound advice on what works and what doesn't in really really poor countries.He also lays out how little it would take from America and other developed nations to make it all happen.

The one downside is that for Sachs' plan to work, foreign governments have to be willing to cooperate.It's kind of a Catch-22.The US is not willing to donate large amounts of money if it is used poorly, and foreign governments aren't going to be able to spend wisely if they don't have very much. But really - we are spending hundreds of billions fighting the war in Iraq to "help the Iraqi people".But we could help many more people much more efficiently if we just committed to do it.

Overall, one of the most interesting economics books I have ever read (and I have read a few).

A few problems
If there is a more tireless and indefatigable advocate for the poor and downtrodden, and a more vigorous campaigner fighting the evils of poverty in dozens of countries around the world than Mr. Sachs, I don't know who it is. Sach's book provides a sweeping and compelling overview of the dire effects of poverty and the possibilities for aid and assistance, economic reform, and development in third world countries, discussing the successes and failures in many countries and how and why they either failed or succeeded.

Before I get into the rest of my review, I should say something about my own prior and perhaps naive views on foreign aid. Before reading Mr. Sach's book, I believed in helping poor countries as much as possible and putting as much money into it as one could afford. Unfortunately, after reading his book, I was somewhat dismayed to find that so much of what he said could just as easily be used to argue against it. So, like a number of the reviewers here, although I agree that some sort of action is necessary, most of these solutions unfortunately still seem to come down to throwing more money at what in many cases have already turned out to be bottomless pits, lining local dictator's and beaurocrat's pockets and accomplishing very little else in the way of long-term gain. One shudders at the number of countries in Africa where aid is desperately needed and yet so little seems to reach the actual populace, not to mention several former Soviet countries, such as Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and countries like Cambodia, that have similar if not worse situations.

One of Mr. Sach's favorite countries, for example, is Ethiopia, one of the world's poorest nations, where less than 1 dollar is spent per year per person on medical aid. However, Ethiopia still has not come to grips with its population problem, and every generation or about 20 years, there is another famine and the world sends vast amounts of food and money to rescue the starving populace.

This happened back in the 60s, and again in the 80s. That one I remember well because of all the TV ads featuring actors/actresses like Sally Struthers, one of the stars from the TV sitcom, All in the Family. While this generosity is commendable, nothing had changed since the 60s, and Ethiopia was again starving as a result of a couple of years of crop failures. Again, the U.S. and the world again sent huge amounts of aid, which did save many lives, but again, it just postpones Ethiopia's need to deal with the population issue in a more realistic and timely way.

Although I learned much about the different circumstances and strengths and weaknesses of many countries around the world in regard to their economic problems and opportunities, sometimes the book tantalizes as much as it explains. For example, Mr. Sachs discusses the amazing progress China has achieved, contrasting that with the failure of many Latin American countries to continue to progress, not to mention the problems of Russia. He attributes the success of China to the development of TVEs (township and village enterprises), which became small but dynamic production and profit centers, as opposed to the inefficient Soviet state operations, and the failure to develop true capitalistic institutions where profits are plowed back into capital spending, growth, and expansion rather than into the new elite industrial leadership's pockets.

However, this doesn't really explain why local village enterprises in China really succeeded over the larger state concerns in Russia. Larger operations enjoy certain advantages such as economies of scale and access to governmental funds for loans. Deciding to follow up on the question, I did a Google search and came up with the following excerpt from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization document number 4536 (I apologize for the long quote but it provides info that Sachs leaves out, and also, I'm going somewhere with all of this):

"China's township and village enterprises (TVE) are rural, collective economic organizations established at the township or village level. They also include the city branches of township enterprises. TVEs had become a major component of the Chinese economy, contributing significantly to GDP, employing large numbers of people and contributing to social development.

The development of TVEs has varied across China's regions and economic sectors. TVEs in some sectors are hi-tech or export oriented, and they face regional and international competition. However, TVEs in the brick, cement, coking and metal-casting sub-sectors were set up primarily to absorb rural labour, to provide essential low cost products, and to contribute to improving livelihoods in a localised area. In these sectors TVEs relied heavily on direct interventions from local governments for access to resources and marketing opportunities. As a result of the limited exposure of TVEs in these sectors to the market and to market forces, development in these sectors was characterized by expansion, without technology and technique development.

Despite their general dynamism and growth, TVEs still have many disadvantages compared to state owned enterprises (SOE). A key one is the shortage of workers having significant professional skills. Another is the lack of access to finance. These gaps are also found between TVEs in Central China and those in the coastal regions.

While the building material, coking and metal casting sectors provide key inputs to China's economic development and have been a major contributor to China's economic growth over the last 20 years (TVE provide more than half of the total output from these sectors), the level of technology in these sectors is low. Accordingly, TVEs in these sectors are characterized by high pollution levels. Notably, these four TVE sectors account for a staggering one sixth of China's total emissions of CO2. Their average relative energy consumption is 30% to 60% higher than state-owned-enterprise sector using currently available technologies. In addition, the low quality of their products leads to additional energy inefficiencies in product use (notably, poor building materials have low insulation levels, leading to heat loss in buildings). TVE are also major contributors to local air and water pollution and health hazards for employees."

Unfortunately, the impression I get from this article in the way of explanation is that this apparent miracle won't last. The most likely explanation to me for the success of the TVEs is that the interior of China was so backward (it consisting mainly of literally of tens of thousands of small and relatively isolated villages) is that almost any improvement in industrial capability and capacity was a big improvement over what had existed before in the region. The same thing happened in the Soviet Union, where initially industrial output increased due to some fairly simple and basic improvements in manufacturing technology and production. Like the TVE's, they also initially seemed a big success, only later peaking and going into decline. However, the interior of both countries was so backward industrially that almost any improvement was likely to succeed in the short term, whether it was more collectivized as in the case of the Soviet Union, or smaller scale, more private enterprise type operations as in the case of TVE's.

My point, unfortunately, is that we still don't know whether TVE's will truly succeed or not in the long run, as much of the profit can also be explained by the low cost of labor. If labor is cheap enough, you can still make a profit not matter how inefficient and low tech and non-competitive your operation is.

So overall, although I applaud Mr. Sach's willingness to be an advocate for eliminating poverty around the world, we still don't really know what we're doing in many cases economically, and the practical problems are still daunting. Development economics is itself a developing academic area (by the way, John Kenneth Galbraith, an advisor to many U.S. presidents, did his Ph.D. dissertation on farm economics, although he became known mainly for his book, The Age of Affluence), and hopefully we will continue to learn more and be able to apply more rational and scientific solutions to the elimination of poverty in the future.

In the short-term, however, our efforts continue to be hampered by inefficient and corrupt governments and inefficient aid organizations--although I still believe that we must continue to provide help despite the small percentage of it that ultimately reaches those most in need. ... Read more

Book Description

This best-selling text offers a unique policy-oriented approach that uses models and concepts to illustrate real-world development problems. Retaining its hallmark accessibility throughout, the Eighth Edition uses the most current data, offering full coverage of recent advances in the field, and featuring a balanced presentation of opposing viewpoints on today's major policy debates.

Economic Development includes extensive country-specific examples, with particular attention given to economic dislocations throughout Asia, Russia, and Brazil. Updated Country Case Studies and Comparative Case Studies allow students to apply concepts to specific developing nations. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Not really much economics
While Michael Todaro's text is widely used, as another reviewer points out, it is as much political "science" and sociology as economics. I am an economics professor and I have taught Economic Development courses from this text and had to repeatedly bring the perspective of neo-classical economics which was lacking or misconstrued. This text is closer to neo-Marxist than neo-classical.

If you wish to gain the insights of economics, I would recommend "The Elusive Quest for Growth : Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics" by William Easterly.

Gives meaning to "development" ...... 5++
Todaro and Smith cover the major issues and influences of poverty in the third world, as we know it today.

With development having many different meanings and underdevelopment been a concept that many theories, especially economic ones, ignore, this book is exceptional in its analysis of the third world and the need for development, both economically and socially; the role of women and children in poverty is raised and discussed, as the important issue that it is, .... and more than often is ignored AND possible solutions to underdevelopment are suggested.

Additionally, much emphasis is placed on specific country examples, which are extremely interesting and useful from a study point of view, and Todaro and Smith further the cause for underdevelopment issues with their key characteristics of development.

An excellent resource for students, or anyone else, interested in development issues ..... 5+++.

Accessible and Comprehensive
The greatest problem facing economists today (I should say "facing the world today") is how to create wealth in the poorest countries of the world. This introduction to the subject is accessible to any reader, even those with very limited previous knowledge of economics. The book begins with a critical summary of current development theories and then takes on a number of policy questions, with case studies. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and the publisher maintains a web site with useful quantitative and graphing exercises (with answers).

Michael Todaro writes from a left-of-center perspective and is more ideological than most textbook writers. However, he presents other points of view and presents them pretty fairly in my opinion. And I have to say that he scores some pretty big points against the neoclassical theorists by showing that their assumptions are frequently at odds with reality.

While some of Todaro's more stridently ideological statements can be annoying, I know of no other book that provides such a comprehensive, well organized, and engagingly written introduction to economic development.

A very readable introduction to developmental economics.
Todaro in this book presents what is quite possibly the easiest to understand introduction to developmental economics that the world has to offer. He does not provide quick answers but a logical and well thought out conception of the complexities of the problems in a format that although not wholly excluding mathmatics, uses it only in appendixes, etc. to explain problems-- which leaves the book open to a wider audience (and also does not allow its readers into the overly simplistic answers that too much mathmatics sometimes hints at....) In my studies of development, this book more often than any other served as a quick reference and fairly handy bibliography. I recommend this book to any undergraduate student or student of public policy the world over. It should be a classic.

The best book on the complexities of economic development.
Todaros's text on the complexities a developing country must face and consider to lead itself out of poverty and backwardness gets better with every edition, now on its sixth. It is the only book I have found that, with unsurpasssed dexterity, combines economics, sociology and political science into a unifying frame that should be required reading for policymakers and government throughout the developing world. His writing style, clarity of exposition and long-term vision are absolutely second to none. ... Read more

Book Description

In this revolutionary bestseller, Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen says outstanding companies can do everything right and still lose their market leadership, or worse, disappear completely. And he not only proves what he says, he tells others how to avoid a similar fate.

Focusing on "disruptive technology" of the Honda Supercub, Intel's 8088 processor, and the hydraulic excavator, Christensen shows why most companies miss "the next great wave." Whether in electronics or retailing, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know when to abandon traditional business practices. Using the lessons of successes and failures from leading companies, The Innovator's Dilemma presents a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.

Reviews (125)

Great Book About Business Strategies, Must Read for Managers
Comment: This review is done as a class project for the San Jose State University MBA e-commerce course by Ji Luo.

Dr. Christensen's book offered me a fresh perspective into looking at how large established business failed. As the author explained it, the standard process that governs sound management could be the same one that destroys the company. I found his use of graphics and quantities data sufficient as well as very useful in understand concepts such as the S-curve and the value networks. The detailed analysis shows that the author has done quite a bit of research into the topic and that makes the data more credible to me. His writing style is very easy to understand and organized. First few chapters go into how disruptive technology can destroy a company if not harnessed. His later chapters list guidelines on how to avoid the pitfalls. These guidelines are followed thoroughly by many case studies and quotes from industry leaders. While company's policies shouldn't be based on a few guidelines and the situations in a person's particular industry may find the guidelines hard to follow, the author's particular views are irrefutable and should at least be considered by the managers. It's really exciting to see him link the same principles to so many varying industries from high tech to low tech. The overarching principle of sustaining technology and disruptive technology and how a company should embrace it could be applied to any large established industry.

People who are interested in the business world should read this book and should especially be read by top managers in large corporation because many of them are ultimately responsible for success or failure of implementing disruptive technology. However, this is not a perfect book. I am a bit skeptical as to whether these rules apply to medium sized companies or companies with low margins. Therefore, my opinion is that the guidelines listed here really only applies to large organization with a lot of resources to divide. Also, The author sometimes repeat his points more than he should. He tends to concentrate so much on the hard disk drive industry that he left less room to get into deeper analysis into other industries.

Overall, I think this is a great read for anyone interested in business and wondered about how large companies such as Montgomery Wards could go belly-up or why Digital Corporation disappeared from our vocabulary.

A "must own" for managers and business executives
This is the best book on strategy I have ever read (and I've read a few in my time). In his book, "The Innovator's Dilemma", Clayton M. Christensen, business professor at Harvard, explains why established firms fail, more often than none, when confronted with disruptive technologies.

Disruptive technology is different from radical innovation. Such technology initially proposes attributes that are not valued by current, mainstream customers. The technology is initially attractive to a small market segment -- making it unattractive for larger firms. Therefore lies the innovator's dillema: how to allocate resources to developing a technology that will target a smaller market and at lower margins.

Thoughout his book, Mr. Christensen develops a framework for managers and executives (also valid and valuable for consultants and analysts) to be able to resolve this dillema.

If you are to read only one book on business this year, the Innovator's Dillema should be it.

The reviewer is a certified management consultant and earned his MBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University and completed the Wharton School Multinational Marketing and Management Program. He is also a Professional Engineer and holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Engineering from the University of Toronto.

Good introduction to a nice Theory
Not quite as easy to read as I would have liked. Christensen describes some very interesting & plausible theories, but is somewhat confined into employing the computer disk industry as the rapidly changing example which both demonstrates & proves his theories, and its not necessarily the most exciting case material. Other products only get a minor look-in.

What I did like is how he covers the footnotes at the end of each Chapter - so if they don't interest you, you can skip over them, but if they do interest you, then you don't have to struggle to the back of the book. I wish more authors & publishers would use that technique.

One quibble - given his Economics background - of course there are plenty of graphs, and 99% of them are straight lines - there are no time dependent variances in his world.

Read this before you read the Innovators Solution.

Driven by disks
Clay Christensen combines the science of empirical research with the art of organizational behavior in his best-selling "The Innovator's Dilemma." The book provides tangible advice on how to foster innovation within a corporate environment. His case studies draw from the successes and failures of American companies within numerous industries (disk drives, excavators, motorcycles, software). Christensen's strong points include a creative presentation of data, lucid writing and frank admission that the advice in his book is not a one-size-fits-all panacea for management challenges. But a heads-up to readers: perhaps 50% of the book centers on the disk-drive manufacturing industry. Although the lessons learned in hard drives are interesting, a more balanced approach would have been welcome. "The Innovators Dilemma" is a well written management how-to, in the same league as classics by Peters or Hammer. The book seems to be written for managers in large organizations, but entrepreneurs will probably find the material just as beneficial.

Fantastic book for anyone . . . especially business students
This was a fantastic book. I began reading it less than half way through the MBA program I am in and I was amazed at how many of the arguments others were making in class fell apart. This book helped me better analyze several aspects of many of my classes and I only wish I would have read it sooner.

I continued on and read the Innovator's Solution, and while I thought it was also a good book, I got much more out of the Innovator's Dilemma, though I still recommend both of them. ... Read more

Book Description

John Meriwether, a famously successful Wall Street trader, spent the 1980s as a partner at Salomon Brothers, establishing the best--and the brainiest--bond arbitrage group in the world. A mysterious and shy midwesterner, he knitted together a group of Ph.D.-certified arbitrageurs who rewarded him with filial devotion and fabulous profits. Then, in 1991, in the wake of a scandal involving one of his traders, Meriwether abruptly resigned. For two years, his fiercely loyal team--convinced that the chief had been unfairly victimized--plotted their boss's return. Then, in 1993, Meriwether made a historic offer. He gathered together his former disciples and a handful of supereconomists from academia and proposed that they become partners in a new hedge fund different from any Wall Street had ever seen. And so Long-Term Capital Management was born.
        In a decade that had seen the longest and most rewarding bull market in history, hedge funds were the ne plus ultra of investments: discreet, private clubs limited to those rich enough to pony up millions. They promised that the investors' money would be placed in a variety of trades simultaneously--a "hedging" strategy designed to minimize the possibility of loss. At Long-Term, Meriwether & Co. truly believed that their finely tuned computer models had tamed the genie of risk, and would allow them to bet on the future with near mathematical certainty. And thanks to their cast--which included a pair of future Nobel Prize winners--investors believed them.
        From the moment Long-Term opened their offices in posh Greenwich, Connecticut, miles from the pandemonium of Wall Street, it was clear that this would be a hedge fund apart from all others. Though they viewed the big Wall Street investment banks with disdain, so great was Long-Term's aura that these very banks lined up to provide the firm with financing, and on the very sweetest of terms. So self-certain were Long-Term's traders that they borrowed with little concern about the leverage. At first, Long-Term's models stayed on script, and this new gold standard in hedge funds boasted such incredible returns that private investors and even central banks clamored to invest more money. It seemed the geniuses in Greenwich couldn't lose.
        Four years later, when a default in Russia set off a global storm that Long-Term's models hadn't anticipated, its supposedly safe portfolios imploded. In five weeks, the professors went from mega-rich geniuses to discredited failures. With the firm about to go under, its staggering $100 billion balance sheet threatened to drag down markets around the world. At the eleventh hour, fearing that the financial system of the world was in peril, the Federal Reserve Bank hastily summoned Wall Street's leading banks to underwrite a bailout.
        Roger Lowenstein, the bestselling author of Buffett, captures Long-Term's roller-coaster ride in gripping detail. Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players, Lowenstein crafts a story that reads like a first-rate thriller from beginning to end. He explains not just how the fund made and lost its money, but what it was about the personalities of Long-Term's partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the late-nineties culture of Wall Street that made it all possible.
        When Genius Failed is the cautionary financial tale of our time, the gripping saga of what happened when an elite group ofinvestors believed they could actually deconstruct risk and use virtually limitless leverage to create limitless wealth. In Roger Lowenstein's hands, it is a brilliant tale peppered with fast money, vivid characters, and high drama. ... Read more

Reviews (114)

Engrossing read
The author gives an engrossing read about the LTCM debacle in this book. His writing style, in my opinion, really captures my attention and almost turns the book into a Grisham-style page-turner. After reading the book, you will have a better idea of the reasons why the fund failed. Also, you will gain more qualitative knowledge about hedge funds, derivatives markets and investing in general. However, if you are looking for equations and quantitative stuff, then sorry man, you will be greatly disappointed. Don't expect to find the Black-Scholes equation here. Nor do I think it's necessary. As a finance student, I'm tired of having to know the complex equations and quantitative stuff inside-out, without the slightest idea of how they should be used and their limitations.
If you have the basic idea or training in quantitative finance, the this book is a must-read. It sheds light on the untold stories in derivatives trading. The downfall of LTCM should be a very somber and sobering reminder of the limitations of the derivatives markets. Too much credit is given to "risk management" and "quantitative finance". I think every portfolio manager and derivatives trader should keep this in mind.

BIG MEN MAKE SMALL MISTAKES!
Small traders who break the simple rules are called 'dumb' by the professionals in the industry in their magazine articles, interviews on radio & TV etc. Here we have a group of top academics including Nobel Prize winners in economics who headed a firm that made some of the most silly 'mistakes' that caused them to lose over FOUR BILLION DOLLARS1 The reason: simple over-trading and mis-management of funds - just what the little guy is always told not to do!

This book gives a brief introduction to the various players involved. It gives an indicationl of the greed involved, not only by over-leveraging but by forcing investors to take back their money so the partners could put all their money in the fund and make all the profits for themselves. Interestingly, they did these people a great favor by preventing them from going broke.

Later in the book, when the crisis is really brought forward, we are given a detail day to day account of the stress and problems that the fund managers were creating for themselves and the rest of Wall Street as many banks and other financial institutions had tied up hundreds of millions with this firm. In the end the Federal Reserve arranged a bailout with fourteen major banks to save day.

Ironically, the super-losers went and created another fund after this big crash and sure enough they raised a few hundred millions in trading capital so the 'bright' fellows can get running again!

Not enough Cream on the Coffee
1997, 30 year Treasury Bonds Fell to 5.58; traders were selling short to hedge against riskier bonds, treasuries rallied and spreads increased between bonds; Japanese bonds dropped opposite of the bet by LTCM.

Blame the Asian flu, IMF unresponsiveness, and Salomon Barney Smith abandonment of its arbitrage positions as causes for the evaporation of 4 billion dollars LTCM within months. LTCM was too big, possessing $128 billion in assets and $3.6 billion in the bank and 2/5 of money belonging to the owners. Notation derivates reaching leverage 100 to 1 preventing rapid sell off and bankruptcy out of question, for bankruptcy would have caused a world cascade economic crash and loses reaching above $1 trillion. Bankruptcy was not an option; LTCM was too big to fail and the Fed knew it. LTCM only chance was too secure money from warranties, loans, or a buy out; none of which in the end would save them. In the end, the Feds 16 banks would invest $250 million each with a total accumulation of $4 billion dollars rescuing LTCM and the partners would leave with relatively nothing in their pockets. How did smartest guys on Wall Street fail? How did the impossible happen?

1997, Indonesia, Rupiah dropped 85 percent as currency traders forced devaluation revealing a corrupt banking practices and overextension of bad credit; volatility rose to 27 percent.

1998 LTCM bet that no future recession would occur and believed the Bond margins would narrow. Instead, the world economy were experience new global forces as communism was breaking down, China's GNP was heating up, and East Germany was experiencing new economic freedoms. A U.S - 56 point margin increase on the swap, England - 45 point margin, and German - 20 point margin and LTCM was losing money on all of its markets. LTCM had previously negotiated a warrant by UBS and UBS was being seriously exposed while LTCM was claiming "Future expected returns are good" although Equity Volume was in trouble, Swap margins were increasing, and Treasuries were falling as investors fled to safer securities and as Treasuries were being bought up their rates dropping to 5.56.

With Indonesia falling - all eyes were turned to Russia. There was no rescue by the IMF for the Russian ruble. Shares in Europe and Turkey were weak and Venezuelans were buying dollars all the while swaps margins increased. Aug 21, the Dow fell 280 points and investors continued to prefer the safest bonds, the 30 year treasures, US swaps increased to 76 points, 20 points in one day, Britain swaps increased to 62 points and mortgage spreads spread to 121 points, high yield climbed to 276, and treasurers were at 13. LTCM lost $558 million in a single day, 15 percent of their capital. LTCM was certain the markets would correct rationally and the spreads converge. Losses accumulated faster because leverages increased. Additional $200 million in funding was requested from Merrill Lynch. Hedge funds were not considered a bank and so credit extension regulation was constrained. The drop in LTCM performance caused banks to tighten their credit lines to hedge funds. In fact, the hedge funds poor performance screamed default and banks demanded their entitlement to repayment. LTCM was very close to insolvency. Mattone told Meriwether, "when you're down by half, people figure you can go down all the way" and "your out". Aug 31, the DOW crashed 512 points, Hong Kong Authority stopped supporting local markets by buying local shares. For the month of Aug, LTCM had lost $1.9 billion, 45 percent of its equity capital, and still had $125 billion in derivative assets. Death was imminent, the leveraging could not be stopped, LTCM was immobilized by its size, and Bear was threatening to suspend trading. After reviewing LTCM books, Bear allowed LTCM trades and gave a harsh warning, if they dropped below $500 million all trades would halt.

Sep 10, LTCM experiences a sum lose of $500 million dollar for five days of trading. LTCM still has 7,000 derivative contracts totaling $1.4 trillion dollars.

In 1987, Alan Greenspan was appointed as chairman of the Federal Reserves. Greenspan did not totally understand hedge funds, they were fairly private, and the Fed had no authority over them. Greenspan was nervous about the credit lines extended too these funds. Some call the funds, banks. What were the hedge funds? What is a bank?

The New York Fed keeps in touch with its branches and they talk with private industry, so supposedly the Fed keeps a pulse on the private sector. The Fed has a trading desk and trades $450 billions in treasuries, buying and selling to affect the amount of available money supply. If the Fed buys treasures, this act increase money supply and gives banks more money for banks to loan, and interest rates decrease. If the Fed buys back treasures, this act decrease money supply and makes less available loanable money and interest rates rise.

The volatility of LTCM was rising because it was so vulnerable. LTCM was being pressured by Goldman as they continued buying down increasing spreads. Goldman exasperated the European bond market cutting apart LTCM.

Warren Buffet was a seemly friend but of no help to LTCM. Berkshire Hathaway made an offer: 250 million for $3.57 billion to stabilize the fund and all partners fired. Legal confusion forfeited the deal. The last thing the economy wanted was an economic meltdown, so the Fed offered a deal and the LTCM partners were out in the cold with tears in their eyes, a perfect model (Merton, Black, Scholes) and not enough liquid money to save them against the impossible.

"...in crisis, correlations go to 1"
The author of this book is a journalist - not a trader or banker - and it's helpful to remember that as you read through this moralistic account of LTCM's rise and fall.

Lowenstein has the audacity to write of Merton, a Nobel Laureate, that he held a "naive belief in perfect markets." Perfect markets may be mythical, but the author is not qualified to call this view naive. The output of the model is as important as the tenability of its' assumptions.

In the end, the fund was too big and successful, not hubristic, to remain in its' sphere of expertise (bond arbitrage) and was forced to become the 800-pound gorilla in other markets like merger arbitrage. Yes, the top two traders were arrogant (a requirement for traders) but the markets broke the fund, not Hilibrand and Haghani.

More details on the transactions would have been interesting but these may have burdened the flow of the book.

There are copious footnotes and the author does a nice job of outlining the players and their stakes in the fund.

Ideology and greed defy common sense
There should be a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as you read this book. Long-Term Capital Management was almost guaranteed to fail from its outset and, when the end finally did come, the fund's collapse almost took a big chunk of Wall Street with it. The scary part is that there are more LTCMs out there, operating without regulatory oversight and all subject to wrong-headed economic hypothesizing as the basis for their trading operations.

The poison pill at the center of Long-Term Capital Management's very being was the efficient market theory, an almost universal belief among economists and financiers alike that free markets always operate in the most effective, logical manner possible over the long term. They don't, of course, and that refusal to acknowledge fundamental human irrationality led LTCM over the brink.

Lowenstein does an outstanding job of untangling the fund's complicated derivatives trades and explaining how the fund eventually over-leveraged itself into a sudden collapse. We normally read business stories like this for the thrill of seeing moral hazard at work, seeing the rich fall from grace and thinking how well-deserved that fate is. I would recommend, however, that you approach this book as a template for how the next Great Depression could spring from the simultaneous self-destruction of derivatives trading firms. And thanks to Roger Lowenstein, you don't have to be a genius to see how it could happen. ... Read more

Book Description

The idea of China has always exerted a pull on the adventurous type. There is a kind of entrepreneurial Westerner who just can't resist it: red flags, a billion bicycles, and the largest untapped market on earth. What more could they want? After the first few visits, they start to feel more in tune and experience the first stirrings of a fatal ambition: the secret hope of becoming the Mr. China of their time.

In the 1990s, China went through a miraculous transformation from a closed backwater to the workshop of the world. Many smart young men saw this transformation coming and mistook it for their destiny. Not a few rushed East to gain strategic footholds, plant their flags, and prosper. After all, the Chinese had numbers on their side: a seemingly endless population, a thirst for resources, and the tide of history. What they needed was Western knowledge and lots of capital. Or so it seemed ...

Mr. China tells the rollicking story of one man's encounter with the Chinese. Armed with hundreds of millions of dollars and a strong sense that he and his partners were -- like missionaries of capitalism -- descending into the industrial past to bring the Chinese into the modern world, Clissold got the education of a lifetime.

The ordinary Chinese workers, business owners, local bureaucrats, and party cadres Clissold encountered were some of the most committed, resourceful, and creative operators he would ever meet. They were happy to take the foreigner's money but resisted just about anything else. At every turn, the locals seemed one step ahead of Clissold's crew threatening to take the Westerners for all they were worth.

In the end, Mr. China isn't a tale of business or an expatriate's love for his adopted land. It's one man's coming-of-age story where he learns to respect and admire the nation he sought to conquer.

Reviews (20)

A first-hand look into China's complex business culture

In "Mr. China," we get a genuine look into the, "Now you see it, now you don't," world of foreign investment in China.

You'll laugh, and cry, when you read Clissold's frightening tales.You'll find out first-hand what it's like to be a pioneer in an emerging market, still entrenched in communism, where firing workers is off limits, regulations are deliberately complicated, and property ownership is a moving target.

Much of what has been written about China deals with the economic boom in coastal cities.Clissold takes us out into the hinterlands, some areas of which have only recently been opened to westerners.Out in China's badlands, they can be trying to destroy you one day, and the next day they're your best buddies, staying up with you all night, sloshing down baijiu.Lucky for us (and for the author), he lived to tell about it.

This book is full of valuable lessons, not just about China, but which are relevant to any emerging market.Even if you're not looking to invest in China, this book is still worth reading.Because, like it or not, China is here to stay.And the more we understand their complex culture, the better we'll be able to deal with them as an economic superpower.

We should be thankful to pioneers like Clissold, who pave the way and take the arrows.Yet despite the extreme hardships, and tens of millions in losses, Clissold leaves us with hope that, some day, we'll be able to make this work."Mr. China" is definitely a step in that direction.

Unusual stories about investments in China that went wrong
For every success story that we hear about China investments, there must be many which have gone awry. Yet there are not many books that depict such tales from the first narrator viewpoint. Many are dry textbook-like, how-to narrations. Thus, Mr China provides a refreshing look into the realities of doing business in this vast land of 1.3 billion. I particularly enjoyed the story on the investment in Five Star Brewery- perhaps because it is a tale about a consumer product which makes it easier to grasp.

However, I do not understand why Mr Clissord kept using "arrived back from " when he could have used "returned from". Perhaps, it is due to his long stay in China that he started formulating his thoughts in Chinese?

It would also help if Mr Clissold could explain in greater detail the hierarchial structure of the Chinese governmental bodies.

On the whole, this is book worth your time.

A must-read for anyone wants to understand modern China
As a person who was born in Taiwan and came of age in the States, I marvel at Tim's in-depth understanding of Chinese culture.All those proverbs he quoted at the beginning of each chapter are old sayings that are known for almost all Chinese and capture much essence of Chinese view of life and world through ages.His sincerity and truthful portrait of the Chinese that he encountered makes this book truly educational for anyone who wants to do business in China, like many reviews have already mentioned. What makes this book so special is Tim's compassion toward fellow human beings, in the instance of this book, toward people who live in the land that European happened to call "China."Scratching the surface difference of customs or language, people everywhere are pretty similar--they all long for a better live, try to do the best of what they are given and want to be treated respectfully.Being a member of this exclusive five-thousand year old club, I admire and appreciate Tim's efforts to put a humane face of Chinese people and try to build deeper understanding between two great nations.

Must Reading Before Business Travel to China
Several days ago, I learned of the book Mr. China by Tim Clissold. I started reading it last night and finished it early this morning - only 252 pages. It is an absolutely mesmerizing chronicle of the investing in China in the 90's, and of the challenge to traveling out into the hinterlands of that enormous nation.

To a great extent it explains to me the situation I was actually in during my trip to Humen China last November - the balance between the Party and the private sector there, the role of the press, the work ethic and entrepreneurial drive of the Chinese, the intrigue of their nefarious rules/regulations and the balance between Beijing and the provinces. It reinforces the wisdom of our non-profit trade group having over 30 members with offices in China, a resouce we can draw from in our network. But this book is what individuals must read and come to grips with prior to travel to China.

I almost can not imagine what our members went through in opening factoriesthere. After you read this book, neither will you. And the same holds true for our many members there or soon to be in one form or another.

Simply amazing and an important, informative, moving and almost visceral read for those of us in this global game.

Great Emerging Market Lessons
I have worked extensively in Russia, rather than China, but most of the author's experiences and lessons are just as applicable to Russia or any other emerging market.

Other than describing some common pitfalls and challenges, the author does a great job of explaining with insight, humor, and feeling why people are attracted to invest and live in emerging markets.

A good, fun, quick, read that might actually teach you something.Highly recommended!

TMR ... Read more

Book Description

The ideal companion volume to the acclaimed Basic Economics--a guide to how our economic decisions turn out in practical terms.

The application of economics to major contemporary real world problems--housing, medical care, discrimination, the economic development of nations--is the theme of this new book that tackles these and other issues head on in plain language, as distinguished from the usual jargon of economists. It examines economic policies not simply in terms of their immediate effects but also in terms of their later repercussions, which are often very different and longer lasting. The interplay of politics with economics is another theme of Applied Economics, whose examples are drawn from experiences around the world, showing how similar incentives and constraints tend to produce similar outcomes among very disparate peoples and cultures. ... Read more

Reviews (16)

A Great Book (Even for Environmentalists)
Thomas Sowell describes economics as thinking beyond Stage One-considering the later consequences of present policies. This is a great message, and one I wish our national leaders understood. I am a biochemist and a patent attorney, and I consider myself an environmentalist. Most environmentalists, unfortunately, need to think much more about Stage Two and beyond. This book is a good way to start this process and correct some of the naivete that surrounds environmental policy proposals. Mr. Sowell's analysis of recycling, for example, is a much-needed insertion of reality into this area.
I enjoyed the analyses of medical care and risk-taking. Mr. Sowell makes the excellent point that drug prices convey an underlying reality that is not nearly as easily changed as the prices are; drug price controls are therefore self-defeating. I felt Mr. Sowell did not go far enough on this, however. Life insurance works because it is reasonably easy to tell whether someone is dead or not, and because successfully killing someone for the insurance money is difficult and risky. Health insurance works poorly because there simply is no way to define "good" health care, much less tell whether or not someone else's child is receiving it. The demand for medical care is essentially infinite; nearly everyone would like themselves and their families to have better health than they presently do. As soon as a third party payer enters the picture, the necessary connection between demand for health care and the available resources of the patient or his family becomes a fog filled with conflicts of interest.
Mr. Sowell's analysis of zoning laws is basically good. I agree that we need much more consideration of the role of zoning laws in creating urban sprawl. I think Mr. Sowell puts too much emphasis on the role of "open space" in this, though. The main problem is not that we don't allow people to build in the remaining open space, but that thanks to too-restrictive zoning, housing density is far too low in the locations (such as near jobs, shopping, schools, parks, and subway stations) where people want to live. In my own neighborhood (Falls Church, Virginia), demand for housing is intense and home prices are soaring, but thanks to zoning and local politics, the few remaining lots are mostly having single-family houses built on them. Ridiculous!
Mr. Sowell's analysis is faulty in some areas. He too easily dismisses overpopulation as a serious problem. The difficulty is that if people are not required to pay the full costs of raising their own children, they will raise more children than they or their society can afford. If we are going to have such "pro-child" policies as universal free education, therefore, we must balance that with taking steps to control population.
Mr. Sowell admits that there is a limit to the earth's capacity to sustain human life, but says this is not a problem because we are still far from the limit. I am not convinced that we are as far from the limit as he thinks. The earth's resources (and its waste sinks) are being used at a rate which is simply not sustainable even over a time span of decades, never mind centuries. Mr. Sowell's analysis would be correct if there were no externalities. The fact is, though, that resource use is in effect very heavily subsidized. Users of crude oil, for example, do not now have to pay the costs of air pollution, roads, auto accidents, wars to protect the oil flow, climate change, and the like, but instead shove these costs off onto others. As long as this continues, crude oil will continue to be overused and the economy will be less efficient as a result. I would like to see Mr. Sowell's formidable abilities applied to the problem of solving the "Stage Two" problem of externalities, rather than simply sweeping it under the rug.

Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One
This new book is a spirited and controversial examination of how economic choices in public policy often result in unforeseen consequences. Sowell, a professor of public policy at Stanford and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy, examines labor, medical care, housing, and other areas of economic activity. He says that in stage-one thinking, making housing affordable by setting rent controls would seem to be self-evident but that such rent controls both reduce the stock of low-rent housing and cause that stock to deteriorate in condition. He explains that many landlords don't bother to offer properties when rents are low and that those who do find very little incentive to maintain them. On the institution of slavery in the American South, Sowell says slaves were usually better cared for than other laborers because of the slave owners' economic self-interest. He defends the existence of slums as low-cost housing that in the past allowed the residents who chose to live in them to use their funds for other purposes. His predictably laissez faire approach to economics will grate on many readers, but his reasoning is clear and thoughtful. Every library covering economics or public administration will require a copy.-

Sowell Urges us to Think Ahead
Thomas Sowell's "Applied Economics" ought to be required reading in every high school and college economics, politics, and English courses. While Mr. Sowell is Ph.D economist and fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford, his ideas are useful even to the non-economist. As a society, we tend to be taken in too easily by people who make irrational arguments that sound good at first glance but produce miserable results since no one thought about the next step. Often times, too many words are politically popular but are actually quite harmful. Such words include: "living wage," "consumer protection," "rent control," etcetera. When these ideas are actually applied in practice, the results rarely meet the rhetoric over the long-run. Politicians only tend to care about what will get them re-elected, and as a result, few of them have an incentive to think about what will happen 10 years from now. As a result, many often escape the blame since the poor results will be far removed from their disasterous policies. This, of course, could easily be construed as a problem with democracy, but instead, my feeling is that it is a problem with our educational system. If our educational system actually educated citizens to think deeply about what would be the consequences of certain policies, perhaps the heated irrational logic emanating from certain politicians would cease. Perhaps such rhetoric would continue to work in irrational hotspots such as Berkeley, but rare for it to work elsewhere. One could only hope. This book is a must read for everyone -- regardless of who you are.

Michael Gordon

What Comes After the Bold and Noble Ideas
This book is a much-needed antidote for those who measure the value of their policy prescriptions for their surface qualities. Are you for cheap medicine? Then you will want to regulate the prices set by pharmaceutical companies and limit the length of their patents. Are you for cheap housing? Impose rent control. How about fixing the so-called "north-south" inequalities in wealth that you believe are a result of globalization and discrimination? That's simple: increase foreign aid.

To these solutions, and many others like them, Thomas Sowell asks a very basic but often neglected question: What happens next? Once you have imposed rent control in a city, for example, what happens to its housing market? By providing preliminary answers to these questions based on empirical evidence, Sowell undercuts the surface moralism of those who promote these ideas.

Sowell looks at labor markets, the economics of medical care, housing and discrimination, how risk affects business, and finally provides a chapter on why various countries and regions show such different patterns of development. As with all his work, his writing is crystal-clear and enjoyable. This is a wonderful book, but I gave it four stars because Sowell has written many better.

Doesn't add up
The arguments in the books for a FREE market doesn't add up to the conculsions. It cited many failures in government interventions as the basis for a complete free market, however there are no hard evidence that a completely free markets in the sectors covered in the book will work. In particular, it advocate a practical appraoch in that it emphasis what is important is actual experience in the past that matters, not the idealistic socialism. It is however, recent experiences that pointed to the fact that markets are never perfected. The public is misinformed about the safety of automobiles, the pubic is misinformed about the consequences of rent control. In a perfect information market, how can the public be misinformed.

The zoning of land use is against free market. On this topic, I invite Mr. Sowell to come to Hong Kong (where I live) to see how developers (not checked by a competent government) can damage one of the most beautiful natural harbour in the world.

Mr. Sowell's arguments are only valid if very one in the market are thinking about stage 4, otherwise it won't work. He is as idealistic as the communist.

In the real world, we are have to balance between the two exterme and I don't think Mr. Sowell's ideal world exist in any place in the world today. ... Read more

Book Description

"The hour of capitalism's greatest triumph" writes Hernando de Soto, "is, in the eyes of four-fifths of humanity, its hour of crisis." In The Mystery of Capital, the world-famous Peruvian economist takes up the question that, more than any other, is central to one of the most crucial problems the world faces today: Why do some countries succeed at capitalism while others fail?

In strong opposition to the popular view that success is determined by cultural differences, de Soto finds that it actually has everything to do with the legal structure of property and property rights. Every developed nation in the world at one time went through the transformation from predominantly informal, extralegal ownership to a formal, unified legal property system. In the West we've forgotten that creating this system is what also allowed people everywhere to leverage property into wealth. This persuasive book revolutionizes our understanding of capital and points the way to a major transformation of the world economy. ... Read more

Reviews (87)

Profound!!!
De Soto and Tom Friedman (The Lexus and the Olive Tree) are the two authors that make economics accessible. I have just graduated high school, and after basic economics, I understand what de Soto is saying. De Soto is one of the rare economists that has ditched the books and "gotten his hands dirty." He doesn't only forumlates theories, but also applies them in the real world. His research team is spread across the world - in nations such as Egypt, Haiti, Peru, and the Phillipines.

After reading this book, I have become cinvinced that the major problem in the developing and former communist world is the lack of property rights- de Soto's theory. He not only defends his theory, but explains how these thrid world countries can tap into the 9.3 trillion dollars worth of dead capital in their slums, shantys and "suburbs." The proposal is to adopt the society informal property laws into the national formal law in order to allow the poor to claim legal rights to their assets, and therefore allowing them to use their assets as collatoral for loans from banks. He is not idealistic -- he recognizes the problems and the obstacles that have to be met.

This book is fantastic. I read it in four days, and I am not a fast reader, especially econ books I HIGHLY recommend it.

-Joe

de Sota supplies one component for economic growth
The Mystery of Capital attempts to "reopen the exploration of the source of capital and thus explain how to correct the economic failures of poor countries." I believe the author makes an interesting argument within the book concerning the failure of capitalism to catch on in developing and post-communist countries. His argument deals with institutions we here in the West take for granted-property rights and other legal institutions. The connection between these legal institutions and economic growth is clear-and de Sota is clear on this point as well.

He states that an individual living outside the West faces an impenetrable wall of rules that bar them from legally established social and economic activities-such as deleterious bureaucracies that retard growth by wielding red-tape. De Sota sent teams to Peru, the Philippines, Egypt, and Haiti and they experienced firsthand how it takes several years to obtain legal verification of assets-years compared to days here in the West. Under these burdens, individuals create new laws-extralegal laws. These social contracts have created a vibrant but undercapitalized sector. This sector is known in economic layman's terms as the underground or informal economy. The author estimates that over half on the inhabitants in developing countries engage in this sector-using Dead Capital. The value of the assets in the informal markets are huge-surpassing the assets of rich countries sometimes. De Sota has brought attention to the core of the problem-he then states that the solution can be found at the heart of the countries.

He supplies the formula to fix the backwardness of the nascent capitalist nations. The first objective is to unify the many social contracts already existing in the extralegal sector into one, all encompassing social contract-by listening to the "barking dogs", or the people. Past attempts with this aim have failed because they have lacked the legitimacy and support from the current extralegal world. De Sota creates a bridge to fix this dilemma-a bridge that integrates old social property customs into a new all encompassing social contract. By working with their people, government leaders can forge a new regulatory framework. The second task is a task of a political nature because the plan outlined above requires the support of the poor, the elite, and the lawyers. The poor will gain the most because they will greatly increase their economic lifestyles with a more unified social property system that will enable them to use their assets as full functioning capital. The elite will harvest gains as well; they will benefit from an expanded market and growing capitalist economy. The lawyers must not use the current law, but instead fine-tune the law and change it to make it work for all.

De Sota's real world studies and solutions make sense in my mind. He identified a problem and supplied the solution. He may fall short though in his solution because a complex capitalist economy requires much more infrastructure than only property rights-of course I mean other forms of capital, such as human capital. By De Sota is on the right tract; a capitalist economy demands strict and discrete property laws that enable individuals to utilize their assets. His premise is right-under capitalism, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. In the third world, the poor don't have access to their assets, and they thus flounder in the extralegal sector.

One of the single best books on Economics I've read
Many of the other reviewers have given excellent in depth summaries of DeSoto's book, and I will not regurgitate what others have already done a good job of saying. I will just say this: if you want to know why 3rd world countries are 3rd world countries, and what Gov'ts around the world can do to create prosperity for their people, read this book. Nations are poor because of ill-guarded private property rights. It's that simple. They aren't poor because of lack of socialism (quite the opposite), they aren't poor because of lack of resources, it's because "It's the property rights, stupid!"

Books like this can give hope to the pessimist, that it is possible to end serious poverty in the world. Relative poverty will always exist, but the civilization-destabilizing poverty that exists in the Arab world, in Latin America, *can* be cured if Gov'ts would just put in place a system that allows capital (ie entreprenuers) to grow from the natural resources within the country. Replace Socialism w/ Rule of Law. I hope every member of the Iraqi CPA has read this book and heeded its lessons...

Packed With Knowledge!
Hernando de Soto's ideas cannot and should not be ignored. This book will open many eyes to the nature of capital. The author suggests a radically simple yet enormously challenging way of bringing the world's impoverished billions onto the track of capitalism and development: give them legal property rights to what they "own." The author's intriguing case is that a lack of property rights - not a lack of entrepreneurial zeal or competence - stymies development in the former East Bloc and Third World countries. This seemed to be a shockingly original notion when the author first propounded it in his bestseller The Other Patch, and it still does. If the book has a flaw, we warn, it is that the author's undisguised missionary ardor sometimes makes one wonder whether he is merely a zealot. Even if he were one, the book would merit reading.

Thoughts that come on doves' feet guide the world...
Other reviewers have commented on De Soto's originality in relation to prevailing economic tradition. They have also praised his style - very clear prose, interspersed by passages of honest elegance. Yet, for me, at least, what stands out most about De Soto is his interest in discovery, in reawakening a long forgotten question.

Who asks oneself seriously what capital is today? Is one even generally capable of understanding the question of what capital is? I doubt it - the first reaction is ridicule. Of course one knows what capital is, for one lives in a capitalistic society. One can hardly take such a question seriously.

Yet, this provocative question moves this book. De Soto has carried out first-hand research among the boiling global centres of 'marginal' economic activity. He has not looked for the 'right' theoretical answer to the question of capital, rather, he has tried to discover a way to pose, and answer, the question meaningfully. Meaningfully for whom? To those who have forgotten - those in the West - and to those who wish to learn in the developing world and the former communist nations. What is capital?

Other reviewers have criticised De Soto for redundancy, repetition. These criticisms are off the mark. De Soto has discovered the conceptual solution to the question of the potential of capital: a legitimate system of representation of property. Yet, he can not simply elaborate it in a few words, for one does not still understand the question he is answering. Because it is disturbing and fleeting, it is very difficult to grasp. Thus it requires constant reformulation. Shakespeare used parallel structure, De Soto uses masterful analogies (I particularly like his profound observation on something so seemingly apparent as barking dogs).

De Soto also tries to situate his thought within diverse traditions of Western thought, combining Continental philosophy with American analytics (it is rare to see someone who is capable of synthesizing Derrida with Wittgenstein, to say nothing of Searle!). He seems to be trying to say the same thing in many different ways - yet it is very difficult to understand what that thing (capital) is. De Soto helps the reader by offering many different pathways to the thing (capital) itself.

I feel that De Soto might have engaged more deeply with Plato's thoughts on representation and his analysis of the cave parable is somewhat superficial. A more in-depth engagement might provide the basis for a rethinking of some of the precepts behind private property and capital, which De Soto simply accepts as given. This is a personal quibble only, however, as such speculation would reduce the clarity of the book, and thereby reduce its tremendous practical value for concrete action, obviously the author's main intent.

De Soto has written a masterpiece around a a simple kernal of truth. It seems so obvious in hindsight! Yet, it is the very stillness of those words in which it is expressed which will bring on a storm. ... Read more

Book Description

Unstoppable force, meet immovable object. Scene: the World Bank, a mighty development kingdom of many fiefs, its ten thousand employees operating in some one hundred countries responsible for tens of billions of dollars in aid to the world's poorest nations. Enter: James Wolfensohn, the smooth global deal maker and power broker of gargantuan appetites who has furiously worked his many connections to become the World Bank's president. Over the course of his dazzling career, Wolfensohn seduced everything in his way-surely the development gurus of the bank would be no different? Even if this wasn't much the crowd for private jets and homes in Jackson Hole, for friendship with European royalty and Harrison Ford, for fencing at the Olympics and playing the cello in Carnegie Hall with Yo-Yo Ma, surely they would see what a noble sacrifice James Wolfensohn had made in walking away from his multimillion-dollar income?

Not exactly. In 1995, Wolfensohn struck the World Bank like a whirlwind, determined to reinvent the institution founded by Franklin Roosevelt and his World War II allies. Never has the World Bank's work been more important, more in the public eye, or more controversial than in the past nine years when challenges from global financial crises to AIDS to the emergence of terrorist sanctuaries in failed states have threatened our prosperity. In Sebastian Mallaby's masterful hands, the story of Wolfenson and his World Bank is a marvelous tour through the messy reality of global development. What John Gutfreund and Salomon Brothers were to the 1980s and John Meriwether and Long Term-Capital Management were to the 1990s, James Wolfensohn and the World Bank are to our time: the emblematic story through which a gifted author has channeled the spirit of the age. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (62)

Highly Recommended!
This is a new edition of Milton Friedman's classic 1962 capitalist manifesto. As such, it was ignored, spurned and hated for decades by the intellectual, post-Keynesian establishment. In the 60s, Friedman once found himself debating a liberal who attacked him by simply reciting Friedman's views of the proper role of government. This was working rather well with the audience of college students until he quoted Friedman's opposition to the military draft. Friedman suddenly found himself awash in the unexpected cheers of students. Perhaps it was a foreshadowing of his career. Friedman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976, and his ideas gained some degree of mainstream acceptance in the Reagan years - although many of his thoughts remain controversial. To the extent that Friedman debunks myths about the Great Depression that are widely accepted as fact, perhaps he has a point about the semi-privatization of education. We strongly recommend this volume to those who seek a deeper understanding of government's role in a free-market economy.

Compelling and informative
Milton Friedman, far from just paraphrasing Keynes, has given a grand refutation of Keynesian economics as well as argued persuasively for the free-market.

"Capitalism and Freedom" dispels the myths about capitalism that have become so prevalent in our society: that the free-market caused the depression (it was actually a tyrannical Federal Reserve), that socialism can be democratic, and others. Milton's prose is clear and the book is good for those who haven't majored in economics. He gives an unwavering defense of personal freedom and individual autonomy from a minimalist government perspective.

This book is an important contribution to public discourse and although written about 40 years ago, still has relevance today.

Friedman discusses public education, roads, minimum wage laws (which he calls, "the most anti-black law on the statute books," and rightfully so as you'll see if you read this book), as well as the how so-called "progressive" tax system and welfare actually hurt t