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List Price: $15.00 |
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Our Price: $13.50 |
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Customer Ratings: 4.5 (from 22 reviews) |
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Reviews |
Product Description
A dramatic account of one of the most spectacular economic melt-downs of modern times; "an extraordinary tale of bad policy and financial gluttony." (Wall Street Journal) In 2001 Argentina suffered one of the most sensational crashes in modern history. With it came appalling social and political chaos, a collapse of the peso, and a wrenching downturn that threw millions into poverty and left nearly one-quarter of the workforce unemployed. Paul Blustein shows how the IMF turned a blind eye to the vulnerabilities of its star pupil, and exposes the conduct of global financial market players in Argentina as redolent of the scandals-like those at Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing-that rocked Wall Street in recent years. By going behind the scenes of Argentina's rise and fall, Blustein shows with unmistakable clarity how sadly elusive the path of hope and progress remains to the great bulk of humanity still mired in poverty and underdevelopment. |
Amazon.com Review
It's not often--or maybe ever--that a book steeped in emerging-market economic theory reads like a thriller. But And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) has cliffhangers and plot twists equal to a detective's tale, as Paul Blustein chronicles the spectacular rise and fall of Argentina's economy at the turn of the 21st century. The book has its flaws, of course, including the author's insistence on using goofy metaphors from the overripe Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita (from which the book takes its awkward title). But by and large, Blustein, a staff writer at the Washington Post, tells a cynic's tale of greed run amok on a massive scale. While policy wonks at the International Monetary Fund had much to do with Argentina's implosion, Blustein also holds the country's own government responsible. Conventional wisdom says that the influence of the world's investors keeps everyone in line--a key tenet of the pro-globalization argument--but in practice, Blustein writes, "foreign funds numbed Argentine policymakers into minimizing the perils of their policies. The effect was similar to a dose of steroids, giving the economy a short-term boost while insidiously increasing the risk of a breakdown in the long run." From that point on, only devastation lay ahead for many average Argentineans, who could no longer remove savings from their banks, and for international investors, who saw their returns vanish in a flash. Blustein effectively makes the case that Argentina wasn't a rare example or a perfect storm of problems, but--bearing "striking parallels" to Enron and other financial scandals of the era--a preview of more meltdowns to come. It's a compelling cautionary tale well worth telling. --Jennifer Buckendorff |
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| Product Details |
| Author: |
Paul Blustein |
| Binding: |
Paperback |
| Dewey Decimal Number: |
330.98207 |
| EAN: |
9781586483814 |
| ISBN: |
1586483811 |
| Label: |
PublicAffairs |
| Languages: |
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| List Price: |
| Amount: |
1500 |
| Currency Code: |
USD |
| Formatted Price: |
$15.00 |
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| Manufacturer: |
PublicAffairs |
| Number Of Items: |
1 |
| Number Of Pages: |
304 |
| Package Dimensions: |
| Height: |
80 |
| Length: |
820 |
| Weight: |
75 |
| Width: |
550 |
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| Product Group: |
Book |
| Publication Date: |
2006-04-03 |
| Publisher: |
PublicAffairs |
| Studio: |
PublicAffairs |
| Title: |
And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina |
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| Customer Reviews |
Customer Rating: 5
Review Date: 2009-05-08
0 out of 0 found this review helpful.
Summary: Excellent book delivered on time
The book is great! It was recommended to me by my economics professor as an easy read and very informative about the pain of a country going through a crisis. For econ buffs, they may find the explanations to simplistic, but if you are a lay man trying to understand macroeconomic events, its a very helpful simplification
The delivery was absolutely on time, including a shipping notice when it was sent out. |
Customer Rating: 5
Review Date: 2009-02-22
2 out of 2 found this review helpful.
Summary: Don't Cry For Me, Frontier Market
I first read this book in October 2007, on occasion of a week-long business trip to Buenos Aires.
At that time, Cristina Kirchner - CRISTINA! CRISTINA! CRISTINA! the headlines chanted - was well on her way to coronation.
She was so far ahead in the polls, thanks to an easy glamour and the pull of her husband, outgoing President Nestor Kirchner, that "Queen Cristina" hardly needed to campaign.
Now, well over a year later, Cristina has proven to be a disaster. Of course, the entire world ran headlong into disaster in 2008... but Argentina as a country has just received the added indignity of an MSCI ratings downgrade, from "emerging" market to "frontier" market.
Cristina's heavy-handed restrictions on capital flows are to blame. Buenos Aires, long known as the "Paris of Latin America," is now looking more like the capital of Belarus or Kyrgyzstan... at least as far as investment opportunities go. You can put money in, but can't be sure about getting it out again.
Here in early 2009, this book is a timely and compelling read for reasons that stretch well beyond Argentina. If you want to better understand what's happening in the world, Paul Blustein's account of a country's tragic fiscal collapse can provide some clues.
While the book is a CSI-style crime scene unraveling of all the mistakes made along the way to Argentina's turn of the century implosion (soon to be repeated?), the post-analysis of the botched rescue plan also shows deep prescience.
In the final pages, author Blustein notes that a similar plotline could unfold for America one day. He was right... and indeed, for Europe too.
As I write these words, the new Obama administration is wrestling with whether or not to nationalize America's "zombie banks," as the gaping hole grows ever deeper and less radical solutions look ever more impotent by the day.
Supposedly more "conservative" Europe, meanwhile, has been revealed to have many trillions worth of toxic asset exposure still left on its books, with "conservative" European banks having levered up to even greater degrees than their American cowboy cohorts.
In many ways Europe and the UK's troubles are worse than America's, in fact, due to the presence of banks that are not only "too big to fail" but "too big to bail" - meaning the size of some European banks' risk profiles are larger than the entire host country's GDP!
Again, the exigencies of the present day situation tie back to Blustein's excellent chronicle by way of follies revealed and lessons learned (or maybe NOT learned).
For instance, one of my favorite nuggets from "And The Money Came Rolling In (And Out)" is a wonderfully descriptive IMF phrase: "Exploding Debt Dynamics."
Exploding Debt Dynamics refers to the tipping point beyond which there is no return, in terms of a country loading itself up with debt obligations that can never be repaid. Once you find yourself in the grips of EDD, you actually implode rather than explode. It is the explosive nature of compound interest rate burdens that leads to the collapse of hope. At a certain level, the probability of ongoing financial viability diminishes towards the zero point, causing horrified creditors to flee.
Many now wonder at what point Exploding Debt Dynamics will engulf the United States. That point is much farther off than many realize, I now believe, if only because the US still prints the world's reserve currency and because, as bad off as Uncle Sam's balance sheet looks, the balance sheets of Europe and Japan actually look far worse. The scenario is close enough at hand, though, to make for some very scary possibilities (and very lucrative trading opportunities).
In an excellent Barrons interview with Ray Dalio, founder of international money management firm Bridgewater Associates, Dalio talks about how the global economy is slogging through a "D-process" - his term for describing the way in which the dynamics of our current situation are very, very different than the dynamics of more "normal" recessions past.
Dalio recommends reading up on the Great Depression of the 1930s and the "lost decade" in Japan to get a feel for what a D-process looks and feels like. "And the Money Came Rolling In (And Out)" counts as a still-timely tale and another good primer in that regard.
Last but not least, it is truly ironic that ten years ago this month (Feb 2009), the February 1999 cover of Time Magzine featured the heads of three smug-looking men - Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers - over a subhead that blared "THE COMMITTEE TO SAVE THE WORLD"... the word "SAVE" in extra-jumbo font.
Next to that, in less blaring type, the Feb '99 Time cover added: "The inside story of how the Three Marketeers have prevented a global economic meltdown - so far."
Ten years on, what do these "Three Marketeers" have to say for themselves? Little more than "Oops, our bad... except it wasn't our fault actually. Oh well."
One can only hope that books like this one on the Argentine collapse, and the stream of sure-to-follow books chronicling the collapse of Wall Street, the demise of venerable institutions on both sides of the Atlantic, and perhaps even the hobbling of Western Finance itself, will provide a little more insight and a little more humility for future "wise men" to go on.
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Customer Rating: 5
Review Date: 2008-11-23
0 out of 0 found this review helpful.
Summary: great book! a page turner!!!
a really good book! it is difficult for me to find a book that i really enjoy reading, it needs to be really interesting. usually after a while i can't stand to have the same concepts repeated again and again. well this is a really interesting chronicle of the facts that brought to the crisis in Argentina in 2001. a lot of details on how the story unfolded and what were the responsibilities. very interesting in knowing what could happen these days with the current crisis and what could be the real- scary, consequences in our daily life. really a page turner!!! |
Customer Rating: 1
Review Date: 2008-10-03
0 out of 8 found this review helpful.
Summary: No delivery.
I still haven't received this item. It's been over a month since I ordered it. This is highly inconvenient. |
Customer Rating: 5
Review Date: 2007-10-10
1 out of 1 found this review helpful.
Summary: Superb book - reads like a fiction, hits like reality!
This is a short book, easy to read and boy, does it deliver! An account of Argentina during it's economy's heyday and the fall, this book is a fascinating read. It starts off with a brief review of Argentina during the late 1800s and early 1900s but jumps right on the main topic after that. The author explains in extremely lucid prose (no finance knowledge required whatsoever) how the economy was fueled by international funds and how it went bust. Excellent examples, and written like a thriller ... 5 stars all the way! |
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