Blinder, a professor at Princeton and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, shows us how the US financial system, which had grown far too complex for its own good—and too unregulated for the public good—experienced a perfect storm beginning in 2007.
Where
Union League Club of Chicago
65 West Jackson Boulevard
Chicago, Illinois
Event Details
Publisher's Book Summary
Many fine books on the financial crisis were first drafts of history—books written to fill the need for immediate understanding. Alan S. Blinder, esteemed Princeton professor, Wall Street Journal columnist, and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, held off, taking the time to understand the crisis and to think his way through to a truly comprehensive and coherent narrative of how the worst economic crisis in postwar American history happened, what the government did to fight it, and what we can do from here—mired as we still are in its wreckage.
With bracing clarity, Blinder shows us how the US financial system, which had grown far too complex for its own good—and too unregulated for the public good—experienced a perfect storm beginning in 2007. Things started unraveling when the much-chronicled housing bubble burst, but the ensuing implosion of what Blinder calls the "bond bubble" was larger and more devastating. Some people think of the financial industry as a sideshow with little relevance to the real economy—where the jobs, factories, and shops are. But finance is more like the circulatory system of the economic body: if the blood stops flowing, the body goes into cardiac arrest. When America's financial structure crumbled, the damage proved to be not only deep, but wide. It took the crisis for the world to discover, to its horror, just how truly interconnected—and fragile—the global financial system is. Some observers argue that large global forces were the major culprits of the crisis. Blinder disagrees, arguing that the problem started in the US and was pushed abroad, as complex, opaque, and overrated investment products were exported to a hungry world, which was nearly poisoned by them.
Cost
$35.00, book is not included but will be for sale at the event.
Registration
Register Online
Dress code: business or business casual. Jeans are not allowed.
Deadline: 2/3/2013
Program
11:30 AM-1:15 PM: Luncheon, author presentation, Q&A, book signing
Speaker Profiles
Alan S. Blinder (Speaker)
Gordon S. Rentschler memorial professor of economics and public affairs, Princeton University
http://www.princeton.edu/~blinder/index.htm
Alan S. Blinder is the Gordon S. Rentschler memorial professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University, where he founded in 1989 what is now Princeton's Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies. He is also vice chairman of the Promontory Interfinancial Network and a regular columnist for the Wall Street Journal.
Dr. Blinder was vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board (1994-1996), during which time he often represented the Fed in international forums, and was a member of President Clinton's original Council of Economic Advisers (1993-1994), where he worked intensively on budget, international trade, and health care issues. Dr. Blinder was previously president of the Eastern Economic Association and vice president of the American Economic Association. He is a member of the Bretton Woods Committee and the Bellagio Group, and a former governor of the American Stock Exchange.
He has been elected as a distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association and as a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Economic Club of New York, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He is based in Princeton, NJ.
Questions
Dana Damyen, '02
312-912-5931
Other Information
The Chicago Booth Business Book Roundtable is a forum for prominent writers to engage with The University of Chicago's students and alumni, as well as the Chicago community, on recent developments in business and economics.
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