The Mess We're In: Why Politicians Can't Fix Financial Crises - Hardcover

Guy Fraser-Sampson is a bestselling finance and economics author whose works include Cricket at the Crossroads, No Fear Finance, and Private Equity as an Asset Class.

The current international financial crisis reaches back decades, not years, and will continue for the foreseeable future because its roots are not in finance but in politics, asserts British financial writer Fraser-Sampson. Unlike most economic pundits, he focuses more on how the crisis occurred than why, aiming sharp criticism at self-interested politicians who lack the understanding and courage to make the changes necessary to relieve the crisis and avoid future financial disasters. He analyzes the credit bubble that caused the crisis, the burgeoning national debt of nations running budget deficits, recession and slow economic growth, pension-funding shortfalls (particularly in Britain), and politics embroiled in economic policy. He offers historical perspective reaching back to post-WWI Europe and views the current mess through the socialist model of Karl Marx, the balance-of-government-and-private-enterprise model of John Maynard Keynes, and the Austrian School model that argues against government intervention in economics. Noting the failure of socialism and the dubious results of Keynesian economics, Fraser-Sampson argues for the controversial ideas of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek that have gained popularity among American conservatives. --Vanessa Bush