Authors: Michael Lewitt
ISBN-13: 9780470466506, ISBN-10: 0470466502
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated
Date Published: May 2010
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Michael E. Lewitt is the President of Harch Capital Management, LLC and editor of the HCM Market Letter. He studied at Brown University, Yale University, and New York University School of Law. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New Republic, Trusts & Estates, and the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
While some semblance of stability has returned to the financial markets, the economies on which these markets must ultimately depend remain structurally weak, and the path toward sustained growth will be difficult. In order to set the economy on a sounder path, we need to understand the sources of instability that caused the failure of the financial system, rethink established ideas, and challenge the intellectual and moral authority of the institutions that control the world's capital. The system is badly broken and we must figure out how to fix it before it is too late.
Written by respected portfolio manager and longtime investment professional Michael Lewitt, The Death of Capital looks at how, in recent years, the U.S. economy has increasingly been dominated by short-term speculation rather than productive investment, debt rather than equity, and short-term thinking rather than long-term planning. These disastrous trends, described here as "financialization," ignore the fact that capital is a highly unstable social process rather than a fixed, historical object or category. As a result of our failure to understand the true nature of capital, we have developed a financial and regulatory system that does exactly the opposite of what it should be doingfavoring obscurity over transparency and fomenting instability rather than a stable path to growth.
In explaining where we have gone wrong, Lewitt pulls few punches in criticizing some of the counterproductive forces that have led to the death of capitalincluding Wall Street practices such as private equity and derivatives tradingwhich he views both as economically unproductive and morally bankrupt. Page by informative page, this timely guide:
Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, The Death of Capital is not just a play-by-play of the recent financial crisis, but also an original and passionate analysis of the trends that led to it and how the financial system can be reformed to avoid future crises.
Acknowledgments.
Introduction: The 2008 Crisis – Tragedy or Farce?
Chapter One: The Death of Capital.
Chapter Two: Capital Ideas.
Chapter Three: Empty Promises.
Chapter Four: Financialization.
Chapter Five: From Innovators to Undertakers.
Chapter Six: Welcome to Jurassic Park.
Chapter Seven: The Road to Hell.
Chapter Eight: Finance After Armageddon.
Conclusion: “This Is Later”.
Notes.
Bibliography.
About the Author.
Index.