About this title: Ferguson tells the human story behind the evolution of money, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest Wall Street upheavals. The author shows that finance is, in fact, the foundation of human progress.
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: PENGUIN BOOKS LTD Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780141035482ISBN:014103548X
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 464 pages. From the cash injection that funded the italian renaissance to the stock market bubble that sparked the french revolution, from the bonds that fueled britain's war effort to the wall street crash and meltdown, this book presents the story of boom and bust. it shows that finance is the foundation of all human progress and the lifeblood of history. 16 pp colour inset, integrated b/w (Paperback) read more
Edition: Text is Free of Markings
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books, New York, NY
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780143116172ISBN:0143116177
Description: Very Good Plus. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 442 pp. Tightly bound. Spine not compromised. Very light, minor ding to edge near head of spine. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Group Usa
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780143116172ISBN:0143116177
Description: New. Ferguson tells the human story behind the evolution of money, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest Wall Street upheavals. The author shows that finance is, in fact, the foundation of human progress. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780141035482ISBN:014103548X
Description: New. From the cash injection that funded the Italian Renaissance to the stock market bubble that sparked the French Revolution, from the bonds that fueled Britain's war effort to the Wall Street Crash and meltdown, this book presents the story of boom and... read more
Description: New. PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly shipped from our UK warehouse using Royal Mail International Priority mail. Heavier or more expensive books are shipped with a TRACKING NUMBER. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). read more
"Good general economic history of the financial system from the basics. Combines good understanding of economics (most of the time) with good stories that illustrate his points and make them memorable. As I a supposed rather ideological conservative I expected this book to be more biased towards free market economics than it is. He maintains a good balanced perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of the market system, though ultimately doesn't really understand the concept of externalities: when the market really falls down and the weight he places on its instability is a little under called. As most conservative/non economists, he thinks that money supply and inflation are simply correlated a la Milton Friedman, when there is little evidence for this and how to measure the money supply is not even really agreed. So Bush massively increased the money supply without inflation: duh??"
"How does the Spanish quest for gold explain inflation? What role did cotton bonds play in the fall of the Confederacy (and Britain's conquest of Egypt)? Why are squatters in third world countries sitting on $9 trillion in property assets? If any of these questions are even mildly interesting to you, then you ought to read Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money.
Using statistics, analogies, and historical examples, Ferguson takes the reader on a dazzling tour of the last 500 years of financial history. Beginning with Shakespeare's Shylock, Ferguson explains how credit markets develop, what role financial institutions play in alleviating poverty, and how the increasing complexity of worldwide finance causes great risk and great reward. An unmatched historian, he unravels difficult concepts like inflation so easily that it seems embarrassing that they ever seemed complicated.
Ferguson's greatest strength is in tracing the development of financial institutions and explaining what goes into making - and losing - money. In particular, his chapter on property is a tour de force worth the price of the book. He journeys through the history of property and how property went from being something that only belonged to a static, moneyed elite to a core feature of the American dream, available to everyone. He also explains how in America, property was used to discriminate against - and then empower - black Americans, first by exorbitant interest rates on mortgages and then through subprime loans. His subsequent account of how government and finance combined to package, divide, and sell those subprime loans is as interesting and insightful as it sounds boring and technical. For anyone interested in understanding the current housing crisis, his explanations interweaving policy, history, and economics are invaluable.
In sum, whether you are a person who can't get enough of money or for whom money remains something of a mystery, then The Ascent of Money is for you."
"First, a complaint: This is hardly a history of monetary forms and use. Although Ferguson does discuss some of this early on in his book, everything after the first chapter is devoted to monetary policies and practices, and the rise of capitalism since the Renaissance.
One of Ferguson's driving points is made early on, and is repeated throughout his book. That is, he vehemently and persuasively argues that capitalism - to riff Churchill's critique of democracy - may be a horrible form of economics, but it is the best we have so far in the course of human history. He eloquently states that
"Credit and debt, in short, are among the building blocks of economic development, as vital to creating wealth of nations as mining, manufacturing or mobile telephony. Poverty, by contrast, is seldom directly attributable to the antics of rapacious financiers. It often has more to do with the lack of financial institutions, with the absence of banks, not their presence."
Much to his credit, Ferguson is right on the mark when you consider the predatory lending practices of fly-by-night banks, mortgage companies, and - the worst offender of them all - pay-day loan sharks.
Ferguson peppers his book with numerous scandals and historical characters that illustrate the precariousness of capitalism as it developed out of the wreckage of feudal Europe: Confederate cotton bonds, the Rothschild banking family, John Law's Mississippi Company, Enron and Kenneth Lay, Milton Friedman, the Savings and Loan scandals and Danny Faulkner, mortgage practices after WWII that were effectively racist against blacks, NINJA loans in recent years (No income, no job or assets), and the list goes on.
While an advocate of capitalism at its best, Ferguson doesn't shy away from blasting out of the water the notion that capitalism is Darwinian in nature, by allowing the best and fittest to survive.
"There is...a big difference between nature and finance. Whereas evolution in biology takes place in the natural environment, where change is essentially random (hence Richard Dawkins's image of the blind watchmaker), evolution in financial services occurs within a regulatory framework where - to borrow a phrase from anti-Darwinian creationists - 'intelligent design' plays a part. Sudden changes in the macroeconomic environment, which are analogous to environmental changes in the natural world. The difference is once again that there is an element of endogenity in regulatory changes, since those responsible are often poachers turned gamekeepers, with a good insight into the way that the private sector works. The net effect, however, is similar to climate change on biological evolution. New rules and regulations can make previously good traits suddenly disadvantageous. The rise and fall of Savings and Loans, for example, was due in large measure to changes in the regulatory environment in the United States."
Or, in simpler words, once a regulatory system is functioning profitably, the sharks and poachers will find a way to manipulate the loopholes and suck the system dry. (Think Enron and, more recently, the notorious Bernard Madoff.) Regulation should be just as dynamic as capitalism itself; with constant reevaluation of practices and policies.
Although there were a few parts that were utterly baffling - most notably Black and Scholes "quants" formula for determining stock option pricing - Ferguson's writing is clear and his examples concrete and well-illustrated. For a general survey of the history of real estate, bonds, stock markets, investment practices (especially the recent advent of collateralized debt obligations that precipitated our recent economic recession), The Ascent of Money can't be beat."
"Solid research (lots of footnotes), almost too much detailed stats at some points, and excellent writing (e.g., short sentences) are the strength of this book. It reads similar to a somewhat disparate collage of econ/finance/policy articles from the Economist, or the New Yorker, or Times. That takes a star off for me. There might be a lot of attention to Long Term Capital, Hurricane Katrina, professor DeSoto's work in Peru and South America, British landowners in the 1800's, and the poor in Detroit or Memphis (subprime mortgages). But I kept thinking "wow, this is interesting, but why is he focusing so much on this topic which may not have segued well from 2 prior topics?"
Very loosely this "ascent of money" starts about 500 years ago in his book (with bulk of pages covering the last 20 years): money leads to banks, eventually you get to governments issuing bonds, then private firms issue stock, then risk is shared with advent of insurance companies, then futures and options, and unwarranted tilt to highly levered investments in real estate.
Couple of things he made clearer: "Chimerica" (linkage of China the maker and lender with US the buyer and borrower... and he speculates the next great war possibly could be between these 2!); that LTCM's demise was they bet wrong on an increase in stock volatility in 1998 having sold ton of options; "NINJA" were the poor folks who were the predominant borrowers using subprime mortages (no income, no jobs and no assets), and folks well trained in financial history have seen lots of Black Swans!"
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