| Summary, etc. |
In The Confidence Game , journalist Steven Solomon penetrates the closed circles of some of the most powerful and least known figures in the global economy-the central bankers. As interest rates, exchange rates, and financial crises make headlines, the spotlight has increasingly turned on these notoriously secretive unelected men who create and manage the world's money from behind the walls of the U.S. Federal Reserve, the German Bundesbank, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, and the enigmatic Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. After traveling around the world twice and gaining the confidence of scores of central bank governors, finance ministers, political leaders, and top financiers-including Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker, George Shultz, Helmut Schmidt, Karl Otto Pohl, Hans Tietmeyer, Yasushi Mieno, Gordon Richardson, Nigel Lawson, Jacques de Larosiere, and Edouard Balladur-Solomon tells the dramatic story of how the world economy and politics have been transformed by the eruption of high-speed, volatile global money flows, and how the global monetary system has often teetered on the brink of catastrophe. With never-before reported details of frantic international phone calls and secret negotiations conducted behind closed doors, The Confidence Game vividly informs us how central bankers and world leaders dealt with the LDC debt crisis of the early 1980s, the near collapse of the dollar, the 1987 stock market crash and its ripple effect around the world, the boom and bust of the Japanese "bubble economy," and the global recession of the early 1990s. With national politics increasingly held hostage to maintaining the confidence of global financial markets, democratic governments are transferring more and more governing authority and political independence to these unelected central bankers-with expectations of economic prosperity that are unlikely to be met. A rare insider's journey through the hidden world where politics and high finance collide, The Confidence Game is an indispensable guide to the rapidly changing global economy. |
