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If you are fed up with Washington boondoggles, and you like the small-government, politically-incorrect thinking of Ron Paul, then you'll love Tom Woods's Meltdown. In clear, no-nonsense terms, Woods explains what led up to this economic crisis, who's really to blame, and why government bailouts won't work. Woods will reveal:
* Which brave few economists predicted the economic fallout--and why nobody listened
* What really caused the collapse
* Why the Fed--not taxpayers--should have to answer for the current economic crisis
* Why bailouts are band-aids that will only provide temporary relief and ultimately make things worse
* What we should do instead, to put our economy on a healthy path to recovery
With a foreword from Ron Paul, Meltdown is the free-market answer to the Fed-created economic crisis. As the new Obama administration inevitably calls for more regulations, Woods argues that the only way to rebuild our economy is by returning to the fundamentals of capitalism and letting the free market work
- Sales Rank: #321608 in eBooks
- Published on: 2009-02-09
- Released on: 2009-02-09
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
[Audio Review] Here, Woods offers a decidedly free-market, conservative approach to the worldwide financial collapse of 2008 09. He explains his take on what led up to the current economic crisis, who's really to blame (namely, the Federal Reserve System), and why government bailouts won't work. Woods's views will appeal to listeners concerned about how the financial crisis impacts them as well as to business leaders and investors wishing to be more enlightened about the crisis. Two-time Audie Award nominee Alan Sklar's (see Behind the Mike, LJ 3/1/09) solid, steady reading helps sustain interest. Dale Farris, Groves, TX --Library Journal
From the Inside Flap
Is Capitalism the Culprit?
The media tells us that "deregulation" and "unfettered free markets" have wrecked our economy and will continue to make things worse without a heavy dose of federal regulation. But the real blame lies elsewhere. In Meltdown, bestselling author Thomas E. Woods Jr. unearths the real causes behind the collapse of housing values and the stock market--and it turns out the culprits reside more in Washington than on Wall Street.
And the trillions of dollars in federal bailouts? Our politicians' ham-handed attempts to fix the problems they themselves created will only make things much worse.
Woods, a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and winner of the 2006 Templeton Enterprise Award, busts the media myths and government spin. He explains how government intervention in the economy--from the Democratic hobby horse called Fannie Mae to affirmative action programs like the Community Redevelopment Act--actually caused the housing bubble.
Most important, Woods, author of the New York Times bestseller The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, traces this most recent boom-and-bust--and all such booms and busts of the past century--back to one of the most revered government institutions of all: the Federal Reserve System, which allows busy-body bureaucrats and ambitious politicians to pull the strings of our financial sector and manipulate the value of the very money we use.
Meltdown also provides a timely history lesson to counter the current clamor for a new New Deal. The Great Depression, Woods demonstrates, was only as deep and as long as it was because of the government interventions by Herbert Hoover (no free-market capitalist, despite what your high school history teacher may have taught you) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (no savior of the American economy, in spite of what the mainstream media says). If you want to understand what caused the financial meltdown--and why none of the big-government solutions being tried today will work--Meltdown explains it all.
From the Back Cover
From the Foreword by Congressman Ron Paul
We can probably expect an avalanche of books in the coming months that purport to tell us what happened to the economy and what we should do about it. They'll be dead wrong, and most of the advice they provide will be dreadful. You can count on that. That's why Meltdown is so important. This book actually gets things right. It correctly identifies our problems, their causes, and what we should do about them. It treats the architects of this debacle not with the undeserved reverence they receive in Washington and on television, but with the critical eye that is so conspicuously missing from our supposedly independent thinkers in academia and the media. Tom Woods reserves his admiration for those few who, unlike the quacks who would instruct us now, actually saw the crisis coming, have a theory to explain it, and can show us the way out. In a short span, Tom Woods introduces the layman to a range of subjects that have been excluded from our national discussion for much too long. Topics our opinion leaders thought they'd buried forever, or never heard of in the first place, are suddenly back, and not a moment too soon. This book is an indispensable conduit of these critical ideas. . . . Ideas still matter, and sound economic education has rarely been as urgently necessary as it is today. There is no better book to read on the present crisis than this one, and that is why I am delighted to endorse and introduce it.
Most helpful customer reviews
327 of 351 people found the following review helpful.
The Most Important Debate in our Lifetime
By Dan in SE Tennessee
Tom Woods has written a timely and timeless book - timely because it addresses the most pressing issue of our day, and timeless because he explains economic cycles and the nature of money in plain language.
It is curious that Congress is on the verge of passing an economic stimulus bill that is opposed by nearly two thirds of Americans. Mr. Woods provides the logic behind the intuition of this increasingly disenfranchised majority. Americans opposed to further government meddling should read this book to fully arm themselves with the knowledge necessary to win the debate. Well-intentioned Americans who support government intervention in the economy should read this book to understand the unintended consequences of their support.
Partisan readers beware: regardless of your political affiliation, you will discover that your party shares in the blame for the mess we're in. It is best to check your party affiliation at the door before you read this book. But read it!
The first chapter quickly identifies fractional reserve central banking as the main driver of the current and previous economic downturns. It's a long-overdue call to debate the necessity of our Federal Reserve system.
The second chapter addresses the housing bubble, and how the loudest voices on all sides of the debate are proposing solutions to the symptoms instead of recognizing the real problem.
The third chapter addresses the government's futile reactions to the financial and economic crisis in the last months of 2008. It's amazing to see such recent history covered so well in a book.
The fourth chapter alone is well worth the price of the book. Mr. Woods explains in plain language that economic cycles are not natural phenomenon, but are caused by artificial manipulation of the money supply. The business cycle theory of Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek is explained in a manner easily understood by the layman reader.
Chapter five covers myths of the Great Depression. Understanding this time in our history has never been so important as it appears we are on the verge of repeating the same mistakes. Mr. Woods gleans lessons by comparing previous market busts and subsequent government reactions to them.
Again, the sixth chapter alone is worth the price of the book. Mr. Woods explains the nature of money. It's hard to believe how something we use every day can be such a mystery to us. It's impossible to effectively engage in the debate about fractional reserve central banking without understanding the nature of money. We learn in this chapter how money is a creation of the free market and not a government invention.
The book ends with a chapter that instructs us on what courses of action (or inaction) that we should take in order to restore a lasting prosperity. It is vastly different than the choices being proposed by our government and the media.
Whether you are a liberal, conservative, or something else, I implore you to read this concise, well-reasoned book. In the most important debate in our lifetimes, this book represents a side that is ignored by the media. Ignore it at your peril.
350 of 380 people found the following review helpful.
Buy a second copy to throw at the TV
By Andrew S. Rogers
In discussions of today's economic meltdown and what to do about it, the Federal Reserve is a stealth helicopter: it never shows up on the radar. With the exception of a few esoteric specialists and those Ron Paul Revolutionaries who burst into chants of "Abolish the Fed!" during campus rallies last year, it's like something has been put in our water to cause our eyes to glaze over and our minds to wander off at the very mention of centralized banking.
Which is, of course, a Problem, since as historian Thomas Woods notes in this important book, the Federal Reserve bears a large part of the blame for the mess we're in. In the first part of "Meltdown," Woods shows how both in theory (the Austrian School, to be precise) and in practice, Fed policy fueled an artificial boom and instead of allowing the necessary, if unpleasant, short-term bust that will lead to recovery, is pursuing policies guaranteed to drive us deeper into the abyss. Little of this finds its way into the popular or business press, suggesting that the people who know the truth aren't talking, and the people who are talking either don't know or are deliberately trying to keep the helicopter hidden. As Woods writes, "critics of the market who ignore the arguments raised in this chapter are, to say the least, not being honest" (p. 86).
But to paraphrase Will Rogers (no relation), it's not so much the things we don't know that are a problem, it's the things we DO know that aren't really true. That's why every bit as important as Woods' explanation of the role of the Federal Reserve in the unnecessary cycle of boom and bust is his taking down of decades' worth of myths about the government's role in the economy. As the author points out, historians have more or less abandoned the idea that New Deal intervention "got us out of the Depression," but the myth remains stronger than ever among journalists and the public. The result of this is not only a profound misunderstanding of American history, but more to the point, a widespread delusion that "history proves" massive government spending promoting consumer demand is the way out of a recession. Here again we see the apocalyptic power of bad ideas.
All this suggests the economic crisis, and particularly the stimulus-driven response to it on the part of the Bush and Obama administrations, are a domestic equivalent of the Iraq War (I want to note that this is my metaphor, not Woods'): an over-reaction to a situation by and large of our own creation, and sold to the American people through a series of lies, the plan largely benefits those who argue for it most strongly while the rest of us end up poorer. The "opposition" is arguing over details while conceding the fundamental principle -- an intervention that gives the government a foothold of occupation it will probably never relinquish.
That's why "Meltdown" is so important -- and why the Austrian School, which alone not only foresaw the coming crash but understood why it was going to happen, deserves so much wider attention. If I could improve anything about "Meltdown," I would have made even more prominent the citations of thinkers and books interested readers should pursue. Woods does do this in an appendix, and I strongly recommend you read the footnotes closely. But something like the "additional reading" or "books they don't want you to read" call-outs of the author's The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History would, I think, have been even more useful.
If "respectable opinion" does pay attention to this book and the ideas it promotes, it will do so with the same combination of pity and contempt that earlier book received. As Woods writes, "You do not win friends in the political and media establishments by proposing a monetary system that cannot be exploited by governments to enrich their friends, enable their addiction to spending and looting, and fund their bailouts" (p. 134). But out here among the non-establishment, you DO make friends by telling the truth. And Tom Woods has a lot of friends.
118 of 129 people found the following review helpful.
An Austrian Weighs In
By Fritz R. Ward
If one is to believe the mainstream print media, the current economic crisis is all about a lack of regulation in the financial markets and we need massive government spending to "stimulate" the economy. Keynesian ideas, which have in fact guided US monetary policy for decades, are suddenly receiving a public revival despite the 1970s stagflation debacle, their failure to bring the US out of the Great Depression, and their dramatic failure in turning around the Japanese economy over the last two decades. Indeed, just today (Feb 21) President Obama announced middle class tax "refunds" will quickly find their way into consumer hands so they can "spend" more. He is also planning a massive increase in public works spending while commentators like economist Paul Krugman are suggesting he should augment these totals with 50% more spending yet. And still, the markets, which had recovered slightly in January, continue to drop. If there were any validity to Keynesian thought at all, the US would be beginning the greatest economic revival in history. But it appears instead that we are beginning the long process of turning a housing recession into a full blown depression, with hardly a whisper of alternative analysis. Still, for those with ears to hear, as it were, Thomas Woods offers here an alternative "free market" appraisal of the current economic crisis. However, in doing so he has violated one of the cardinal rules of history by writing a quick analysis of events. As an example of immediate historical anaysis, I think this one is pretty good, but the book does have a few deficiencies.
In brief, Wood's argument is that "conservatives" do in fact share a significant portion of the blame for the present crisis. This is not because, as the cannard goes, they "deregulated" the economy. Indeed, regulatory spending during the Bush presidency went up 65% in real terms, a fact that I am amazed escaped any notice in this book. (See Jan Reason Magazine, "Is Deregulation to Blame?") Nor is it because the Democrats somehow prevented them from providing enough oversight into Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, two supposedly private companies which would never have existed were it not for their creation by government fiat. The real reason is because they allowed, and even collaborated in, a massive increase in currency inflation under Chairmans Greenspan and Bernacke and refused to heed warning signs about the consequent housing market bubble. Despite Republicans' recent discovery that the Community Reinvestment Act has been used of late to offer loans to people who obviously were not qualified for them, the fact is that "conservatives" have been just as guilty about manipulating markets as liberals have for the last two decades and neither will own up to real problem: our Federal Reserve System does not limit crises like these. It creates them.
In fingering the Fed as the cause of the current crisis, Woods is siding with a long line of dissenting economists popularly known as the Austrian School. These economists argue, in brief, that the boom and bust cycles of free economies (command economies avoid the cycle by remaining in virtually permanent depressions) are due to artificial increases in and contractions of the credit market, usually caused by government manipulation of the money supply. In Austrian theory interest rates are important because they reflect what consumption a person is willing to give up in the present for some future gain. One would not "borrow" to create a new product unless one had a reasonable expectation that the return would be greater than the interest rate. Of course, an entreprenuer could be wrong in her analysis, but the prevailing intrest rate still guides investment in the economy as a whole. Bad investments are quickly liquidated, and capital flows to new opportunities. But if markets are manipulated, say by inflationary policies, it is difficult to know if new investments are really that valuable, or just appear to be. Once money circulates through the economy and prices rise, it becomes obvious which investments were legitimate which were not, but in the meantime, there is a massive misalignment of resources, a problem the market "solves" with a recession.
Austrian theory does a very good job, as it happens, of explaining both the "dot com" bust of 2000 and the housing crisis of 2007-08. But the solutions Austrian theory proposes are politically unpopular, or perhaps more honestly, they are unpopular among the political class. The ideal solution is for government to stay out of the way and let the economy heal itself. Alas, that solution has not been tried since the 1920-21 depression, where it worked wonders in turning around a moribound economy. Instead, government officials like to take action and "do something" (ie. reward their political cronies under the guise of promoting the public good) and so they soak up useful capital for wasteful spending projects (more windmills anyone?) at precisely the time that capital is at a premium even for profitable pursuits. Governments also encourage more consumer spending (saving would do more good) and generally tax healthy businesses to subsidize those that should have been allowed to go bankrupt. Naturally, such policies accerbate the depression, but at least a few individuals benefit from them and government officials can proclaim their "successes" with these public examples. The private suffering their policies provoke are largely unnoticed and rarely connected to these policies.
To make sure that these consequences are brought home to people, Woods examines the two instances in history when Keynesian policies were most thoroughly employed: the Great Depression, and Japan from 1989 to the present. In both cases, Keynesian policies were practiced to the hilt and yet in both instances, the depression lingered on with no "real" success changing the economic crisis. This is because the problem was not with the crisis per se, but rather with the misallocation of resources from the preceding artificial "boom." A steadfast refusal to permit the reallocation of resources will simply prolong the situation, but that is exactly what governments do. There is, of course, a modern myth that the failure of the New Deal to solve the problems of the depression is just a modern right wing fantasy. The reality of course is that the New Dealer's themselves recognized their policies were a failure, and I was pleased to see Woods quote Secretary Henry Morganthau to this effect, "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work..." (p. 149) But just to make sure the point is not missed by naive revisionists like Paul Krugman, who is if anything even more of an embarassment to the Nobel committee than Al Gore, Woods goes on to recount the experience of Japan with their 10 bailouts, decades of 0 interest rates, and a depression that is now worse than our own of the 30s. None of which will make any difference to the true believers. Indeed, Krugman insists Japan should have spent even more, though how much more he cannot specify.
And that leads to the ultimate problem with this otherwise nice little book. It is a rush job hoping to influence a debate that is already pretty much over. People overwhelmingly opposed the first 700 billion dollar bailout and it was voted through with strong bipartisan support. Many opposed the second as well, but it is even larger and already signed into law. Yes, House Republicans suddenly rediscovered their small government principles now that they are such a tiny minority their vote no longer matters. This hardly inspires much confidence in their future probity. But in the meantime, we have years of mismanagement (at best) before us and the likelyhood is decent for a prolonged recession, at the very least. Woods of course provides a few modest suggestions for real change: allow businesses to fail, cut government spending, deregulate, but "change" was never an actual goal of the electorate this last election. Had it been, we would have Ron Paul as President. But in trying to influence a debate that is for the most part over, Woods did not do his thesis the justice it deserves. As I noted at the start of my review, he does not touch upon the massive regulation of the economy under the Bush administration which contributed to this crisis. And he barely mentions the wild misappropriations of the first 700 billion package. How could he? Despite the fact we all knew they were coming (and this latest "stimulus" is probably worse) we are only now finding out the details behind this scandal. Part of the problem with writing history as it happens is that many of the most important details will be left out, either due to haste or necessity.
Thomas Woods is a top notch historian. He is certainly a better writer than the majority of American historians today. But valuable as this book is, it is incomplete. We know the effects of Bush Obama policies will be detrimental to the economy--indeed, they already are. But we do not know how this detriment will play out. Indeed, Americans are probably the preeminent entreprenuers in the world. A new industry in an as yet unrecognized, and hence unregulated, field may develop that will save this economy, much as the internet came in on the heels of federal mismanagement following the Savings and Loan debacle. The resulting wealth creation overwhelmed the government mismanagement that could have lead to a deeper recession or depression. And something similar may yet happen. It is more likely here than in Japan, I would suspect. Careful historians do not have to debase themselves into public pundits like Krugman does. I suspect that in two years time, this good book could have been a great book, explaining (not predicting) either a great depression, or a miracle of American individualism that somehow avoided it, and in either case it would have been a more effective warning against the failed policies of the past than this one, good as it is, could ever hope to be.
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