The Trouble with Markets has grown out of my burgeoning worry that the financial collapse of 2008/9, the essence of which I can claim to have foreseen, imperils not just the economy but capitalism itself. Globalisation, the root of recently low inflation and increased prosperity, is at risk. And, dare I say it, democracy, the root of everything, is at risk as well. From the Preface to The Trouble with Markets by Roger Bootle.
In 1996 Roger Bootle rocked the economic establishment with his prophetic books, The Death of Inflation and latterly Money for Nothing, which forecast the crash in the housing market. At the time he was roundly criticised, but events have proved him right.
In his new book, The Trouble With Markets, he sets the global financial crisis in its historical and international context. While examples are drawn from the American and British experience, there are plenty of examples from other countries as well, including an analysis of the contribution made by China's excessive savings.
Although fiercely critical of central banks, regulators and greedy bankers, he puts the main blame on the misguided notion that financial markets can be left alone and on the workings of the international financial system. The book discusses what investors should do with their money in these turbulent times, what measures are needed to get out of the immediate hole and what reforms are necessary to prevent future catastrophe. The Trouble with Markets is written in Bootle's characteristically witty and readable style and will appeal to the general reader as much as to the professional.
