Summary: I.O.U. E-Book

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• Herausgeber: Political Book Summaries
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 19

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The must-read summary of John Lanchester's book: “I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay”.

This complete summary of "I.O.U." by John Lanchester, a renowned journalist and economist, outlines his analysis of the causes of the financial crisis and offers solutions to avoid such scenarios in the future.

Added-value of this summary:
• Save time
• Understand the financial crisis and its causes
• Expand your knowledge of economics

To learn more, read "I.O.U" and discover how we came to experience such a complete financial disaster in 2008, and how we can hope to avoid it again.

Leseprobe

Book Presentation: I.O.U. by John Lanchester

Book Abstract

In I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay, John Lanchester takes an in-depth look at the causes of the current financial crisis and explains how the booming global economy collapsed seemingly overnight. He also points out the most important lessons we can learn from this crisis and offers solutions on how to avoid another such catastrophe in the future.

About the Author

John Lanchester is a novelist and a contributing editor at the London Review of Books. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, Esquire, The Observer, and the Daily Telegraph. In 2008, Lanchester received the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in London.

Summary of I.O.U. (John Lanchester)

Introduction

In 2008, the global economic system came to a screeching halt. Major financial firms failed, credit dried up, unemployment and foreclosures soared, and the financial system as we know it teetered on the brink of complete collapse.

Capitalism is supposed to be self-correcting, so how exactly did we end up in this mess?

The origins of the current crisis can be traced back to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Throughout the Cold War, capitalistic societies recognized they were in a public relations struggle with their socialistic counterparts. As a result, capitalistic societies maintained robust social safety nets to protect their citizens from the inevitable upheavals and dislocations that free markets produce. Once Communism failed, however, capitalistic systems saw no further need to offer the kinds of social safeguards that were intended to win hearts and minds. After all, with socialism vanquished, there was no viable alternative to capitalism.