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A New York Times Bestseller
An unrivaled look at the fight to save the American economy.
In 2006, Ben S. Bernanke was appointed chair of the Federal Reserve, the unexpected apex of a personal journey from small-town South Carolina to prestigious academic appointments and finally public service in Washington’s halls of power.
There would be no time to celebrate.
The bursting of a housing bubble in 2007 exposed the hidden vulnerabilities of the global financial system, bringing it to the brink of meltdown. From the implosion of the investment bank Bear Stearns to the unprecedented bailout of insurance giant AIG, efforts to arrest the financial contagion consumed Bernanke and his team at the Fed. Around the clock, they fought the crisis with every tool at their disposal to keep the United States and world economies afloat.
Working with two U.S. presidents, and under fire from a fractious Congress and a public incensed by behavior on Wall Street, the Fed―alongside colleagues in the Treasury Department―successfully stabilized a teetering financial system. With creativity and decisiveness, they prevented an economic collapse of unimaginable scale and went on to craft the unorthodox programs that would help revive the U.S. economy and become the model for other countries.
Rich with detail of the decision-making process in Washington and indelible portraits of the major players, The Courage to Act recounts and explains the worst financial crisis and economic slump in America since the Great Depression, providing an insider’s account of the policy response.
16 pages of photographs
- Sales Rank: #23012 in Books
- Published on: 2015-10-05
- Released on: 2015-10-05
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.60" h x 1.90" w x 6.60" l, 2.49 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 624 pages
Review
“Undoubtedly the best account we will ever have of how government and financial institutions dealt with what has come to be known as the Great Recession.” (New York Times Book Review)
“Revelatory…the book sheds light on many of the smaller dramas that hang over this crucial period of world economic history.” (New York Times)
“A careful, detailed, and exceptionally clear justification for the Fed’s aggressive actions to avert another Great Depression and resuscitate the American economy.” (Washington Post)
“Bernanke’s insights are instructive about what went wrong and how to keep it from happening again.” (Los Angeles Times)
“A fantastic and reasonably accessible introduction to the economic thought of a former Federal Reserve Chair.” (Vox)
“A fascinating account of the effort to save the world from another catastrophe [like the Great Depression]…. Under Bernanke’s chairmanship, the Fed, whatever its pre-crisis mistakes, helped save the U.S. and the world from a disaster. Humanity should be grateful.” (Martin Wolf - The Financial Times)
About the Author
Ben S. Bernanke served as chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. He was named Time magazine's "Person of the Year" in 2009. Prior to his career in public service, he was a professor of economics at Princeton University.
Most helpful customer reviews
43 of 52 people found the following review helpful.
The Courage to Teach
By Josh Rudolph
This book would have an average rating of 4.5 stars if it wasn’t for the 35% of reviewers who give it one star. Judging by the one-line reviews of those one-star trolls, they don’t seem to have read the book or understand what the Federal Reserve does. That is unfortunate, because those are the folks who would benefit the most from reading this book. Bernanke spent much of his career pushing the Fed to be more transparent and to do more public outreach, and no other book offers a more informed and thoughtful explanation of how and why the most important economic policy decisions of our lifetime were actually made.
The book is not without its limitations. Most of the informational content was already public in one form or another, such as through the Fed’s exhaustive minutes and transcripts. And while the author admits to some mistakes around timing or perception, he puts more energy into defending his key actions than he puts into dispassionately pondering how unconventional monetary policy might have worked better, what future evolutions of policy innovation might look like, and what kind of adaptations our political institutions must undergo to enhance their flexibility when responding to financial and economic crises. On these essential questions, the book is not very courageous.
But don't let those drawbacks prevent you from seeing this book’s two unique and essential contributions, either one of which earns it a five-star review.
First, it is an inspirational story about how a man who came from humble roots and became one of the world’s leading experts on the Great Depression unexpectedly found himself in the singular position of being able to save America from falling into a Second Great Depression. And then, rather than shrink from the responsibility or cower into a fit of academic ruminations, this previously obscure professor utilized his background and found the force of character to convince and push his colleagues and the world into taking previously unthinkable actions to avoid repeating the fate of the 1930s. It’s a gripping American tale.
Second, whereas other authors have already written play-by-play accounts of the crisis, Bernanke brings the analysis to a much higher level by couching the story in a systematic framework for how a central bank should behave in a financial crisis. The model starts with Bagehot’s Dictum, adds the idea of the financial accelerator, explains how these old concepts took on new faces, and includes critical non-economic ideas such as the essentiality of democratic legitimacy.
How does the author manage to wrap such a sweeping array of concepts into a single coherent narrative? Like the Roman statesman Cincinnatus who saved the republic and then returned to his farm to cultivate his crops, in writing this book after saving the global economy Bernanke steps back into his old role as professor to cultivate the next generation. The author seems to have been disciplined about writing for an audience of undergraduate students studying economic policy, which makes the book highly accessible. While his tenure at the Fed will inspire future generations into having similar courage to act, Bernanke’s book is a gift to the world he saved because he wrote it with the courage to teach.
31 of 39 people found the following review helpful.
Only in America
By David Shulman
This is an American story about the rise of the son of a Jewish druggist from the backwater town to Dillon, South Carolina to the commanding heights of the global economy. When he is writing about his boyhood and personal life Bernanke writing shows the benefits of the creative writing course he took in his freshman year at Harvard. Unfortunately when he writes about policy making the writing becomes more guarded and academic. Nevertheless it remains a very lucid account of the financial crisis and its aftermath.
He chronicles his early life in the segregated South to his working construction and as waiter at the very touristy South of the Border rest stop off I-95 to his arrival at Harvard and graduate school at MIT. From there he goes on to teach at Stanford and Princeton establishing his reputation as a leading scholar of the depression (See his “Essays on the Great Depression”)
He leaves academia first to become appointed a Governor on the Federal Reserve Board by President George W. Bush, to the chairmanship of the Council of Economic and then in early 2006 to the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve Board. To my mind the Fed including Bernanke and other regulators flunked in failing to see the onset of the financial crisis brought about by reckless lending not only in the housing markets but through the creation of an array of toxic financial products. However with the onset of the financial crisis in August 2007 through mid-2009 the Fed and others did indeed have the courage to act. Here Bernanke and crew get an A in throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the crisis. In my mind their actions avoided the Great Depression 2.0.
Bernanke argues, correctly in my opinion, that Lehman Brothers, my former employer, could not have been saved. At the time it looked Lehman’s balance sheet was too toxic for any private sector party to handle. It is easy to second guess, but you have to put yourself in the shoes of the decision makers when they made the decision. However, while spending quite a bit of time on Lehman, Bernanke gives short shrift to the two wards of the Fed, Citi and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. Were they just as insolvent as Lehman, who knows, but Bernanke doesn’t tell.
With the high drama of the financial over Bernanke covers his defense of the Fed in the writing of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act and his growing friendship with Democrat Barney Frank, the Chair of the House Financial Services Committee. He also highlights his growing dislike of what I call the “wrecker caucus” within the Republican Party. This animosity causes him to leave the Republican Party. Who can blame him?
He then goes on to discuss the very sluggish recovery and the very low rate of inflation. He brings the reader into the internal Fed debate involving the policy choices to expand the Fed’s balance sheet with QE2 and QE3 and the continuation of the Zero Interest Rate Policy throughout his entire term and beyond. As a result the Fed’s balance sheet quintuples during his tenure in office. He gives himself high marks in promulgating these policies. Further he contrasts the relative success of the U.S. economy when compared to Europe and Japan where more orthodox monetary and fiscal policies were followed.
In this judgement Bernanke is premature. It is far too early to judge how the 8 year policy of zero rates and the explosion of the Fed’s balance sheet will look to a future Ben Bernanke writing in 2025. Remember in 2005 Alan Greenspan looked like a genius and three years later not so much.
*-With apologies to another Jewish South Carolinian, Harry Golden.
43 of 56 people found the following review helpful.
A review from someone who has actually read the book
By Yoda
As of Oct 25, 2015 there are 46 reviews of this book. Of those, there are only about 12 that are either “verified” amazon purchases or look like they have been written by someone who actually read the book (i.e., more than one to three sentence reviews, not scathing political attacks, etc.). This review seeks provide a real review by someone who has actually read the book and to provide those interested with that perspective.
Any review of this book would have to start by discussing two aspects of the book. One is the intended audience and the second the structure of the book. With respect to the intended audience, this book is definitely written for the layman in mind (albeit that layman would be expected to have the equivalent of one or two undergrad classes in macro and money and banking). For those with a more serious background in economics (an undergraduate major in the field or having done graduate level work) this book will prove a serious disappointment. There simply is not that sophisticated a discussion and analysis of economic issues for this audience.
A second aspect of the book that needs to be pointed out is that it is a memoir that is much like Alan Greenspan’s memoir, “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World”. In that book Dr. Greenspan not only discussed his years as head of the Fed and the relevant policies and political interactions occurring while there but also his life. The reader learns of his upbringing including education, his love of music and his political and economic world views (i.e., Ayn Rand accolade). The reader also learns of Dr. Greenpsan’s ultimate paradox – the belief in the free enterprise system while simultaneously using taxpayer money to bail out private entities that were not even regulated by the US financial authorities, in particular Long-Term Capital. Dr. Greenspan was adamant that private equity firms like this not be subject to government regulation but was willing to bail them out (albeit only when their failure threatened the banking system).
Dr. Bernanke’s book is much like Dr. Greenspan’s. The reader learns of his family background, his education and what his economic world view was – basically that he believed in the free market system but, unlike Greenspan’s Ayn Rand views, believed like Socrates that individuals and society were bound up to each other with mutual obligations. Dr. Bernanke, however, could have went more in-depth than this (the above is basically all that he says in that regard), particularly in regard to his economic views from both a Monetarist and Keynesian perspectives. After all, he encompassed both in terms of academic and governmental careers. He was a monetarist in terms of providing liquidity to the banking system when it needed it (his views are best expressed in his speech given at Milton Friedman’s 90th birthday [this can be found on the Fed’s website]) but also a Keynesian in terms his belief that an expansionary fiscal policy was needed during the crisis. Unfortunately this last point goes almost totally unexamined in his book. Dr. Bernanke’s memoirs are also a little weak relative to Dr. Greenspan’s in terms of historical sweep but this is to be expected. Dr. Greenspan served in government since “retiring” from the private sector in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Thus he had many very interesting stories and insights into more political and economic policy makers than does Dr. Bernanke due to his much longer tenure in public service (in one role or another). For example, Dr. Greenspan discusses interactions with and his views of President Nixon. This was a man that Greenspan thought was hateful and angry beyond belief (clinically so as a matter of fact). This is not exactly a new insight as many others have also provided similar views. Dr. Bernanke’s relatively short history in the public sphere prevents him from providing this many views on economic and political personalities.
The book’s main strength is also its main weakness – that it is written for a lay audience. Hence there is not a very sophisticated in-depth analysis and discussion of things economic relevant to the crisis that can shed light on the issue for the very knowledgeable in the field (i.e., those with a good undergrad background and a graduate education). Why did this crisis occur in his opinion? Why, in great technical detail, did he believe that the steps he took were needed (relative to the alternatives)? What needs to be done in the future to prevent a repeat? With respect to the last question the book is particularly weak, even for laymen. This is particularly a shame as he is the one man who can really answer some of these questions, particularly those related to his policies. Nevertheless, for the layman, crude answers are provided. And this is, after all, the audience Dr. Bernanke is seeking to reach. Hence a four-star rating is justified.
For laymen seeking a more in-depth analysis and discussion of the crisis (i.e., causes, policies, future problems), as viewed from the outside as opposed to a policy maker from within, this reviewer highly recommends Dr. Alan Blinder’s “After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead”. That book is much stronger than Dr. Bernanke’s, especially in terms of what needs to be done going forward, something that Dr. Bernanke has not given the space it so disserves.
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