The finance sector of Western economies is too large and attracts too many of the smartest college graduates. Financialization over the past three decades has created a structure that lacks resilience and supports absurd volumes of trading. The finance secto...
The finance sector of Western economies is too large and attracts too many of the smartest college graduates. Financialization over the past three decades has created a structure that lacks resilience and supports absurd volumes of trading. The finance sector devotes too little attention to the search for new investment opportunities and the stewardship of existing ones, and far too much to secondary-market dealing in existing assets. Regulation has contributed more to the problems than the solutions.
Why? What is finance for? John Kay, with wide practical and academic experience in the world of finance, understands the operation of the financial sector better than most. He believes in good banks and effective asset managers, but good banks and effective asset managers are not what he sees.
In a dazzling and revelatory tour of the financial world as it has emerged from the wreckage of the 2008 crisis, Kay does not flinch in his criticism: we do need some of the things that Citigroup and Goldman Sachs do, but we do not need Citigroup and Goldman to do them. And many of the things done by Citigroup and Goldman do not need to be done at all. The finance sector needs to be reminded of its primary purpose: to manage other people s money for the benefit of businesses and households. It is an aberration when the some of the finest mathematical and scientific minds are tasked with devising algorithms for the sole purpose of exploiting the weakness of other algorithms for computerized trading in securities. To travel further down that road leads to ruin.
作者简介
· · · · · ·
John Kay, is a visiting professor of economics at the London School of Economics and a fellow of St John’s College, Oxford University. He is a director of several public companies and contributes a weekly column to the Financial Times. Kay is the author of nine previously published books and coauthor of The British Tax System with Mervyn King. John Kay lives in London.
目录
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Prologue: The Parable of the Ox p. xi
Introduction: Far Too Much of a Good Thing p. 1
Part I Financialisation
Chapter 1 History p. 11
The Road to Pottersville p. 11
The Rise of the Trader p. 16
· · · · · ·
(更多)
Prologue: The Parable of the Ox p. xi
Introduction: Far Too Much of a Good Thing p. 1
Part I Financialisation
Chapter 1 History p. 11
The Road to Pottersville p. 11
The Rise of the Trader p. 16
New Markets, New Businesses p. 23
From Crisis to Crisis p. 34
The Robber Barons p. 42
We Are the 1 Per Cent p. 46
Chapter 2 Risk p. 53
Cows, Coffee and Credit Default Swaps p. 53
Chasing the Dream p. 61
Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard p. 69
Chapter 3 Intermediation p. 77
The Role of the Middleman p. 77
Liquidity p. 84
Diversification p. 91
Leverage p. 95
Chapter 4 Profits p. 101
Smarter People p. 101
Competition p. 106
The Edge p. 108
Regulatory Arbitrage p. 113
I'll Be Gone, You'll Be Gone p. 118
How Profitable is the Finance Sector? p. 126
Part II The Functions of Finance
Chapter 5 Capital Allocation p. 135
Physical Assets p. 135
Housing p. 140
Property and Infrastructure p. 145
Large Companies p. 150
Financing Small- and Medium-Size Enterprises p. 154
Chapter 6 The Deposit Channel p. 163
Household Wealth p. 163
The Payment System p. 170
The Activities of the Deposit Channel p. 177
Chapter 7 The Investment Channel p. 185
Managing Wealth p. 185
A Bias to Action p. 193
The Role of the Asset Manager p. 197
Part III Policy
Chapter 8 Regulation p. 205
The Origins of Financial Regulation p. 205
The Basel Agreements p. 208
Securities Regulation p. 213
The Regulation Industry p. 216
What Went Wrong p. 220
Chapter 9 Economic Policy p. 227
Maestro p. 227
Financial Markets and Economic Policy p. 234
Pensions and Inter-Generational Equity p. 238
Consumer Protection p. 245
The Economic Contribution of Finance p. 247
Chapter 10 Reform p. 255
Principles of Reform p. 255
Robust Systems and Complex Structures p. 261
Other People's Money p. 267
The Reform of Structure p. 270
Personal Responsibility p. 276
Chapter 11 The Future of Finance p. 281
Epilogue: The Emperor's Guard's New Clothes p. 293
Acknowledgements p. 295
Notes p. 297
Bibliography p. 311
Index p. 321
· · · · · · (收起)
The key insight of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is misleadingly simple: if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. (查看原文)
The costs and scale of intermediar activity grew very rapidly, the calibre and intellectual sophistication of people employed increased sharply, and new technologies became available to support their decisions. Yet the quality of intermediation was worse -- much worse. This paradox was repeated across the whole financial sector. The explanation is that the new skills that were developed were skills that were related not to the needs of end-users but to the process of intermediation itself. People who traded mortgage-backed securities knew about securities, but little about mortgages, and less about houses and home-buyers. People who traded shares knew about stock markets, but not about companies and their products. People who traded interest rate derivatives, but not about politics and go... (查看原文)
1 有用 逆光 2017-05-20 02:54:04
上班路上听这个更觉得自己的工作毫无价值了噗
3 有用 宝宝TWO 2019-01-22 16:08:37
早就说过，英国虽然也是世界的金融中心，但是这方面的书籍，比美国的少了很多很多，但是这边的作者，真的深度要高很多，无不印证着美国那边是多么的机械和没有哲学深度
3 有用 Rilkelee 2018-03-01 09:47:17
深入批判financialization，抓住金融的本质功能（总支付清算、资本分配、长时段财富管理）而逐一揭露当代金融系统与其因尽使命之间的脱节之处（对实体经济并没有贡献的高频交易、金融衍生品的泛滥、高复杂度与高相互依赖而导致的系统性风险、用他人的钱赌博然后坐享高收益的赌场资本主义文化）与政府监管的完全失败（太多太具体的监管反而催生更复杂的交易以及监管套利、中央银行救济导致大银行没有承担应尽责任等... 深入批判financialization，抓住金融的本质功能（总支付清算、资本分配、长时段财富管理）而逐一揭露当代金融系统与其因尽使命之间的脱节之处（对实体经济并没有贡献的高频交易、金融衍生品的泛滥、高复杂度与高相互依赖而导致的系统性风险、用他人的钱赌博然后坐享高收益的赌场资本主义文化）与政府监管的完全失败（太多太具体的监管反而催生更复杂的交易以及监管套利、中央银行救济导致大银行没有承担应尽责任等），字里行间顺便黑一把市场万能论以及货币政策万能论者。可惜写得有点乱，前半太dense后半太repetitive，而且给出的药方很大程度上是要回归到80年代乃至50年代以前那种一副典型英国乡绅形象、陪客户聊天打高尔夫球的“社区”银行家，有点无语。 (展开)
0 有用 海森兔 2016-02-23 10:00:51
诚意之作
0 有用 抽抽经会被虐 2016-05-16 08:49:13
开篇读起来晦涩难懂，适应作者节奏后，发现有大量repetitive的段落（为嘛编辑不好好整理）。就内容来说，深度剖析finacialization，多方面看待2008年经济危机。