Makers and Takers - 9780553447231

Eight full years later, the key lessons from the biggest financial downturn since the Great Depression still remain unlearned.  But not only do the misguided financial practices that nearly toppled the global economy still run rampant on Wall St, today they have come to infiltrate ALL of American business, not only putting us on course for another financial meltdown, but just as importantly, a less prosperous economic future.

Drawing on in-depth reporting and exclusive interviews at the highest rungs of Wall Street and Washington, Time Economic Columnist Rana Foroohar shows how the “financialization of America” - the trend by which finance and its way of thinking have come to reign supreme in America - is perpetuating Wall Street's reign over Main Street; slowing growth, flattening wages, widening the gap between rich and poor, and threatening the future of the American Dream.

Consider that finance takes nearly a third of all corporate profits in this country, yet creates only 4 percent of all jobs. Or that the tax code continues to favor corporate earnings over individual savings, making it easier for companies to hoard cash overseas rather than reinvest it on our shores. Or that our biggest and most profitable corporations are investing more money in stock buybacks than in research and innovation. And then there’s the fact that the majority of the financial regulations promised after the 2008 meltdown have yet come to pass, thanks to cozy relationship between our lawmakers and the "too big to fail" banks and other powerful financial institutions.

Exploring the forces that have led American businesses to favor finance over innovating, balancing-sheet engineering over the actual kind, and the pursuit of short-term corporate profits over job creation, Foroohar shows how the rise of finance and the fall of business is so gravely harming our economy and society, and why these issues matter so urgently to us all.

Through colorful stories of both "Takers"--the financially driven powers in both the public and private sector that are destroying jobs and hampering economic progress--and also of "Makers"--the companies and communities where finance has been put back into the service of the real economy--she'll reveal how we can reverse these trends and find a better path forward.