Fault lines : how hidden fractures still threaten the world economy / Raghuram G. Rajan ; with a new afterword by the author

Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-256) and index

Let them eat credit -- Exporting to grow -- Flighty foreign financing -- A weak safety net -- From bubble to bubble -- When money Is the measure of all worth -- Betting the bank -- Reforming finance -- Improving access to opportunity in America -- The fable of the bees replayed

Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In "Fault Lines", Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed. Rajan shows how the individual choices that collectively brought about the economic meltdown - made by bankers, government officials, and ordinary home-owners - were rational responses to a flawed global financial order in which the incentives to take on risk are incredibly out of step with the dangers those risks pose. He traces the deepening fault lines in a world overly dependent on the indebted American consumer to power global economic growth and stave off global downturns.-- Publisher

Economics