Product Description

The breathtaking behind-the-scenes story of the nearly disastrous global financial crisis of the late 1990s and how the International Monetary Fund tried-and failed-to stop it. At a time when the IMF has become the object of intense political controversy, The Chastening is the first book to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the Fund during an extraordinarily turbulent period in modern economic history. Based on interviews with more than 200 officials at the IMF, the World Bank, the U. S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the White House and many foreign governments, The Chastening recounts the struggle to stem the financial crisis that flared in Thailand in mid-1997 and spread to three continents. Its disquieting conclusion: at a time when massive flows of money traverse borders and oceans, the IMF is often woefully ill-equipped to safeguard the global economy or to combat virulent new strains of investor panics. The IMF and its overseers have cultivated the image of masterminds coolly dispensing effective economic remedies. But the reality, as Washington Post economics correspondent Paul Blustein shows, is that as markets were sinking and defaults looming, the guardians of global financial stability were often scrambling, floundering, improvising, feuding among themselves and striking messy compromises. The Chastening-important and fascinating reading for anyone interested in business, finance, and economics-will chasten readers out of any sense of complacency.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #113055 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

Customer Reviews

should become the standard popular reference
This superb book should become the standard popular reference on the International Monetary Fund and the financial crises that swept the globe in 1997-98. Paul Blustein has a background in economics and first-hand experience in Asia where the crises originated. The book is well documented: Blustein conducted hundreds of interviews and is familiar with the academic literature on the subject. Indeed, this entertaining book does a marvelous job of explaining the substantive economic issues while at the same time conveying the very human disorder of crisis management as practiced during these episodes. It is less doctrinaire than Friedman's cheerleading for globalization in "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" and is far better informed on economic policy making than Woodward's "Maestro." (Simply compare Blustein's highly informative description of the Long Term Capital Management crisis with the complete hash of the same affair that Woodward produced in "Maestro.") Highly recommended.

We did not listen!
Blustein sets out the failures of the international financial institutions in relation to the Asian economic crisis, which preceded the dot-com bubble; yet here we are in a truly global economic crisis, having failed the opportunity to reform the out-dated Bretton Woods institutions. When will we learn? How many more crises will it take? The Chastening is a quality investigative work befitting of a Washington Post journalist. Published in 2001, The Chastening may appear to be old hat, but the dummy is still standing in the corner of the class, having failed to learn the need for reform.