Money, Banking and Financial Markets

Money, Banking and Financial Markets Review

Money, Banking and Financial Markets Overview

Cecchetti & Schoenholtz Money, Banking, and Financial Markets, 3rd edition offers a fresh, modern, and more student-friendly approach. Students will find the material relevant and interesting because of the book’s unique emphasis on the Five Core Principles, the early introduction of risk, and an integrated global perspective. By focusing on the big picture via core principles, Cecchetti & Schoenholtz teaches students the rationale for financial rules and institutional structure so that even when the financial system evolves, students’ knowledge will not be out of date.

The worldwide financial crisis of 2007‐2009 was the most severe since that of the 1930s, and the recession that followed was the most widespread and costly since the Great Depression. Around the world, it cost tens of millions of workers their jobs. In the United States, millions of families lost their homes and their wealth. To stem the crisis, governments and central banks took aggressive and, in many ways, unprecedented actions. As a result, change will be sweeping through the world of banking and financial markets for years to come. Just as the crisis is transforming the financial system and government policy, it is transforming the study of money and banking. Against this background, students who memorize the operational details of today’s financial system are investing in a short‐lived asset. Cecchetti & Schoenholtz Money, Banking, and Financial Markets, 3e focuses on the basic functions served by the financial system while deemphasizing its current structure and rules. Learning the economic rationale behind current financial tools, rules, and structures is much more valuable than concentrating on the tools, rules, and structures themselves. Students will gain the ability to understand and evaluate whatever financial innovations and developments they confront.

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The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal

The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal Review

Picking up "The Accidental Billionaires" after seeing "The Social Network," I was shocked how closely Aaron Sorkin followed Mezrich's fictionalized account of the founding of Facebook. Every scene is there. In the book, Zuckerberg is slightly more human, slightly less self-absorbed, but not by much. Eduardo Saverin serves as the main source of credited information, along with undoubtedly interviews with the Winklevoss twins that are not on the record. The social dynamic revealed in the book is that life is now to be lived online, something that might not be as positive a development as thought by many. Friendships actually suffer. Character is not built up. Everything is made too easy. In that sense, "The Social Network" trumps the book in that you leave the theater sure that isn't good in the long run.

The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“The Social Network, the much anticipated movie…adapted from Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires.” —The New York Times

Best friends Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg had spent many lonely nights looking for a way to stand out among Harvard University’s elite, comptetitive, and accomplished  student body. Then, in 2003, Zuckerberg hacked into Harvard’s computers, crashed  the campus network, almost got himself  expelled, and was inspired to create Facebook, the social networking site that has since revolutionized communication around the world.
 
With Saverin’s funding their tiny start-up went from dorm room to Silicon Valley. But conflicting ideas about Facebook’s future transformed the friends into enemies. Soon, the undergraduate exuberance that marked their collaboration turned into out-and-out warfare as it fell prey to the adult world of venture capitalists, big money, lawyers.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal Specifications

Amazon Exclusive: Kevin Spacey on The Accidental Billionaires

Kevin Spacey’s films include Superman Returns, Beyond the Sea, The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, Swimming with Sharks, Seven, L.A. Confidential, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Negotiator, Hurlyburly, K-Pax, and The Shipping News. He will next be seen in Men Who Stare at Goats opposite George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, and Jeff Bridges, as well as Nick Moran’s film Telstar opposite Colm O’Neil and Pam Ferris. Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of The Accidental Billionaires:

I first met Ben Mezrich when I produced and starred in 21, the film adaptation of his great bestseller Bringing Down the House. Ben has a gift for finding high-energy, strange-but-true tales and The Accidental Billionaires is no exception.

You may think you know the story of the Facebook phenomenon, but you haven’t heard the whole story and never like this. Recreating the unbelievable rise of the world's biggest social network—not to mention the planet's youngest billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg—Ben tells a captivating story of betrayal, vast amounts of cash, and two friends who revolutionized the way humans connect to one another—only to have an enormous falling out and never speak again.

Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were two geeky, socially awkward Harvard undergrads who wanted nothing more than to be cool. While Eduardo chose the more straightforward path of trying to gain acceptance into one of the school's ultra-posh, semi-secret Final Clubs, Mark used his computer skills by hacking into Harvard's computers, pulling up all the pictures of every girl on campus to create a sort of "hot-or-not" site exclusive to Harvard. Though the prank nearly got Mark kicked out of college, he and Eduardo realized that they were on to something big. Thus, the initial concept of Facebook was born; what happened next, however, was right out of a Hollywood thriller.

The Accidental Billionaires is the perfect pairing of author and subject. It's pure summer fun—a juicy, fast-paced, unputdownable Mezrich tale that adds to his canon of lad lit. And Hollywood has come calling again: I'm currently working with Dana Brunetti, Scott Rudin, Mike Deluca, and Aaron Sorkin on the movie adaptation of The Accidental Billionaires. If the book is any indication, the film is going to be a must see.—Kevin Spacey

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The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World Review

A number of years ago, I fell in love with the three volumes of "History of Commerce" written by Fernand Braudel. The French historian's sweeping narrative of the rise and evolution of the many elements that became the foundation of the modern global economy overflowed with the details that can bring a dry story to life. While Niall Ferguson may or may not relish his name and his writing being linked to Fernand Braudel, but I often recalled that earlier work as I read the British historian's new single volume "The Ascent of Money, A Financial History of the World."

With a more modest ambition, Ferguson is able in just six chapters to recount the story of the adoption and evolution of money in its various forms, drawing on history, economic theory, political science, and behavioral psychology among other fields, to present his story of our world financial system. Beginning with the creation and evolution of money itself, both currency and coinage, he proceeds to discuss bonds, investment bubbles, risk management, real estate (especially domestic residential real estate), and the place and future role of the U.S. dollar in the world financial system.

With his book hitting the stores just as we entered the latest economic recession, Ferguson attempted perhaps unwisely to reframe his work without rewriting it and emphasize those aspects that related to the suspected root causes of this still ongoing crisis. His effort was not a failure but to a degree distracts the reader from the book's more general, fundamental relevance and value.

Compared to Braudel's delightful though admittedly encyclopedic approach, Ferguson's is a speed skater's version of the story and I believe both deserve a place in your library.

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World Overview

A richly original look at the origins of money and how it makes the world go 'round

Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of our financial system, from its genesis in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance. What's more, Ferguson reveals financial history as the essential backstory behind all history, arguing that the evolution of credit and debt was as important as any technological innovation in the rise of civilization. As Ferguson traces the crisis from ancient Egypt's Memphis to today's Chongqing, he offers bold and compelling new insights into the rise- and fall-of not just money but Western power as well.

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