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BETWEEN DEBT AND THE DEVIL

Adair Turner

Money, Credit, and Fixing Global Finance

Adair Turner became chairman of Britain's Financial Services Authority just as the global financial crisis struck in 2008, and he played a leading role in redesigning global financial regulation. In this eye-opening book, he sets the record straight about what really caused the crisis. It didn't happen because banks are too big to fail--our addiction to private debt is to blame.

BETWEEN DEBT AND THE DEVIL challenges the belief that we need credit growth to fuel economic growth, and that rising debt is okay as long as inflation remains low. In fact, most credit is not needed for economic growth--but it drives real estate booms and busts and leads to financial crisis and depression. Turner explains why public policy needs to manage the growth and allocation of credit creation, and why debt needs to be taxed as a form of economic pollution. Banks need far more capital, real estate lending must be restricted, and we need to tackle inequality and mitigate the relentless rise of real estate prices. Turner also debunks the big myth about fiat money--the erroneous notion that printing money will lead to harmful inflation. To escape the mess created by past policy errors, we sometimes need to monetize government debt and finance fiscal deficits with central-bank money.

Adair Turner is senior fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking and the author of Economics after the Crisis.
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Published 2015-10-01 by Princeton University Press

Comments

A masterwork! Insightful, scholarly, and persuasive. Adair Turner has provided a convincing analysis of what has gone wrong before, and what could go wrong again, among the intertwined complexities of money, credit, and misguided theories of finance. -- Paul Volcker, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the U.S. Economic Recovery Advisory Board

...the dry prose crisply conveys analysis of real force. Its conclusion is that not only do we need to stop sinking into the red, we also need to reduce existing debts. This is where Turner becomes a devilish dissenter from the orthodoxy. So much has gone wrong with banks making up money, he says, that the government needs to consider creating purchasing power instead, whether by handing currency to citizens, or paying off its own debt. Read more...

This is a superb book. A must-read for anyone interested in understanding the unhealthy relationship between debt and the modern economy. -- Atif Mian, coauthor of House of Debt

This is the most penetrating analysis of the inherent imperfections of our financial system to appear since the crash of 2008. It will and should provoke extensive debates about the policies needed to avoid future crises. -- George Soros

Turner's fresh and deep insights into our financial system come with the expertise of an insider. Between Debt and the Devil is a landmark in monetary economics, with profound implications for policy reform. -- Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics

Between Debt and the Devil is a devastating critique of the banking system and a powerful intellectual challenge to conventional wisdom. A splendid book. -- Robert Skidelsky