A sweeping look at the evolution of commercial banks over the past two centuries Commercial banks are among the oldest and most familiar financial institutions. When they work well, we hardly notice; when they do not, we rail against them. What are the historical forces that have shaped the modern banking system? In Unsettled Account, Richard Grossman takes the first truly comparative look at the development of commercial banking systems over the past two centuries in Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia. Grossman focuses on four major elements that have contributed to banking evolution: crises, bailouts, mergers, and regulations. He explores where banking crises come from and why certain banking systems are more resistant to crises than others, how governments and financial systems respond to crises, why merger movements suddenly take off, and what motivates governments to regulate banks. Grossman reveals that many of the same components underlying the history of banking evolution are at work today. The recent subprime mortgage crisis had its origins, like many earlier banking crises, in a boom-bust economic cycle. Grossman finds that important historical elements are also at play in modern bailouts, merger movements, and regulatory reforms. Unsettled Account is a fascinating and informative must-read for anyone who wants to understand how the modern commercial banking system came to be, where it is headed, and how its development will affect global economic growth.

During the high interest times in the 1970's and 1980's, the banks and the savings and loan associations were under heavy financial pressure. Hundreds of them failed. The Home Loan Bank Board permitted the savings and loan associations to treat goodwill as capital, thereby allowing them to remain open and to build up enormous losses that eventually cost the taxpayers billions of dollars. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took a different approach. It closed the banks or sold them, all at no cost to the taxpayers. Bailout is the engrossing story of how the FDIC handled four of these failures. Book jacket.

Drug Politics is an enlightening new book by a man who knows this disturbing and dangerous subject. A former United States ambassador to Peru, David C. Jordan has testified before the U.S. Senate and House Foreign Relations committees and has consulted with various government security organizations. His account of government protection of the criminal elements intertwined with local and global politics challenges many of the assumptions of current drug policies. Using examples from South America, Mexico, Russia, and the United States, Jordan shows that the narcotics problem is not merely one of supply and demand. Jordan argues that many national and international financial systems are dependent on cash from money laundering, and some governments are far more involved in protecting than in combating criminal cartels.