The Fed: The Inside Story How World's Most Powerful Financial Institution Drives Markets Book

Nearly every analysis of our financial times touches on the dramatic events of October, 1998. Fed, Martin Mayer's engaging examination of the much talked about but little understood US Federal Reserve actually leaps off from this extraordinary date, a month in which the market closed "lock limit down" for the first time in almost a decade and the Fed's Chairman Alan Greenspan began what would turn into a radical reinvention of his agency's role and its influence on the market. Indeed, while most of the rest of the world's countries were diminishing the role of their central banks, Congress was granting new powers and responsibilities to the Fed. Mayer's book--part history, part journalistic report, and all detailed analysis--looks at the significance of those powers, their benefits and risks, and what they mean to the markets. He also devotes a number of chapters to the day-to-day inner workings of the Federal Reserve, its influence in international financial matters, and its possible future role in the upcoming years. As a prolific author and respected scholar of economics, Mayer has been immersed in the financial world for decades and is able to provide both a bird's-eye and long-range view of the complicated manoeuvrings of money. Without his excellent story-telling abilities and fluid writing style, this book would be very heavy going for anyone who doesn't speak the language of high finance. Though it is most definitely dense (and its structure somewhat erratic), Mayer does manage to make a complicated subject accessible for those with more interest than actual knowledge. An informative look at a hitherto enigmatic but influential institution. --S KetchumRead More