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WHAT:  Digging Deeper XLVII: Bad Money
WHO:  Led by Mark Jensen
WHEN:  Monday, May 5 & 12, 2008 -- 7:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
WHERE:  Mandolin Café, 3923 South 12th St., Tacoma, WA 98405

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United for Peace
of Pierce County
Study Circle:
May 5 & 12, 2008
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www.ufppc.org
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DIGGING DEEPER XLVII: BAD MONEY

Everyone has heard about the "subprime crisis." Most people have heard about the "twin deficits." But how many people really understand the financial crisis looming ahead, which financier George Soros has called the worst in over half a century? "I think the situation is more serious than the authorities admit or recognize," Soros said recently. "I think the situation is going to get worse before it gets better" (Elaine Kurtenback, "George Soros: Worst from Credit Crisis Yet to Come; Losses Likely to Top $1 Trillion," Associated Press, Apr. 10, 2008).

Beginning on May 5, UFPPC's Monday evening book discussion group, Digging Deeper, will spend two weeks examining books that try to describe the nature of the present financial storm, retell the history of how it arose, and survey the waters ahead.

—Kevin Phillips's Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism (Viking, April 2008). "'Bad money' refers to a new phenomenon in wayward megafinance—the emergence of a U.S. economy that is globally dependent and dominated by hubris-driven financial services. Also 'bad' are the risk miscalculations and strategic abuses of new multitrillion-dollar products such as asset-backed securities and the lure of buccaneering vehicles like hedge funds. Finally, the U.S. dollar has been turned into bad money as it has weakened and become vulnerable to the world's other currencies. In all these ways, 'bad' finance has failed the American people and pointed U.S. capitalism toward a global crisis. Bad Money is the perfect follow-up to Phillips's last book, whose dire warnings are now proving frighteningly accurate."  —Book description.

—Charles R. Morris, The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash (PublicAffairs, 2008). "However up to date it may seem, this book is no rush job. Morris deftly joins the dots between the Keynesian liberalism of the 1960s, the crippling stagflation of the 1970s and the free-market experimentation of the 1980s and 1990s, before entering the world of ultra-cheap money and financial innovation gone mad . . . [Morris's] provocative book is . . . a well-aimed opening shot in a debate that will only grow louder in coming months."  —The Economist (Mar. 6, 2008).

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Since July 2004, United for Peace of Pierce County has been conducting “Digging Deeper,” a Monday-evening book discussion group, often in the form of a study circle. Topics have included peak oil, climate change, the corporation, torture, Iran, U.S.-Iran relations, the writings of Robert Baer, Islam, American immigration policy, Barack Obama and the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., Saul Alinsky’s life and writings, war and human nature, parallels between the U.S. and ancient Rome, and the sustainability revolution, as well as abiding themes of war, peace, politics, and social change. Occasionally, the group has spent several weeks reading longer works, like Daniel Yergin’s The Prize or Robert Fisk’s The Great War for Civilisation.

DIGGING DEEPER meets every Monday from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Mandolin Café, 3923 S. 12th St., Tacoma, WA.

Participation is free. Some copies of the books are available for purchase or loan. Info: contact Mark Jensen (jensenmk@plu.edu; 253-535-7219).

****************
United for Peace
of Pierce County
Study Circle:
May 5 & 12, 2008
****************
www.ufppc.org

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