by Joseph B. Treaster
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Product Description
As the Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1982, Paul Volcker established himself as one of the most influential economic thinkers. Currently a major advocate for corporate governance and accounting reforms, Volcker’s reputation as a great business leader with uncompromising ethics continues to this day. Written by award-winning New York Times journalist Joseph Treaster, Paul Volcker: The Making of a Financial Legend takes readers through the most compelling moments of this legend’s life in private and public service. From his early days as a young Treasury Department official through his appointments to the New York Federal Reserve Bank, the Federal Reserve, and James D. Wolfensohn, Inc., this inspiring book captures the significant moments in Volcker life and explores the ethical, economic, and moral dilemmas he faced at every turn.
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Average Customer Review:
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
 Inflation, 2005-12-24
Capitalism is sabotaged by Inflation. High inflation rates threaten real money. When inflation rates exceed interest rates creditors lose money, if they lend money; debtors profit by borrowing money and repaying it with cheap money; and savers are repulsed from the US bonds yielding 5 percent by realizing a negative ½ percent loss in real money. Transmutation of monetary dross took the form of economic growth and production increases then moved back into liquid or money form and again into greater production. This unending circuit is the essence of capitalism.
In the 1980s, Less Developed Countries were in a buying spree betting tangible assets would outstrip the value of money. Speculation increased in the stock market as more capital went to speculation and productivity investment dropped and the real economic growth became anemic. The chronic dilemma of the central bank was no one knew if the motivating demands for money were the result of rising inflation expectations or desires to increase productivity investing. Arthur Burns blamed inflation sources on the Debts incurred from the Vietnam War, lax monetary policy instead of higher taxes and spending cuts which accelerated dollar devaluation. Between 1972-73 world wide economic boom surged and inflation rose from food and oil price spikes, large budget deficits, and Congress insistent that the Fed control inflation painlessly.
In the 1980s, Market and Inflation monetary policy designed by Volcker failed. Inflation hit 17%, Volcker steamed in anger, tight US money did not mean unavailable credit came from the $4 trillion Euromarket fueling the speculative boom and represented a credit leak across borders. As interest rates went up, depositors switched bank funds into higher yield government securities. Loan money dried up, housing and consumer durable sales felloff. The bank prime rates hit 21.5%, the dollar exchange rate soared 34%; a 10% increase in the dollar exchange represented a 1.5% reduction in inflation; the interest rate rise mean zero inflation.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Good mix of the persona and the policymaker, 2005-04-25
For any person interested in that elusive element of economic policymaking, the personality of the one at the helm, this book will undoubtedly be worth to read. In his "Changing Fortunes" (co-authored with Toyoo Gyohten), Volcker maintained his private life indeed quite private. This book lifts the veil significantly. Even in personality, notably for an amazing austerity and commitment to public service, Volcker emerges as a central banker to emulate. The details on his family, particularly the sufferings of his wife and son, are indeed touching.
The book is relatively short, something to be grateful about. But succinctness meant clear sacrifices. Any person really interested in Volcker's career would need also to read "Changing Fortunes", particularly to know about the fascinating times that Volcker lived in the Treasury Department, and crucially in the process of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates. Even the period of Volcker at the Fed's chief is sparsely covered in some important aspects.
Paul Volcker clearly deserves the many positive things that Treaster says about him. But sometimes one gets the impression that the author became too close to his subject, without even the benefit of getting in return information to clarify some aspects of Volcker's career. Moreover, it is a little tiring to be reminded time and again that Volcker has to be revered because he slay the inflation dragon. Indeed he has to be, but perhaps the author emphasizes the point a little too much.
Even in a text clearly intended for people without any knowledge in economics, some extra details would have added more light to the inflation drama that Treaster tries to build, particularly on why and how it was allowed to increase. The Latin American debt crisis put many big American banks on the verge of an abyss, and Volcker was crucial in the (successful) efforts to avert a disaster, but that international crisis is barely mentioned in one paragraph.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Paul Volcker: An Honorable Man, 2004-08-04
No need to be a bellowing bond trader nor an obsessive and fetishistic day trader taking your market temperature by the minute to appreciate NY Times journalist Joseph B. Treaster's most readable biography, Paul Volcker: The Making of a Financial Legend.
In our age of cooked corporate books and perp-walking CEOs, Treaster shines an admiring and well-deserved light on the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, a man of towering financial and personal integrity. Words like honor, integrity, truth, steadfastness are thrown around like confetti these days in the political and financial world, but as Fed Chairman from 1979 to 1987, Paul Volcker's strong will and good sense were perhaps the major factors in the survival of the nation's economy through the inflationary tsunami of the Carter years and the financial wrecking ball of Reagonomics.
Standing 6'7", physically ungainly and socially reserved and stand-offish, Volcker had a commanding intellect when it came to bigtime economic and financial matters. Born to public service (his father was longtime town manager of Teaneck, NJ), Volcker attended Princeton, Harvard's Littauer School of Public Administration (it eventually became the JFK School of Government) and the London School of Economics. He was a special assistant to David Rockefeller at Chase Bank, served as an undersecretary in Nixon's Treasury Department, ran the New York Bank of the Federal Reserve and became fed chairman in July 1979 while inflation was rocketing and Pres. Carter was bemoaning the national "malaise".
Chairman Volcker was the man with the plan. He turned old economic theory upside down with his idea to drastically cut the money supply as the country's economy sweated and shuddered through the debilitating national fits of inflation and recession. Politicians and businessmen, fearful and shortsighted as usual, whined and squealed that Volcker was Dr Kevorkian or Dr. Demento, putting a noose around the national economic neck. In fact, as history has shown and Treaster explains so even the ordinary Joe can understand, Volcker had applied the ideal tourniquet to stop the bleeding and the poison. The patient lived and by the mid-90s, the country was economically healthy and prospering as never before.
Of course, like the Lone Ranger, Volcker had ridden off into the sunset by that time. Waved good-bye (and good riddance) by Reagan's Treasury Secretary and the GOP's most artful backroom Machievelli, James A. Baker III in 1987, Volcker turned his enormous economic and monetary talents to the private sector. But this principled and unpretentious public servant with his "unshakeable integrity" was not happy in this work.
These days, as the political swamp gases are once again rising and spreading their bad odor, Volcker, even at the age of 76, is being called on once again to perform his public duty.
In recent years, Volcker has admirably and successfully refereed the "battle royal" between the Holocaust survivors and the Swiss banks with their appalling Nazi connections. When Enron, the King Kong of corporate fraud sunk in its own muck, "Mr Incorruptible" Volcker took the job of chairman of an independent oversight board to try to salvage some shred of integrity for the accounting community, which had been badly tainted by Arthur Anderson, the giant accounting firm that was the handmaiden to Enron's tangled scams and schemes. And at this moment, Volcker is heading up the international investigation of the massive corruption between Saddam Hussein, various corporate greedheads and UN officials in the administration of the decade-long Oil For Food program in Iraq.
After reading this worthy biography of Paul Volcker, one can only hope they did not break the mold when they made this honorable man.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Paul Volker - an outstanding public servant, 2004-06-24
A big abrazo for Joe Treaster for his wonderful biograph of Paul Volker. He very skillfully brought out the real character of a talented and consciencious individual who dedicated his life to serve the public's interest. Treaster carefully describes what it takes to run this country's financial institutions and, in laymen's language, explains how easily it is to slap our leaders on the wrist, if not the behind, when they don't adhere to good fiscal policies. The book is interesting and thought provoking. You become an admirer of Paul Volker.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
LUCID BIOGRAPHY HUMANIZES HISTORY, 2004-06-04
Joseph Treaster's lucid, entertaining account of the life and legacy of Paul Volcker reminds you that some people still value-and embody-such virtues as integrity, modesty, steadiness, and public service. I lived through much of the economic history covered in this book but never understood why things happened as they did, or realized how much Volcker's actions in the early 1980's set our nation's financial course for the following fifteen years. Treaster brings an oversized, almost Victorian personality vividly to life, and in the process casts a startling light on our government's current fiscal policies.
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