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Title: Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 by Milton Friedman, Anna Jacobson Schwartz ISBN: 0-691-00354-8 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 November, 1971 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $49.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Negative Review Missed the Very Point of the Book
Comment: I read the reviews and found them helpful, but the unnamed reviewer that attributed the Great Depression to causes totally other than this book cites, and bashed Friedman as "not having a leg to stand on" concerned me because it seems the reviewer missed the very point of the book. Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman and his co-author undertook the monumental work of tracing money supply for each year for nearly a century. In doing so, they did the staggering amount of work required to show all of us something very powerful. To say they don't have a leg to stand on is disconcerting because it seems to indicate a review without a reading, or at least understanding. Obviously the Great Depression was the result of of complex interactions within the economy. What Friedman tries to do is show us the EMPIRICAL evidence for interaction between a contracting money supply and a worsening economic situation, and a steady money supply and a bettering economic situation. The Great Depression may have come about because of arrogant decisions and cascading failures, and those who decided to contract the money supply evidently were a very important trigger. I can say "evidently" because Friedman's research gives us the chance to observe the evidence for ourselves. To have advanced our knowledge of economics in a practical way, to have given useful facts for fending off depressions, is a gift. That's why this book will remain a watershed work in the history of economics.
Rating: 4
Summary: An Excellent Partial History
Comment: Monetary History of the US served a vital purpose when it first came out, and still has much use value. For a brief period, economists ignored the importance of variations in the nominal quantity of money to business cycles. This book provided important evidence that helped correct that error. Economists used to focus on spending rather than the money supply. This book, along with subsequent work, showed that money matters.
The most important part of this book is the section on the Great Contraction. Federal Reserve policy did contract the money supply by 1/3 during the early years of the depression. The Federal Reserve did revive the depression by increasing reserve requirements in 1937. The collapse of the banking system collapsed the real economy. The recovery of the banking system was important to the recovery of industry. Money matters.
The style of this book is excellent. Considering the sophistication of its subject matter, it is highly readable. It gets into both statistics and relevant written history. It also has a helpful appendix on the determinants of the money supply.
There are some problems with this book. Money is not all that matters. Government policies that prevented wage deflation contributed greatly to the Great Depression. Of course, this book was meant to focus on monetary history alone, as the title implies. But, readers must keep the limitations of such a narrow focus in mind when considering the explanatory power of this book. Its' authors also have too little appreciation for private banking systems (Friedman latter embraced free banking). Despite its' limitations, this book is important as a empirical source for understanding how money matters to economic conditions.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Definative work in Economics
Comment: This monumental work swept away all the now archaic notions about especially the great depression. The old rationalisms that the causes of the depression were 1) the Smoot Hawley terrif 2)over speculation in the stock market or 3)that lower interrest rates are the same as increased liquidity have been swept in to the dust bin of history repeated now only by the technically challenged.
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Title: Money Mischief: Episodes in Monetary History by Milton Friedman ISBN: 015661930X Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: March, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (Great Minds Series) by John Maynard Keynes ISBN: 1573921394 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman ISBN: 0226264211 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: November, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman ISBN: 0156334607 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: November, 1990 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Tomorrow's Gold: Asia's Age of Discovery by Marc Faber ISBN: 9628606727 Publisher: CLSA Pub. Date: 12 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $35.95 |
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