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Foreword | |
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Preface | |
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Acknowledgments | |
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It's a Horrible Mess | |
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It's Not Bailey Savings & Loan | |
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Economics Diary, Spring 2009: The D Word | |
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Economics Diary, August 22, 2009 | |
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The Treasury's No-Stress Stress Test | |
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Economics Diary, August 26, 2009: The State of the States | |
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It's the Psychology, Duh! | |
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When Lexington, Massachusetts, Turns into Camden, New Jersey | |
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Economics Diary, August 29, 2009: The Great D or the Great R? | |
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Systemic Risk Insurance | |
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Who's Backstopping the Backstop? | |
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Trust Doesn't Come Cheap | |
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Full Nondisclosure | |
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A System with No Firewalls | |
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The Big Con: Financial Malfeasance, American Style | |
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Richard Fuld or Elmer Fudd? | |
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Playing Bridge as Bear Burned | |
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Macho, Macho Men | |
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Stan the Man | |
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Economic Diary, August 11, 2009: Uncle Sam Sues Uncle Sam | |
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Economics Diary, September 14, 2009: Judge Rakoff to the SEC: "Drop Dead" | |
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The Prince of Redness | |
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CDOs to the Races | |
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CDO Liquidity Puts | |
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AIG's Three-Hundred-Million-Dollar Man | |
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Franklin Delano Raines | |
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Speculation with Other People's Money | |
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It's the Leveraging, Not the Leverage | |
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Stealing Other People's Money | |
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Madoff 's Ponzi Scheme | |
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The Essence of Ponzi Schemes | |
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Economics' Take on Ponzi Schemes | |
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Don't Show Me the Money | |
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The Real Crime in a Ponzi Scheme | |
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Is the U.S. Banking System a Ponzi Scheme? | |
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From Ponzi Schemes to Full Disclosure | |
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Disclosure Is Essential | |
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Disclosure Is Not Enough | |
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Uncle Sam's Ponzi Scheme | |
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Fiscal Gap Accounting | |
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Why Is the U.S. Fiscal Gap So Large? | |
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Social Security's Unfunded Liability | |
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Is the U.S. Bankrupt? | |
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Uncle Sam's Dangerous Medicine | |
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Sam's Got Your Back | |
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Maturity Transformation in Theory and Practice | |
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Backing the Buck | |
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Opening Pandora's Box | |
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Economics Diary, September 14, 2009: Trade/Financial War with China? | |
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Our Once and Future Horrible Mess | |
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Big Brother, Can You Spare One Hundred Billion? | |
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Bailing Out Corporate Pensions | |
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Recapitalizing the Banks | |
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Buying Up Toxic Assets | |
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GASP-The Geithner and Summers Plan | |
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Putting More of Someone Else's Skin in the Game | |
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Leverage upon Leverage | |
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"Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction" | |
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Proposed "Control of Derivatives" | |
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The Dangers of Putting Wall Street on a Leash | |
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"This Sucker Could Go Down" | |
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Taking Stock | |
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We Are Not All Keynesians Now | |
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Reviewing the Case for Radical Surgery | |
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Limited Purpose Banking | |
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Full Disclosure-No Plan Is Perfect | |
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Banks = Mutual Funds | |
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The Federal Financial Authority | |
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Ending Insider Rating | |
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Bye-Bye, Bernie, Bye-Bye, Allen | |
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Initiation, Not Securitization, Is the Problem | |
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Securitizing Death | |
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Cash Mutual Funds | |
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Obviating FDIC Insurance and Capital Requirements | |
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Cash Mutual Funds and Narrow Banking | |
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Regaining Control of the Money Supply | |
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Insurance Mutual Funds | |
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Illustrating a Life Insurance Mutual Fund | |
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Insuring the Uninsurable-A Life Insurance Example | |
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The Financial Risk of Swine Flu | |
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LPB Life Insurance Mutual Funds and Tontines | |
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Illustrating Other Types of Insurance Mutual Funds | |
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LPB Lets Us Leverage Us, But Not Our Countrymen | |
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Using Insurance Mutual Funds to Buy and Sell CDSs | |
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Sharing Aggregate Risk | |
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Parimutuel Betting and Insurance Mutual Funds | |
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Betting on More than One Horse/Mortality Rate | |
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Illustrating a Homeowner's Insurance Mutual Fund | |
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Helping Solve the Corporate Governance Problem | |
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Relationship of Limited Purpose Banking to Glass-Steagall | |
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Isn't LPB Simply Imposing 100 Percent Capital Requirements? | |
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Getting from Here to There | |
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Implementing Limited Purpose Banking | |
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Zombies and Gazelles | |
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Deleveraging Investment Banking and Trading | |
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An End to Rogue Trading | |
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The Politics of Limited Purpose Banking | |
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What About? | |
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Can We Just Agree to Agree? | |
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Will LPB Reduce Liquidity? | |
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Will LPB Reduce Credit? | |
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Who Will Lend to Business? | |
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Will LPB Reduce Leverage? | |
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Will LPB Shrink the Financial Sector? | |
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Doesn't LPB Force Us to Become Our Own Bankers? | |
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Isn't LPB Reducing the Amount of Safe Assets? | |
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Does LPB Require Homemade Insurance Policies? | |
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Insuring Against Changes in Insurability | |
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With LPB You Don't Know the Odds Until It's Too Late | |
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Why Not Simply Correctly Price the Government's Guarantees? | |
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How Will Monetary Policy Operate? | |
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What about Foreign Assets? | |
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Won't Americans Just Bank Abroad? | |
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Doesn't LPB Dramatically Shrink the Money Supply? | |
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What's the Role of the FFA in Investment Banking? | |
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What about Venture Capital, Private Equity Firms, and Hedge Funds? | |
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Is GE a Bank under LPB? | |
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Can't Nonfinancial Corporations Play Conventional Bank? | |
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Why Let Proprietorships Run Traditional Banks? | |
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Will LPB Prevent Financial Panics? | |
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LPB Will Destroy Valuable Relationships and Information Banks Have About Their Borrowers | |
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Economics Diary, November 11, 2009: Whither the Economy? | |
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Conclusion | |
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Afterword Fixing the Rest of Our Economic Mess | |
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Fixing Taxes: The Purple Tax | |
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Fixing Healthcare: Medicare Part C for All! | |
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Fixing Social Security and Retirement Accounts: The Personal Security System | |
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Removing the Fiscal and Economic Swords of Damocles | |
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Notes | |
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About the Author | |
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Index | |