Key thinkers, past and present Book

This book is both prescient and dated. It covers the credit crisis up the end of 2007 and correctly forecast the credit problems in the fall of 2008.

Kevin Phillips is also a policy wonk and his tendency is to focus general political realities rather than just finance. Which is often a good thing, but finance viewed in isolation can be a stifling view.

Phillips makes every attempt to make his subject readable but this is still a chart-heavy book. I agree with his approach, we need the charts to understand the material. I have a finance major, so this book is not daunting to me.

Phillips has a few really good ideas that he belabours. Some, like peak oil and $100 barrels of oil, which sounded so inevitable in the spring of 2008, are now viewed in an entirely different light.

Even after all the recent coverage about the credit crises and how the major players managed to get us in this mess, Phillips revealed many telling details of how things happened behind the scenes.