Hello, Mark Tanner here.
We are in the process of planning an ebook version of The Debt Generation. We would like to do this properly and make use of the different possibilities that the ebook offers. We will be doing an Epub version and a Kindle version.
For those of you who read ebooks are there any features of ebooks that you really like or really loathe? Things we should do and things we should avoid.
We will be making sure the index is actually useful (unlike many ebooks we have seen) and the entries from the print version will link directly to the text they refer to in the ebook.
We would also like to include a notes/further material section at the end of the book. For those with wifi or 3G enabled ebooks this would mean you could click on a link and go to other material. We would like to include links to original documents, good articles, other blogs, audio, video, images etc. Material that builds on, develops or contradicts ideas and events in the book.
If you have any suggestions for material you think we should linclude in this section please let me know or email Mark at [email protected]. The material you suggest must be freely and legally available to almost all territories,.
All suggestions very gratefully received.
from 1984 ( in french )
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4049727159199474941#docid=5455228578800445334
Mark,
Here are some suggestions for links to further material.
The past:
The MayFair set by Adam Curtis. A brilliant history lesson on the rising power of finance from the 1960s through to the 1980s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mayfair_Set
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U-sNn28dJk&feature=related
PBS’s The Warning: If you need proof that financial regulation has been deliberately neutered by insidious influences then look no further than this tale of Brooksley Born’s failed attempt to just canvas views on the merits & risks of securitisation and derivatives. With Born brushed aside the path was clear for the full unleashing of financial engineering on the world:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/
Dirk Bezemer – Those who saw it coming. For anyone who says that the current crisis couldn’t have been predicted, just refer them to this article. Bezemer lists 12 economists who did predict the current crisis, almost all by drawing attention to excessive debt creation. Proof enough, if it were needed, that “credit does matter!”.
http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/15892/1/MPRA_paper_15892.pdf
The present:
Quants: The alchemists of Wall Street. A fascinating inside look at how the finance sector has managed to mask & manipulate risk:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/quants-alchemists-wall-street/
The future:
Chris Martenson’s Crash Course: How energy, economics and the environment are related. One of the most comprehensive yet down to earth explanations of why the next 20 years will be quite unlike the last 20 years:
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
Mark asked me to post this for him. He's being blocked from posting and we can't figure out why.
"Andrew,
thanks. I will give it some thought.
Forensic Statistician,
really brilliant suggestions, exactly the type of thing I was hoping to include, If you think of anything else along those lines please let me know."
Mark
Thanks for the feedback. Here are a few more suggestions:
For a quite detailed and reasonably technical description of credit money see Steve Keen’s Roving Cavaliers of Credit:
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/01/31/therovingcavaliersofcredit/
A whistle-stop history lesson on war, finance and economics, all told with the razor sharp wit of one half of the Mary Whitehouse Experience. Rob Newman’s History of Oil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQhhrzHKMhI
Eminent Ecological Economist Herman Daly on the root cause of the crisis:
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/81/the_crisis.html
Finally, David Harvey giving a lucid overview of his book A Brief History of Neoliberalism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkWWMOzNNrQ
Hope this helps!
Forensic statistician – From MARK
thanks again, really great. I particularly like the Daly article. I don't really want to link to pirated versions of things which makes Rob Newmans video difficult. I am going to include a few links to "lectures" and will include Harveys RSA animation and will also find one where we can see him speaking and which has definitely been legitimately uploaded.
Mark,
I understand about the copyright issues. Here is a speech by Rob Newman which touches on similar themes (but unfortunately without the humour of “the History of oil”):
http://www.robnewman.com/trafalgar.html
For another article similar to that of Daly, here is Eric Zencey writing in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/opinion/12zencey.html
One last item, which you may have already thought of, is a link to the Simon Johnson Quiet Coup article referenced on page 120 of the Debt Generation:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/7364/#
If it’s easier for me to email direct then let me know.
All the best.
Forensic