A01=John Kay
Author_John Kay
capitalism
Category=KFF
Category=KJ
economist
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
finance
financial times
ft
obliquity
orwell prize
orwell prize shortlist
other people's money
the long and the short of it
the truth about markets
Product details
- ISBN 9781781254455
- Weight: 289g
- Dimensions: 128 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 21 Apr 2016
- Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2016
We all depend on the finance sector. We need it to store our money, manage our payments, finance housing stock, restore infrastructure, fund retirement and support new business. But these roles comprise only a tiny sliver of the sector's activity: the vast majority of lending is within the finance sector. So what is it all for? What is the purpose of this activity? And why is it so profitable?
John Kay, a distinguished economist with wide experience of the financial sector, argues that the industry's perceived profitability is partly illusory, and partly an appropriation of wealth created elsewhere - of other people's money. The financial sector, he shows, has grown too large, detached itself from ordinary business and everyday life, and has become an industry that mostly trades with itself, talks to itself, and judges itself by reference to standards which it has itself generated. And the outside world has itself adopted those standards, bailing out financial institutions that have failed all of us through greed and mismanagement.
We need finance, but today we have far too much of a good thing. In Other People's Money John Kay shows in his inimitable style what has gone wrong in the dark heart of finance.
John Kay is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and a Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. He is a director of several public companies and contributes a weekly column to the Financial Times. He chaired the UK government review of equity markets which reported in 2012 recommending substantial reforms. He is the author of many books including The Truth about Markets (2003), The Long and the Short of It (2009) and Obliquity (2010), all published by Profile Books.
