Unintended Consequences
Why Everything Youve Been Told about the Economy Is Wrong

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, many commonly held beliefs have emerged to explain its cause. Conventional wisdom blames Wall Street and the mortgage industry for using low down payments, teaser rates, and other predatory tactics to seduce unsuspecting home owners into assuming mortgages they couldnt afford. It blames average Americans for borrowing recklessly and spending too much. And it blames the tax policies and deregulatory environment of the Reagan and Bush administrations for encouraging reckless risk taking by wealthy individuals and financial institutions. But according toUnintended Consequences, the conventional wisdom masks the real causes of our economic disruption and puts us at risk of a slew of unintendedand potentially dangerousconsequences. Unintended Consequencesis not a book that takes a couple of insights and expands them into three hundred pages; rather, it covers the entire scope of the economy. Its a fascinating and contrarian case for how the economyreallyworks, what went wrong over the past decade, and what steps we can take to start growing again. Whether you agree with the books provocative and counterintuitive conclusions or not,Unintended Consequenceswill reward you with a sophisticated understanding of the contemporary economyone no other book has yet provided.