200 Years of American Financial Panics

This comprehensive historical account tells the story of 200 years of financial panics in America, from 1819 up to the current economic downturn of 2020, showing how and why so many financial crises have occurred in the United States and offering solutions to avoiding these sorts of crises moving forward.

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This comprehensive historical account tells the story of 200 years of financial panics in America, from 1819 through to the economic hardship of 2020, showing how and why so many financial crises have occurred in the United States and offering solutions to avoiding these sorts of crises moving forward.

In 200 Years of American Financial Panics, Thomas P. Vartanian examines the myriad factors that contributed to financial crises throughout American history: the imposition of tariffs and the creation of dozens of poorly regulated, uncapitalized state banks facilitated the collapse of 1819; government battling over whether gold, silver or paper money should be the preeminent method of exchange created the perfect conditions for the depression of 1893; in the 1920s, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates low to assist the central banks in England and France, allowing an overheated stock market in the United States to shift into overdrive and crash in 1929; the roots of the S&L crisis in the late ‘80s can be found in 1966, when Congress and the states imposed artificial caps on deposit and mortgage interest rates to encourage greater home ownership; in the 1990’s, the government pressured banks to offer mortgages to low and middle-income borrowers while the Fed engaged in loose monetary policies – leading to the greatest economic crisis since the Depression.

This book dissects financial crises in a way not attempted before, showing that the pyramid of governmental financial oversight deployed to foster economic safety has been turned on its head in our current era, making our system of financial oversight less effective and more susceptible to financial crises. Uniquely, Vartanian also explains how the technology explosion, from artificial intelligence to cryptocurrencies, is impacting capital investment, liquidity and business psychology, making it even more critical that the formula for financial oversight in the country be renovated. In a fair-minded and nonpartisan way, Vartanian, the Executive Director of the Program on Financial Regulation & Technology at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, presents extensive evidence of how some forms of government intervention - certainly not all - threaten market equilibrium.