Steven Landsburg’s review of Gary Gorton’s new book entitled “Slapped By the Invisible Hand: The Panic of 2007”

University of Rochester economist Steven Landsburg provides a nice summary of Yale professor Gary Gorton’s new book entitled “Slapped By the Invisible Hand: The Panic of 2007” (this book is available at http://bit.ly/9VCFB1). Drawing upon the metaphor of Frank Capra’s classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” (see http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0038650), Landsburg notes that “The great crisis of the past few years was just another bank run, pure and simple. The only difference is that this time the banks were non-traditional financial firms like Bear Stearns (as opposed to, say, the Bailey Building and Loan Association) and the depositors were large financial institutions like Fidelity (as opposed to the good citizens of Bedford Falls).”

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