The Challenge of Credit Supply (ebook)

Argumento de The Challenge of Credit Supply (ebook)

Michael Kirsch's new book provides a concise overview of an incredibly complex subject. His effort to historicize and contextualize credit supply over three centuries is no small task. Yet Kirsch has succeeded in explaining this complicated material and why it matters. "Economic history and the history of banking have been neglected by professional historians for several decades. In light of our most recent recession and the growing interest in banking practices, Kirsch asks important questions about the origins and evolution of policies and regulations that have shaped these institutions and the financial history of the United States. Furthermore, the book is written in accessible prose that will appeal to non-specialists and interested readers in the general public." Dr. Lee L. Willis, History Department Chair, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point "Kirsch's history of American finance from 1650 to 1950 is fascinating reading. He shows that business leaders understood even in 1650 that the lack of money and credit was preventing would-be borrowers from putting the country's ample real resources to work. Credit appears as the life blood and the Achilles heel of the economy many times over the next 300 years in Kirsch's book, as it has shown itself to be recently. Business people and various governments wrestle over and over again to master the elusive, changing relationship between credit and the production of real things. The ideas of financial geniuses like Alexander Hamilton are sometimes taken and sometimes ignored by leaders who wrangle through three centuries to find financial systems that support growth and avoid periodic catastrophes. This book performs a great service because it gives the reader a view of the big picture over time without bogging down in the details of one event." Dr. Paul A. London, U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Economics and Statistics (1993-1997) "The presumption of the United States as the primary source of credit creation in the early 21st century is taken for granted by participants in the global financial markets. However, a concise historical lineage of credit creation in the U.S. has until now remained the provenance of footnotes in disparate economic papers and journals. The Challenge of Credit Supply draws from actual historical documents to put into perspective the process by which credit, currency and the banking system came into being in the U.S. from the Massachusetts Bay Colony through World War II. Economists, financial professionals and historians will not find a story of unimpeded success they might expect. Rather they will discover an opera of misguided political initiatives, poorly qualified individuals, the root cause of a series of multiple depressions and the demise of institutions that could have accelerated growth of the U.S. economy decades earlier. Readers will discover the influential role Alexander Hamilton and Andrew Jackson had in structuring and restructuring banking institutions in the early days of an independent United States. "The reader will come away with an important perspective on the difficulty present today for many emerging market economies seeking to establish robust credit supply. In this way, Michael Kirsch delivers into the 21st century a highly relevant time capsule on the history of credit creation in the United States." Michael Litt, CIO of Arrowhawk Capital Partners0Introduction Part I Early American Banking and Credit Chapter 1 The 1687 Bank of Credit and the First Colonial Bills of Credit Chapter 2 Expanded Uses of Bills of Credit in the 1720s-1760s Part II The Bank of North America, the Bank of the United States, and the Development of the Funding System Chapter 3 Designing a Currency with Credit Chapter 4 The Bank of North America Takes Action Chapter 5 The 1782-1783 Origins of the Bank-Based Funding System Chapter 6 The Economic Path to the U.S. Constitution Chapter 7 The Bank of the United States and the Funded Debt Part III The Second Bank of the U.S. as an Instrument for Economic Growth Chapter 8 Currency Disorder and the Finances of Madison's Second Term Chapter 9 The Bank and the Economic Depression of 1818-1822 Chapter 10 The Bank and the Economic Growth of the 1820s and 1830s Chapter 11 Confirming the Success of the Bank Part IV The Return to Currency Management and the Promise of the National Banking System Chapter 12 The Independent Treasury and State Banking Chapter 13 The Departure from the State Banking Era Chapter 14 Banking & Funding Strategy 1863-1865 Part V The Challenges and Problems of the National Banking System Chapter 15 Circulation Limitation and Other Errors of Implementation 1865-1870 Chapter 16 Speculation and the Crisis of 1873 Chapter 17 Partisan Wrangling and the Decline of National Bank Circulation Chapter 18 National Bank Difficulties and Financial Crisis 1879-1907 Part VI The Federal Reserve and the Credit Modifications of the 1930s-1940s Chapter 19 The Federal Reserve System and its Beginnings Chapter 20 Fed Discount Limitation Problems and the Amendments of 1929 -1933 Chapter 21 Credit Supply Initiatives of 1934-1935 Chapter 22 Fed Lending Powers and Proposals 1939-1950 Conclusion Appendices Appendix I The Causes of Inflation and Increases in the Price of Gold 1862-1865 Appendix II Oversights of the National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864 Acknowledgements Notes Bibliography Index