William Greider (1936–2019)

Reading 'Secrets of the Temple' is a commitment; its like deciding to run a marathon. 800 pages dedicated to the intricacies of of 100 years of American financial history is not exactly light reading material.

Yet, miraculously, Greider somehow managed to craft a brilliantly readable book that leads you (safely!) through the mindboggeling minefield known as modern finance and central banking.

Some sections merit skim reading (specifically, the accounts of various Fed meetings, which were much show more too detailed for my liking), but Greider always leads the reader, without fail, to a wider, fascinating, well articulated explanation or argument.

If you want to understand how 'money' works in the modern America, 'Secrets' is a magnus opus that doesn't require an economic degree to decipher. show less

Greider is interesting in small doses, but rather much in large doses. Fortunately this book is short, just the right length for him.

His central point is that, with the Soviet Union gone (this was written in 1998) it makes little sense for America to continue spending vast sums of money on arms. Even more so, it makes no sense to spend the money as inefficiently as is done.
Specifically his central theme is that the bulk of where the money goes is to maintain in a state of dormancy a show more variety of factories and military bases across the country; that this infrastructure costs much the same amount whether it is used or kept idle; and that politics of various sorts refuses to allow it to be shut down or rationalized, so it continues to devour vast sums of money while actually delivering very little.
Along the way we are shown various other idiocies, for example the extent of US arms sales around the world.

GWB likes to tell us that 9/11 changed everything but of course I don't buy that. The collision with reality that Greider envisaged has not happened yet, but I see that not as a consequence of 9/11 but as a consequence of the GOP's willingness to raise debts to never-before-seen levels.
At some point that game is going to end, at which point everything Greider says remains just as true, only more so. show less

This is a marvelously frightening book. Insofar as a pensioner can, I am going to hoard gold. Boesky, I think it was, is wrong; greed is not good, as shown by this detailed exposition of the manipulation of our money.

It's always fun to observe values changing over time, depending on the needs of society. William Greider, in Secrets of the Temple, a history of the Federal Reserve System, relates how usury was once considered a heinous offense against the church. There are perhaps a dozen clear prohibitions against charging interest in the Bible. It was considered an immoral way to make money, as it resulted from no work. The wealthy had an obligation to help those less fortunate, without profiting from show more their generosity. In fact, until the late Middle Ages, anyone charging interest would be immediately excommunicated.

Capitalism, which required capital to create wealth, changed the church's values. The rise of Protestantism further weakened the traditional stance of the church against usury. But it wasn't until the 1970s, with the inflationary pressures on interest rates that states were forced to repeal usury laws, laws which had been enacted to actually legitimize charging interest and to control "excessive interest." Interestingly, Islamic countries have had to deal with this issue in a different way. The Koran is equally strict in its prohibition against charging interest, and this was considered a serious impediment to the rise of capitalism in the Middle East. They get around the uncompromising religious prohibition by creating a risk-sharing environment. Both "partners" in a venture share in profit or loss, just not equally. Bankers routinely consult religious advisors to make sure no profits could be considered "interest" earned on the money used in the venture. show less