Reddit mentions of Beggar Thy Neighbor: A History of Usury and Debt

That book was published before they corrected their spreadsheet error--it applied some of the same theoretical lessons of the debt issue & therefore is somewhat poisoned.

For the record, this book discusses the exact same crisis set as a R&R but explicitly includes those stable countries (like Australia, NZ, CA) who haven't had financial crises, or debt-fueled growth slowing.

My point isn't to pitch for a particular book, but it seems that a certain Academic integrity requires that a 'panoramic' analysis of any issue, includes those aspects uncomfortable for or in opposition to one's own theories.

I've never seen Akerloff & Schiller, for example, shy away from confronting monetarist & other rebuttals. Even Larry Summers who, in other issues is pretty sleazy (namely Russia privatization & his misuse of research on women) has a good deal of integrity in Academics when it comes to being wrong. And a past generation of economists, such as JM Keynes, Nikolas Kaldor, Paul Samuelson & a young Milton Friedman & Robert Solow regularly delighted in admitting their errors publicly. (See Kaldor & Friedman's debate and also Samuleson's 'A Summing Up'--in addition, B. deLong's admitting that healthcare's positive externalities are low, Stiglitz' Mea Culpa on globalization, Summers on free trade & protectionism, Bruce Bartlett on fiscal stimulus, Steve Marglin's volte-face in one direction & Gintis & Bowles in the opposite direction--on the opposite issue, refusal to update beliefs, we have the trenchant obstinance of inflation hawks and deficit hawks )

Edit:

Here are some other panoramic sources on the same area of study as This Time is Different:

Manias, Panics & Crashes is a famous textbook on the issue.

Akerlof & Schiller's Animal Spirits is a smaller range but an interesting analysis

For the record, Schiller was one of the people who foresaw the housing crisis

Mark Blyth wrote a history of the concept of Austerity and its political causes & consequences as well as the economic data--while polemical, and coming squarely down against austerity, is nonetheless expansive and well written.

Peter Bernholz has written a massive study, but a short book, on inflation crises in world history, expanding from Rome to the modern day that, while chained to an outdated Austrian conception of money & finance, is sufficiently data rich.

Additionally, there's a neo-classical study of Trade & Growth I quite enjoy, written as an implicit neo classical answer to the new economic history & institutional theory. Here's a neo-malthusian perspective on the same issue.

Here is a post-Keynesian analysis of the same stuff, a neo-marxian/neo-ricardian one, an alternative B-of-P crisis theory, a geoist analysis by another person who foresaw the 2007 crisis and a radically alternative view of debt & money which is theoretically interesting but empirically sparser.

Charles' Geisst is a historian with a balanced analysis of both Wall Street & debt in history.

Not an economist, David Graeber has written an interest history of debt.


The point is there is a VAST, empirically & theoretically rich & sophisticated set of analyses, from diverse & contradictory perspectives, all of which are higher standard works than either the Debt & Growth paper or the This Time is Different book. I add these overkill, both for those who are interested in follow up & to emphasize the diversity & availability of good scholarship from other authors.

I know you're busy and I don't expect you to read or watch all of these things. I wasn't trying to fight you and I understand if you don't give a fuck. I just don't know how to make the argument in a small reddit post. I'm sorry for being douchey. Heres some stuff that hopefully makes this subject more accessible for you if you ever want to look into the subject

This is an excerpt from Aristotle Politics Chapter 10
> But, strictly speaking, as I have already said, the means of life must be provided before hand by nature; for the business of nature is to furnish food to that which is born, and the food of the offspring is always what remains over of that from which it is produced. Wherefore the art of getting wealth out of fruits and animals is always natural.
There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part
of household management, the other is retail trade: the former
necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is
justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain
from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason,
is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the
natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange,
but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means
the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money
because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of an modes of
getting wealth this is the most unnatural.

Money as debt explains banking well and is a good place to introduce yourself to the subject.

Here's a good video on Islam's view of banking
This is a longer but more in depth Islamic explanation of interest

Here's Summa Theologica

I just started reading Beggar Thy Neighbor. It's supposed to be a history of usury which I have very little background in.

This is a pretty good book also called the The End of money and the Future of Civilization

Check out http://www.financedocumentaries.com/p/browse-categories.html for a ton of documentaries on just about every financial topic.

To answer your question about what I've read and haven't read I'd like to say that I'm more well versed in modern banking than what the ancients said. I've been doing my best to read it now. Islamic teaching seems to be the most clear and in depth regrading the morality of interest. Christianity differs from Islam in that it says its ok to pay interest but not to loan money at interest. I can't find translations on the eastern religions take on interest rates which has been frustrating so I haven't read that.

I just want to apologize again for coming off as a know it all douche. It's a subject I'm really struggling with and I've found that trying to talk things out online helps me to recognize what I don't understand.