Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed
Meltdown is the gripping account of the financial collapse that destroyed the West’s investment banks, brought the global economy to its knees, and undermined three decades of neoliberal orthodoxy. Covering the development of the crisis from the economic front line, BBC Newsnight journalist Paul Mason explores the roots of the US and UK’s financial hubris, documenting the real-world causes and consequences from the Ford factory, to Wall Street, to the City of London. In this fully updated new edition, he recounts how the credit crunch became a full-blown financial crisis, and explores its impact on capitalist ideology and politics in our new age of austerity.
Paperback, 288 pages
ISBN: 9781844676538
November 2010
$14.95 / £8.99
- Purchase
Other Editions
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Paperback, 198 pages
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ISBN: 9781844673964
May 2009
$14.95 / £7.99
- Purchase
Reviews
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A page-turning account … Mason is refreshingly clear-eyed—and angry.
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Excellent.
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What people need is a reliable guide to the financial crisis … Meltdown is the book they are looking for.
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A lucid and sharply polemical account.
Blog
Paul Mason wins the Royal Television Society's 'Specialist Journalist of the Year' award
Paul Mason won "Specialist Journalist of the Year" at last night's Royal Television Society Television Journalism Awards, against strong competition from the BBC's Jeremy Bowen and Faisal Islam of Channel 4 News. Commenting on Mason's extensive coverage from Egypt, Greece, the UK and further afield, the RTS said:
Night after night he has provided compelling coverage of one of the biggest stories of the year: the economic crisis and the meltdown in the Eurozone. On the road and in the studio he has combined brilliant reportage with thoughtful and original analysis. With his knack for getting to the heart of the story and his ability to explain and illustrate a very complex world, Paul Mason is an outstanding winner.
Visit the RTS website for more information on the awards.
"Society has the right to have a discussion:" Paul Mason, the Eurozone crisis and Occupy
Paul Mason comments on the way in which the global crisis has been dealt with by politicians in a discussion with Gillian Tett for the Guardian.
It's a problem of the sclerosis of politics. I despair of the level of political leadership ... Never in any of the policy actions do you see the seeds of the new, the basis for a new version of capitalism
Asked whether the reforms introduced by European governments will be effective in tackling the crisis, the author of Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed and the forthcoming Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions answered that in all likelihood in the next months we will see "the emergence of mainstream politicians saying this far and no further, protectionism, roll back the free market." In his view, the situation will quickly reach the boiling point:
I was leaked some bank research and the sliding scale of banks that went bust was so frightening I decided it was impossible to report without causing panic.
Paul Mason v. Sarkozy: "Rest assured I have a whole bunch of other impertinent questions to ask heads of state"
Fresh from shouting "how can people take you seriously?" at the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as he arrived at the Cannes G20 summit, Paul Mason has also clashed with French President Nicholas Sarkozy. As Mason writes for the BBC News website, Sarkozy fumed when the journalist, during the press conference, asked him
It's evident that you and Mme Merkel, the two most powerful governments in Europe, are trying to change the governments of Italy and Greece. How is that just? And once it's started, where does it stop?
Sarkozy bitterly retorted that Mason does not understand "the subtleties of the European construction" because he is "from an island."
Discussions
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Who pays for the crisis?
In the new edition of his acclaimed account of the financial crisis, Paul Mason shows how, for the last fourteen months, the illusion has been sustained that no matter how badly the world economy slumps, there is always a pain-free way out of it. With the realisation slowly dawning that there is not, and that the pain will be severe, the question is: who should feel it?
Other books by Paul Mason
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Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere
by Paul Mason
Incisive grassroots account of the new global revolutions by acclaimed BBC journalist and author of Meltdown