The Fed: The Inside Story of How the World's Most Powerful Financial Institution Drives the Markets
Martin Mayer's engaging examination of the much-talked-about but little understood U.S. Federal Reserve begins with the dramatic events of October 1998, a month in which the market closed "lock limit down" for the first time in almost a decade. At the same time, Alan Greenspan, the Fed's chairman, began radically reinventing his agency's role and its influence on the market. Indeed, while most of the rest of the world's countries were diminishing the role of their central banks, Congress was granting new powers and responsibilities to the Fed. Mayer's book--part history, part journalistic report, and all detailed analysis--looks at the significance of those powers, their benefits and risks, and what they mean to the markets. He also devotes chapters to the day-to-day inner workings of the Fed, its influence in international financial matters, and its possible role in coming years.As a prolific author and respected economics scholar, Mayer has been immersed in the financial world for decades and provides both bird's-eye and long-range views of money's complicated maneuverings.  Without his excellent storytelling abilities and fluid writing style, this book would be heavy going for anyone who doesn't speak the language of high finance. Though it is most definitely dense (and its structure somewhat erratic), Mayer manages to make a complicated subject accessible for those with more interest than actual knowledge. An informative look at a hitherto enigmatic but influential institution. --S. Ketchum