This narrative history recounts and explains the economic, financial and political backgrounds of the banking panic, arguing that the holiday was not only unnecessary but actually damaging to the economy. The holiday did, however, provide Roosevelt with the momentum to push through a series of...

Introduction -- Efficient markets and central banks? -- Money, banks and central banks -- Stable and unstable markets -- Deceiving the diligent -- On (central bank) governors -- Minsky meets Mandelbrot -- Beyond the efficient market fallacy -- Concluding remarks

Since the 1980s, the US has developed a form of finance-led capitalism in which growth has been highly dependent on credit expansion and asset bubbles. Profitability has steadily climbed, and there has been a massive redistribution of income in favour of the top 1% of income earners. But the...