What Has Been Breaking U. S. Banks?

A Review Essay

Originally published in Critical Review

The last decade has been one of upheaval for the U.S. banking industry. Richard M. Salsman's Breaking the Banks, though not flawless, offers a well‐framed theoretical and historical account that goes beneath proximate causes to the underlying sources of unsoundness among American banks.

The last decade has been one of upheaval for the U.S. banking industry. Richard M. Salsman's Breaking the Banks, though not flawless, offers a well‐framed theoretical and historical account that goes beneath proximate causes to the underlying sources of unsoundness among American banks. Salsman's diagnosis—that regulation has systematically weakened the banking industry—is all the more credible for having been published a year before it became publicly known that the FDIC had gone broke.

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