The Language Of Banking

The Language of Banking includes nearly 850 everyday words, phrases, and laws used in the world of finance. Each entry provides an easy-to-understand definition and, when appropriate, a brief background on the phrase or statute. Charts are given to explain such items as annual percentage rate and ability to pay.

In this short but ambitious book, Arjun Appadurai argues that the failure of the financial system in 2007-08 in the United States was primarily a failure of language. This argument does not deny that greed, ignorance, weak regulation, and irresponsible risk-taking were important factors in the collapse. But the new role of language in the marketplace, for Appadurai, is the condition of possibility for all these more easily identifiable flaws. Attempts to rectify the social pathologies of contemporary finance must address that failure of language. "Banking on Words "focuses on derivatives as the distinctive innovation of our financial era. Derivatives are written promises concerning the uncertain future prices of financial assets and the substance of these contracts is expressed in terms of money. The recent failure of derivatives markets was systematic and should be understood as failed promises. While it is well-known that derivatives pile risk on risk with little basis in real production and trade, Appadurai reveals this process in a fresh light from which some policy conclusions may be drawn. While critical of derivative finance s present social infrastructure and supporting ideology, Appadurai acknowledges its capacity for creating vast new forms of wealth and asks the crucial question: if we want access to that wealth, what kind of social arrangements would we need to make sure that it benefits all of society rather than reinforcing a system that benefits the few who are already well off? His bold answer involves not the repair of the force of promises but rather the repair and reconstruction of the idea of the individual to enable new sorts of solidarity between dividuals, agents whose very partiality may allow for new aggregations of aspiration, interest and affiliation. This amounts to nothing less than a new ideology of sociality."

A Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Bloomberg Businessweek Book of the Year Why our banking system is broken—and what we must do to fix it New bank failures have been a rude awakening for everyone who believed that the banking industry was reformed after the Global Financial Crisis—and that we’d never again have to choose between massive bailouts and financial havoc. The Bankers’ New Clothes uncovers just how little things have changed—and why banks are still so dangerous. Writing in clear language that anyone can understand, Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig debunk the false and misleading claims of bankers, regulators, politicians, academics, and others who oppose effective reform, and they explain how the banking system can be made safer and healthier. Thoroughly updated for a world where bank failures have made a dramatic return, this acclaimed and important book now features a new preface and four new chapters that expose the shortcomings of current policies and reveal how the dominance of banking even presents dangers to the rule of law and democracy itself.