Cost of Capitalism : Understanding Market Mayhem and Stabilizing Our Economic Future

CNBC regular Robert J. Barbera offers a crystal clear explanation of the financial market crisis of 2008

While mainstream financial analysts are stringing together ad hoc explanations for the financial crisisof 2008, a relatively small group of economists saw this coming. In The Cost of Capitalism, Robert J.Barbera explains why.

Barbera makes the case that investors and policy-makers can reduce the risk of truly gruesome outcomes if they better planfor the violent economic storms, which history confirms are always over the horizon.

Investors will learn how to gird themselves for the roller-coaster ride that is free market capitalism;policy makers will find out how to plan for crises they know will occur at some point; and academiceconomists will rethink their pursuit of ever more elaborate mathematical models that bear noresemblance to the real world.

The message is simple: Stop pretending that people are always rational and that markets are alwaysefficient―and be prepared for market mayhem.

Robert J. Barbera, Ph.D., is executive vicepresident and chief economist at ITG andan Economics Department Fellow at JohnsHopkins University. He has been a notedWall Street economist for over 25 years.Before arriving on Wall Street, Barbera wasa staff economist for Senator Paul Tsongasand an economist for the CongressionalBudget Offi ce.