Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Books on the Financial Crisis
Books on the Financial Crisis
Mar 28, 2026 4:47 PM

David L. Bahnsen, a good friend of Acton, has begun a series of reviews of books on the financial crisis. No doubt, he’ll have many to review in the months ahead.

Here’s from Bahnsen’s latest, a review of Greenspan’s Bubbles by William Fleckinstein:

When someone in the position of authority and reputation as the chief central banker of the world decides to preach the new paradigm of eternal productivity, he encourages others to join particular sides of trades that may be wholly inappropriate. That influence is not e. Greenspan has done a lot to tarnish his legacy, but I believe the “age of bubbles” Greenspan reigned over should be known as the era in which the Federal Reserve chairman decided to take on the role of economic deity in our society. He was not good at it, because it was not his proper role. Our markets function better without central bankers playing the role of cheerleaders.

Bahnsen, a financial planner and investment manager, serves on the Blackstone Faculty of the Alliance Defense Fund, and is a Cooperating Board member of the Center for Cultural Leadership, where he is the Senior Fellow of Economics and Finance.

David describes himself as …

a disciple of Milton Friedman, a lover of Ronald Reagan, and a “National Review kind of conservative.” His writings strive to reflect an ideology of freedom principles integrated with transcendent truths. His hero is his late father, Dr. Greg Bahnsen, but he is pretty fond of John Calvin, Abraham Kuyper, F.A. Hayek, Winston Churchill, C.S. Lewis, William Buckley, Margaret Thatcher, George Gilder, Steve Forbes, and Larry Kudlow as well. When he is not being so serious, he also admires Tiger Woods and Pete Carroll.

Also, take a look at his musings on “Marketplace & Calling.”

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Studying Stewardship in Scripture
This weekend’s Grand Rapids Press featured a story about the release of the NIV Stewardship Study Bible. Ann Byle writes, Three Grand Rapids-based organizations and numerous local residents joined forces recently to create a study Bible that focuses on stewardship. The Acton Institute, the Stewardship Council and Zondervan brought the NIV Stewardship Study Bible into print after more than five years of work that began with Brett Elder, the council’s executive director. Elder traveled the world speaking on generosity. He...
Catholics, Abortion, and the Health Care Debate
This morning, Kishore Jayabalan – Director of Acton’s Rome office – joined hosts Melanie Morgan and Ernest Istook on America’s Morning News to discuss the ongoing controversy over abortion coverage in the hotly debated Obama/Pelosi/Reid health care bills currently under consideration by Congress, and to give some perspective on how the Catholic Bishops have dealt with the issue to date. You can listen using the audio player below. [audio: ...
Catholic Business Blog
mon criticism of Catholic social teaching from businesspeople is that it remains too vague or abstract to provide concrete guidance for daily practice. There’s a new blog at CatholicCulture.org, where Peter Mirus, as a businessman, reflects on the moral dimensions of various aspects of his work. Here, for example, is a thoughtful one on being truthful. “At pany,” he says, some our greatest successes in consulting e through telling a current or potential client the hard facts. That decision hasn’t...
Acton Commentary: After the Berlin Wall — the Enduring Power of Socialism
The Economist marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by observing that there was “so much gained, so much to lose.” As the world celebrates the collapse munism, who would have imagined that in less than one generation we would witness a resurgence of socialism throughout Latin America and even hear the word socialist being used to describe policies of the United States? We relegated socialism to the “dustbin of history,” but socialism never actually died...
The Gulag Lives On – But Not in Our Culture
I linked Daniel Crandall’s mentary on the paucity of films devoted to the Gulag in this week’s Acton News & Commentary (sign up here). But do to an, ahem, editing error the link did not send readers to The Gulag Lives On – But Not in Our Culture on OrthodoxyToday.org. Crandall also discusses the paintings of Nikolai Getman, whose work based on Gulag life is on display at the Heritage Foundation through Dec. 10. As Heritage explains it, “Getman began...
Health Care Principles to Remember
With the health care debate heating up once again, and a vote pending on the legislation on Saturday in the US Senate, here are a few bits mentary on the process from Acton’s audio archives that will help you to understand some of the important issues at stake: September 10, 2009: Dr. Kevin Schmeissing joins host Al Kresta to analyze President Obama’s address to Congress on health care reform: [audio: 10, 2009: Dr. Samuel Gregg, Acton’s Director of Research, discusses...
Economic Liberalism and its Discontents
How do we restore confidence in free markets? Formulate a robust explanation of their moral value. Read Economic Liberalism and its Discontents on Public Discourse. In his recent book The Creation and Destruction of Value, Princeton University’s Harold James observes that the 2008 financial crisis resulted in more than the devastation of economic value. It also facilitated a collapse of values in the sense of people’s faith in particular ideas, institutions, and practices. Among these, few would question that economic...
Secularism and Poverty
A colleague recently mentioned that a wag had observed the church had failed to solve poverty, so why not let the federal government have a try? I think it is interesting that anyone, such as the wag in question, could think that the federal government can effectively solve the problem of poverty. I don’t think it can because it resolutely refuses to confront the sources. Really, truly, don’t we know the cause of a great deal of the poverty in...
The Financial Crisis: What We (Still) Haven’t Learned
It’s over a year now since the 2008 financial crisis spread havoc throughout the global economy. Dozens of books and articles have appeared to explain what went wrong. They identify culprits ranging from Wall Street financiers overleveraging assets, to ACORN lobbying policy-makers to lower mortgage standards, to politicians closely connected to government-sponsored enterprises such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae failing to exercise oversight of those agencies. As time passes, armies of doctoral students will explore every nook and cranny...
Acton Commentary: Government Health Care — Back to the Plantation
Black leaders constantly remind Americans of our racism. Should not these same leaders protest the expansion of government control contained in the health-care reform bill currently working its way through Congress? Here’s why. Notwithstanding their rhetoric of freedom and empowerment, many prominent black leaders appear content to send blacks back to the government plantation—where a small number of Washington elites make decisions for blacks who aren’t in the room. Why do minority leaders not favor alternatives that demonstrate faith in...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved