Interview with Jeff Madrick

Jeff Madrick Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present

Jeff Madrick

author of "Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present"
Steve Murphy

Steve Murphy

Executive Producer & Host

Jeff Madrick, author of "Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present"

Jeff Madrick's Website

Prominent Trial Attorney, Jack Girardi interviews award winning Author Jeff Madrick on his new book, Age of Greed, The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970-Present and is published by Alfred A. Knopf.

JEFF MADRICK is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and a former economics columnist for The New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and the for Economic Policy Analysis, The New School. His last book, The Case for Big Government (Princeton), was named one of two 2009 PEN Galbraith Non-Fiction Award Finalists.

He is also the author of Taking America (Bantam, 1987), and The End of Affluence (Random House, 1995), both of which were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Taking America was chosen by Business Week as one of the ten best books of the year. His book, Why Economies Grow (Basic Books/Century Foundation, 2002), emphasized the need for active public investment and a broader understanding of the causes of growth than was popular in academia at the time. He has written for many other publications over the years, including The Post, The Times, Institutional Investor, The Nation, American Prospect, The Globe, Newsday, and the business, op-ed, and the Sunday magazine sections of The New York Times. He is a regular blogger for The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast.

Madrick gives many speeches and makes frequent public appearances. He has appeared on Charlie Rose, The Lehrer News Hour, Now With Bill Moyers, Frontline, C-Span, Book Notes, CNN, CNBC, CBS, BBC, and NPR. He has also served as a policy consultant and speech writer for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and other U.S. legislators.

Madrick is a fellow of the World Policy Institute and the Century Foundation, and a is a member of the board of The Center for Economic and Poicy Research.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, Madrick had several positions in journalism, including serving as Wall Street editor of Money Magazine, finance editor of Business Week Magazine and an NBC News reporter and commentator. His awards included an Emmy and a Page One Award.

The Age of Greed is a fascinating and deeply disturbing tale of hypocrisy, corruption, and insatiable greed. But more than that, it’s a much-needed reminder of just how we got into the mess we’re in—a reminder that is greatly needed when we are still being told that greed is good. As Jeff Madrick makes clear in a narrative at once sweeping, fast-paced, and incisive, the single-minded pursuit of huge personal wealth has been on the rise in the United States since the 1970s, led by a few individuals who have argued that self-interest guides society more effectively than community concerns. These stewards of American capitalism have insisted on the central and essential place of accumulated wealth through the booms, busts, and recessions of the last half century, giving rise to our current woes. Intense economic inequity and instability is the story of our age, and Jeff Madrick tells it with style, clarity, and an unerring command of his subject.

The Book: "Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present"

ISBN: 1400041716

Get the book

A vividly told history of how greed bred America’s economic ills over the last forty years, and of the men most responsible for them.

As Jeff Madrick makes clear in a narrative at once sweeping, fast-paced, and incisive, the single-minded pursuit of huge personal wealth has been on the rise in the United States since the 1970s, led by a few individuals who have argued that self-interest guides society more effectively than community concerns. These stewards of American capitalism have insisted on the central and essential place of accumulated wealth through the booms, busts, and recessions of the last half century, giving rise to our current woes.

In telling the stories of these politicians, economists, and financiers who declared a moral battle for freedom but instead gave rise to an age of greed, Madrick traces the lineage of some of our nation’s most pressing economic problems. He begins with Walter Wriston, head of what would become Citicorp, who led the battle against government regulation. He examines the ideas of economist Milton Friedman, who created the plan for an anti-Rooseveltian America; the politically expedient decisions of Richard Nixon that fueled inflation; the philosophy of Alan Greenspan, on whose libertarian ideology a house of cards was built on Wall Street; and the actions of Sandy Weill, who constructed the largest financial institution in the world, which would have gone bankrupt in 2008 without a federal bailout of $45 billion. Significant figures including Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, Jack Welch, and Ronald Reagan play key roles as well.

Intense economic inequity and instability is the story of our age, and Jeff Madrick tells it with style, clarity, and an unerring command of his subject.

Steve Murphy, Executive Producer & Host