Philip R. Clark Boeken

She was the daughter of a pharaoh, beautiful, feminine, intelligent and a talented woman and the favorite of her father the reigning pharaoh. She was also married to her younger brother, whom she loved, but only as younger sibling. He was the logical successor to their father, but he died of some mysterious disease leaving his sister/wife to continue his rule. So when it came time for her to ascend the pharaoh's throne she assumed the guise of a male including a false beard, that to satisfy a population whom she felt were suspicious of her and she assumed they wanted a male pharaoh. Before her brother/husband passed away he consorted with a 'harem wife' who in turn had a son, and an heir, who should logically have the necessary qualifications to be a pharaoh. She, also, had a lover, a great Egyptian architect and builder, who built many monuments and mortuary temples, many of which stand today, thirty-five hundred years later. But what of the female pharaoh, who preceeded Cleopatra by over fifteen hundred years, and her ambitious step-son, and thus the intrigue begins.

This book is as much about human behavior as it is about banking and economics. The technical aspects of bail-out policies, capital asset ratios, risk assessments, etc. are clearly outlined. But the key to successfully transitioning from a planned to a market economy, particularly in the banking sector, ultimately comes down to people. After decades of central planning, Central and Eastern Europe was fully indoctrinated with a mindset that was anathema to a liberal market economy. Nicholas Barr, a professor at the London School of Economics and an economist at the World Bank, aptly characterized the post-Soviet era as a trail of tears. He directly witnessed the absolute economic devastation that blanketed the former iron curtain in the 1990s. While elements of widespread pain are unavoidable in transition economies, there are approaches to change that can put financial systems on successful trajectories. Some of the best and brightest minds traversed the Atlantic to offer sage advice on financial economics. But at the end of the day, success or failure was ultimately driven by sticks and carrots. Finally, the lessons from this book are global in scope. One only has to remember the U.S. Savings & Loan debacle of the 1980s.