Book Forum 

# *Alchemists of Loss: How Modern Finance and Government Intervention Crashed the Financial System*

(Wiley, 2010)

##### Watch the Event 

Download:

[ 

Video 

](https://fastly-unsigned-us-east-1-prod.brightcovecdn.com/media/v1/pmp4/static/clear/6039378657001/5873f3d6-b7b9-407e-82e7-17faab546daf/c9f3e064-0c91-4f71-97d5-748905c4c2f9/main.mp4) 

[ 

Video 

](https://cdn.cato.org/archive-2010/cbf-11-16-10.mp4) 

[ 

Audio 

](https://cdn.cato.org/archive-2010/cbfa-11-16-10.mp3) 

Join the conversation on X using [\#CatoEvents](https://x.com/hashtag/CatoEvents). Follow [@CatoInstitute](https://x.com/catoinstitute) on X to get future event updates, live streams, and videos from the Cato Institute.

Date and Time 

November 16, 2010 1 - 2:30 PM EST 

Location 

Auditorium/Wintergarden 

Share This Event 

##### Featuring 

Featuring the authors **Kevin Dowd**, Pensions Institute, Cass Business School, City University London; and **Martin Hutchinson**, The Bear’s Lair; with comments by **Anthony Sanders**, George Mason University; moderated by **Mark Calabria**, Director, Financial Regulation Studies, Cato Institute. 

[[![You Know I'm Right](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/optimized/public/download-remote-images/www.cato.org/138620933958/alchemist.jpg?itok=7toqnZR-)](/sites/cato.org/files/download-remote-images/www.cato.org/138620933958/alchemist.jpg)](http://www.amazon.com/Alchemists-Loss-government-intervention-financial/dp/0470689153/?tag=catoinstitute-20) 
[Purchase book](http://www.amazon.com/Alchemists-Loss-government-intervention-financial/dp/0470689153/?tag=catoinstitute-20)

Disasters are generally caused by bad ideas. There was the theory that government should guarantee housing loans and that the Federal Reserve could inflate our way to prosperity. There were the regulators, who thought risk could be eliminated by 1,000-page rulebooks. And there were the academics, who thought capitalism with massive debt and “scientific management” control was just as good as the real thing. In *Alchemists of Loss*, authors Kevin Dowd and Martin Hutchinson take each to task and show how all combined in bringing our financial markets to the brink.

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).