● The Shadow Market: How a Group of Wealthy Nations and Powerful Investors Secretly Dominate the World
By Eric J. Weiner
Review via New York Times Book Review
“The ‘shadow market’ Weiner refers to — not to be confused with the ‘shadow banking system,’ which was largely blamed for the collapse of our economy — is ‘the invisible and ever-shifting global nexus where money mixes with geopolitical power,’ a vague and ominous allusion to sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds and private equity funds. Weiner argues that these huge pools of unregulated capital have come to dominate the world financial system, largely without our noticing it, and that as a result the United States has lost much of its economic influence. While he discusses the investment arms of the governments of Qatar, Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, the book could have been subtitled ‘How China Cooked America in Soy Sauce and Ate It for Dinner,’ since China is Weiner’s most intimidating example. According to his worldview, our friendly adversary in the Far East has the United States in a headlock, and we should all be stockpiling potato seeds and scrambling to learn Mandarin.”
