Author Description

"The rise and fall of the markets now has a powerful and direct effect on the lives of millions of Americans, as they track their investments hour by hour, day by day, watching their wealth increase. The old equation that the personal is the political had changed. Now, it is the personal finance that is political, and all of us are involved. In Bull Run: Wall Street, the Democrats, and the New Politics of Personal Finance, Daniel Gross outlines these striking changes and explores their implications for our country, our pocketbooks, and our two major political parties.". "Gross takes us from Washington to Omaha, showing how people like Alan Greenspan and Warren Buffett have created a culture where the markets are seen as not only dependable but Democratic. We meet Arthur Levitt, who has quietly reshaped the Securities and Exchange Commission to make on-line investing possible and safe. There's David G. Bronner, the most powerful man in Alabama because he controls the state's $22 billion pension fund. Bull Run explains how Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and the Democratic leadership managed to embrace the markets and decided that the best sort of policies were those that resulted in a higher NAS-DAQ. And it explains why significant elements of the Republican party have retreated from their historic alliance with Wall Street. Gross shows why TIAA-CREF, the pension fund of academics and other market-unfriendly types, has become a Wall Street powerhouse and left more than one Marxist a millionaire. He also explains how the democratization of money has meant that many corporations are increasingly accountable to normal Americans, often to the dismay of executives who previously acted with impunity."--BOOK JACKET.