Crisis - One Central Bank Governor and the Global Financial Collapse
by Alan Bollard with Sarah Gaitanos, Auckland University Press, $29.99
It is a relief that one of the most boring of our financial institutions is the Reserve Bank, and that the bank governor, Dr Alan Bollard, is one of the
most boring members of the Wellington establishment.
Boring is good in the context of a safe pair of hands at the tiller of New Zealand's central bank as the full impact of the global financial crisis continues to be felt by all of us.
This book is a memoir of his experiences at the frontline of the financial meltdown, and he is surprisingly frank about the personal stresses imposed by it. Severe stress-induced migraines were just a part of it.
The book is published this month on the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, one of the seemingly endless financial calamities that have beset the international financial world in the past two years.
While it occasionally slips into challenging technical detail, Dr Bollard valiantly tries to demystify the arcane world of international finance.
In trying to explain what went wrong, Dr Bollard likens the financial turmoil to the spread of the bubonic plague in medieval Europe. That was particularly destructive in Iceland and Ireland, where 60 per cent of the respective populations contracted the virus and died.
Dr Bollard says that outbreak burnt itself out after a couple of years, although occasional outbreaks occurred for centuries in Europe. This outbreak of financial woe struck Iceland and Ireland particularly hard, and is still gradually burning itself out.
The destruction and grief the financial turmoil continues to cause may not be over as politicians, banks and bureaucrats struggle to fully understand and deal with the consequences of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
This is a readable first-hand account of the drama involved in combating the crisis, all the more unusual as this is not the work of a former central banker. Reassuringly, Dr Bollard continues in his role as governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
