About Makers and Takers

Over the last several years, the American people have been sold any number of falsehoods—that immigration is a leading cause of our economic woes, that globalization can be curbed and that tax cuts for the rich will lead to greater prosperity for all. But we have yet to understand our nation’s central economic dilemma: there is no room on Wall Street for Main Street. Finance, rather than the real economy, has become the tail that wags the dog.

The current economic “recovery” period, which has been underway since 2009, is a sham. Corporate debt and leverage are at record levels and stock price indices have shattered past peaks. But it’s a recovery that has not been shared, as the top 1 percent of Americans have captured 52% of real income growth over the last decade.

What’s more, the continued rise of Wall Street and the financialization of the world’s largest companies – which are bigger, richer, and yet also more indebted now than before the Great Financial Crisis – has set the stage for the next big economic debacle.

In Makers and Takers, now out in paperback, award-winning business journalist Rana Foroohar explores the provocative questions that are at the top of mind of today’s business leaders, as well as front and center of the current political debate: is Wall Street destroying American business? And who should American corporations be run for – shareholders alone? Or society as a whole?

Exploring the forces that have led American businesses to favor finance over innovation, balance-sheet engineering over the actual kind, and the pursuit of short-term corporate profits over job creation, Makers and Takers shows how the rise of finance and the fall of business is so gravely harming our economy and society and why these issues so urgently matter to us all.