5 comments about The Demise of the Dollar...: And Why It's Even Better for Your Investments (Agora Series).

1. I found this book to be a page-turner and a quick read -- just one weekend.
   
   This book is exactly what I wanted. Some reviews complain the book is too deep or not deep enough. That it has too much or too little investment advice. I'd say it's just right. The points are well-substantiated, but not boring, and the investment advice is both broad enough to offer options and targeted enough to be immediately useful.
   
   I found out about it through his free email newsletter, Daily Reckoning. It's a great place to get familiar with his ideas and to help decide whether or not to buy the book.
   
   Wiggin synthesizes historical trends, current news, and forward-looking concepts, all in one neat little package. It tackles a difficult and expansive topic in a way that's accessible and kind of fun. Beyond five stars, I'd rate Demise of the Dollar as a 9.7 out of ten. If you're interested in America's future, I recommend buying this book.



2. I regretted purchasing the book because I was looking for the author's concrete, systemic suggestions of what to do in a time of the dollar's demise. I was hoping for something like model portfolios or suggested portfolios and felt that in lieu of that the author's emphasis was on why we are in trouble and what the situation is. I was in the market for what to do about it. The other information I can easily find on Austrian School websites.



3. A quick yet informative read. The book is really a collection of semi-organized essays. It gets fairly repetative, with the author driving home his point in a multidude of ways, but with good intentions. He does a good job explaining concepts, and this could have been an entry in the "...For Dummies" series. Disappointingly there is little positive advice, only a few pages at the very end. If anything it opened my mind to how mismanaged our economic policies are, and the most important thing I learned is that I need to be more proactive about educating myself and investing for my future. A bit like waking up out of the Matrix.



4. I purchased this book to hear various points of view on the US and global economy. Having chapters 1 through 4, I skipped to the final chapter 8 where the author finally presents his recommended course of action.
   
   Overall, however, I felt the book was poorly written. It is filled with repetitive and alarmist language, somewhat like you may expect to see on a newscast. I also felt it was insufficiently backed up with references and hard numbers. Much of the text would not be accepted on Wikipedia without those annoying "citation needed" tags.
   
   Long story short, I plan to return my copy to Borders tomorrow and have posted here to register my dissatisfaction.



5. Very repetitive. Could have been half the size it is. I will say it was spot-on about the current credit crisis. A quick summary of the book...the US is deep into debt so the value of the dollar is down, buy gold.

5 comments about Planet India: The Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy and the Future of Our World.

1. I have friends who immigrated from India, I read the Calcutta Times, and frankly, I looked forward to reading what Ms. Kamdar had to share about a culture that has always held my interest. Truly, the facts were enlightening. Perhaps if Ms. Kamdar had presented the information with a perspective sans a strident agenda, it would have been a wonderful book.
   
   Sadly, the rhetoric of: the US is on the descent, [insert country here] is on the rise, and further, the US must give us more money to see that this trend continues, is overused and no longer meaningful. We are tired of it. We are tired of being insulted and told to hand over money in the same breath. It breaches common decency, and it strains friendships.



2. Great info on India. First hand observations by a knowledgeable author. Read her "Motiba's Tattoos" too. [ASIN:1891620584 Motiba's Tattoos: A Granddaughter's Journey into her Indian Family's Past]] I thoroughly enjoyed Planet India and Motiba's Tattoo's. Terrific writer!



3. i left this book half way because i find it way too detailed and missing to show the bigger picture. I was expecting this book to be something which may explain things on a more macro level. more like why things are happening the way they are happening in india and not what all is happening india. For someone from india, its even less interesting as we know the current state of things in india, what we are trying to figure is how this all came to be and how are things looking 5-10 years down the line.



4. India isn't just a call center or somewhere far off and mystical anymore. Planet India shows the diversity of what India is today and reality how it will influence the rest of the world.



5. Mira Kamdar, author of Planet India: How the Fastest-Growing Democracy is Transforming America and the World, does an excellent job in tracing India's miraculous transformation from a developing country into a powerful global market force.
   
   The book has been translated and published in Hindi, Italian, French, Chinese, Dutch and Portuguese. The author, a native of Seattle, is a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute who has lived in India, Japan, France, and South Korea.
   
   With such a background, Kamdar also offers insights into India's recent emergence as an economic giant. And so we find that the book covers the good, the bad, and the ugly as well as hope for India's future. The author maintains that India must chart its own path and create its own paradigm for progress rather than embracing the American system. She provides a bright and colorful panoramic view of India, warts and all, through the lens of an American with a global perspective.
   
   By Gunjan Bagla
   Author of Doing Business in 21st Century India

5 comments about The Affluent Society.

1. Written long before modern realization of how our desire for affluence as part of our "right by birth" has largely caused such things as global warming and elimination of species, Galbraith gives a very indepth exposé of the origins and tendencies of the North American material ethos. I would have given this book 4.5 or 5 stars save for the fact that it takes a bit of work on the reader to bring it fully up to date with respect to some of the consequences we now see.
   
   That said, I would heartily recommend this work prior to reading his or other author's more recent works on the direction of modern western society.



2. it' s the first time I read something like that in economics.



3. John Kenneth Galbraith is probably the economist that I have read most. This book is a classic and very much worth reading for it analysis of the market system. But when all is said and done I consider it more a work of speculative fiction. I read a book similar to this by Bertrand Russell back in the 60's but both books are lacking a bit in scepticism of the human beast. The very idea that we would all be so wealthy one day that we wouldn't know what to do as a society - or that somebody would have to mail us a check in order to encourage spending and that poverty would be a secondary problem etc. etc. etc. Is plain naivete or maybe wishfull thinking.



4. John Kenneth Galbraith was one of the great public intellectuals of 20th century America. He advised Presidents and politicians, wrote best-selling books, taught economics at Harvard, appeared on TV, and served as the U.S. Ambassador to India. Nevertheless, mainstream economists looked down their noses at him. They scoffed at his sweeping generalizations. They questioned his technical prowess, noting that his books had no math. Many suspected that he was a "mere sociologist" masquarading as an economist.
   
   These critics may have been jealous of Galbraith's literary fame and towering public profile. In any event, they certainly misconstrued his significance in American intellectual life. Galbraith's great gift as a thinker was his razor-sharp eye for cant. He knew where economic ideas came from, how they supported vested interests, and where they diverged from the plain facts of everyday life -- and he conveyed these lessons to educated general readers in elegant prose. In the end, he may have been a gadfly and critic, not a model builder -- but so what? If mainsteam economists taught us how to think about markets, Galbraith taught us how to think about mainstream economics.
   
   "The Affluent Society" is one of his masterpieces. Written in the 1950s, ideas fly from its pages, touching on everything from Ricardian economics to oligopolies and inflation. The central idea, however, is arresting. Galbraith argued that modern economics was forged in the austere world of the 19th century, when national economies struggled simply to feed and clothe their populations. Sensible at the time, the core assumptions of economics were carried over to a different century facing a different set of problems. In the 20th century, supermarkets bursted with unnecessary soaps and cereals, car models changed every year, and billions of advertising dollars were spent on campaigns to convince consumers that they needed items they never even knew they wanted.
   
   Galbraith argued that, with the problem of scarcity more or less solved, society was free to loosen the connection between income and labor, and to spend more money on public goods such as schools, hospitals, and clean air. He rejected as anachronistic the objection that such measures would reduce economic efficiency by mandating higher taxes or rewarding idleness: what was the value of having an efficient economic system if the goods it produced answered no urgent human needs? Galbraith thought that society should focus on the development of human capacities and the building of decent communities and workplaces, and not fret unduly over allocative efficiency.
   
   Galbraith was wrong about many things, but he was always thought-provoking and mind-expanding. The continuing force of "The Affluent Society" will be clear to anyone who reflects on the crazy popularity of SUVs or tallies up the money we lavish on pets -- in a day and age when American cats get better medical care than most African children, it's safe to say that the supply side problem has finally been solved (at least for us and our pets). The book should be read by all serious students of economics or 20th century American society, and it belongs on any bookshelf of social criticism next to the works of Thorstein Veblen and C. Wright Mills.



5. A true classic that is as relevant to explaining today's society as that in which Galbraith wrote it - and never more so than Galbraith's argument that we need a better social balance between private and public expenditure. As the gap grows between the urban rich and poor, he notes, more of the rich are able to opt out of public services such as schools, police and transport. With urbanization a dominant theme of the coming decades, it's worth being reminded of Galbraith's observations on how public expenditure on urban infrastructure is generally presented in political discourse - "at best, public services are a necessary evil; at worst, they are a malign tendency against which an alert community must exercise eternal vigilance" - which, as he points out, leads to some interesting contradictions - "Vacuum cleaners to ensure clean houses are praise-worthy and essential in our standard of living. Street cleaners to ensure clean streets are an unfortunate expense. Partly as a result, our houses are generally clean and our streets generally filthy."
   
   Galbraith's philosophical arguments against extreme wealth inequality are both increasingly unfashionable and increasingly urgent; the trend he identifies - "few things are more evident in modern social history than the decline of interest in inequality as an economic issue" - has hardly been arrested as the world has globalized. Galbraith quotes Tawney as noting that people who think they should have unfettered enjoyment of their inherited money do not generally think that others should have unfettered enjoyment of their inherited physical strength or cunning - "Those who dread a dead-level of income or wealth... do not, it seems, dread a dead-level of law and order, and of security of life and property" - an observation that's highly applicable to inequality considered on the scale of the modern global economy.
   
   Galbraith's pithy and wryly amused writing style has stood the test of time as well as the arguments. Perhaps my favourite example comes when Galbraith is commenting on the concern that social security makes poor people idle: the "ancient art of evading work", he says, is not the preserve of any particular class or occupation, and "the art of genteel and elaborately concealed idleness may well reach its highest development in the upper executive reaches of the modern corporation."

5 comments about The Coming Economic Earthquake: Revised and Expanded for the Clinton Agenda.

1. The revised edition of The Coming Economic Earthquake has some interesting information. For a somewhat different view you should check out "The Christian Financial Crisis" by James L. Paris.



2. Those some of his predictions (such as 2000) about an economic earthquake hasn't happened yet nor are we that close even with the largest deficit in history. Although it's hard to predict such things...But Larry Burkett makes valid warnings about huge goverment and public deficits and it's impact on the economic that normally leads to hyper-inflation. My impression from the data contained in the book and history thereafter, the government deficit will not have a negative impact such as hyper-inflation till most of the baby boomers are retired. I wish Larry would have updated this topic! The book is still worth buying as it has valuable information, it's super cheap...



3. In the old testament when a prophet made a prediction that didn't come true they were exposed as a false prophet, taken out and stoned to death. I'm certainly not recommending it- just putting some perspective on our extreme tolerance for people that are consistently WRONG in their predictions. Only God knows what's going to happen, and it's GOD not government, or even we ourselves that provides for us. Burkett and a whole host of "Christian financial advisors" put WAAAAYYYYY too much stock in "planning and preparation". I don't discount it, but they do it and recommend it to the point of pride and idolitary. Do what YOU are supposed to do, and let God do the rest. Quit WORRYING (as worry is a sin) and trying to predict the future and get on with your life!!!



4. This book clearly outlines why the recession is here and it was written in 1991 predicting it. Although the writer is Christian, he does not explain the recession as an end of times brought on by God. Previous reviews written by Christian haters should be ignored. Larry Burkett explains clearly what the government has been doing wrong with regards to our economy and why it is doomed. I highly recommend this book.



5. Written in 1991, and just analyzing the US economy based on its accumulation of debt, Burkett makes some startling predictions, including a fictional chapter of what might happen that reads like the headlines of October 2008. With government spending out of control, even more promised spending on the way, and a people that now expects entitlements - the collapse has to be near. There simply isn't enough money in the WORLD to keep propping up the US debt.
   
   The parallels with 1930s Germany and 1970s Argentina should wake up folks to the disastrous effects of runaway debt, both personal and national.
   
   As a Christian, though, Burkett makes sure to point out that all these difficulties are really just symptoms of the greater root problem: the nation has turned from God.

5 comments about In Defense of Globalization: With a New Afterword.

1. PART I: Hypothesis and Framework
   
   Although there is a glut of literature and debate on the subject of globalization, Jagdish Bhagwati chooses to weigh in again upon this controversial subject. Bhagwati sees that the debate on globalization has become weighed down by passionate, if uninformed, arguments on the one side, and fragmented, overly optimistic responses on the other. The forces of anti-globalization- be they the ground troops seen dressed as turtles at trade summits, or the more informed NGOs that have raised serious questions about globalization- have been able to seize the debate, at least in developed nations, and raise unfounded fears of this trend. They have latched onto unproven fears of globalization and attempted to present them as fact despite a paucity of evidence. In response, the pro-globalization camp has not mounted the defense they should have. There has been no systematic refutation of the claims of anti-globalization forces, followed by a sensitive response to those claims that do have merit. As Bhagwati tells us, "...we have fierce opponents locked in combat, but each side without a constructive blueprint for globalization. Where we need a total war, we instead have combatants engaged in battles over a fragmented front" (Bhagwati, In Defense of Globalization x). In Defense of Globalization is Bhagwati's effort to construct that blueprint of globalization and systematic refutation of the claims of anti-globalizers. One-by-one, Bhagwati goes through the claims of the anti-globalization forces, and one-by-one he blows holes through them, yet when he comes across those claims that are serious he gives them a reasoned response and gives guidance for how these problems can be alleviated.
   Globalism began as a phenomena that was trumpeted by the developed nations (the US and its allies) as something that would bring the developing nations up and away from the lure of communist revolution, yet today it has turned into something that is generally favored by the people of the developing nations and looked at with trepidation by the developed nations. This 180o paradigm shift is accompanied by two types of globalization dissenters. The first type of dissenter is the impassioned, yet ruefully ignorant, costumed protestor that has developed a deep-seeded hate for capitalism, globalization and multi-national corporations (the "trilogy of discontents"). The next type of dissenters though are the well reasoned critics of globalization that invite debate and discourse; in addressing these critics, the `meat and potatoes' of Bhagwati's work takes shape.
   Economic globalization- and one must preface this by saying that Bhagwati's work is clearly focused on economic globalization (FDI, trade flows, capital investment)- lacks the compassion needed to help the poorest people of the world according to these critics. It has adversely helped the rich in the developing nations at the expense of the poor, hindered the cause of women, put children to work, and usurped the sovereignty of developing nations to the benefit of rapacious multi-national corporations. Not so, says Bhagwati. He calls their claims a "giant non-sequitur" and gives good evidence to prove this claim. Yes, some of these things have happened but are they globalizations fault? When children were fired from working in textile shops in Bangladesh (a victory for anti-globalization, because child labor had been stopped) what happened to them? A significant amount of them were turned into child prostitutes, a pyrrhic-victory at best. When globalization significantly increases the GDP of a nation, and the per capita GDP of its peoples, does it not help the poor as well? By increasing the size of the pie, hasn't globalization allowed everyone in developing nations to eat more, literally and figuratively? Is it to be damned because the rich have benefited as well as the poor?
   Bhagwati goes to great length to lay aside these claims that economic globalization undermines the poorest of the world, but he does not stop there. He does his level best to convince the reader that globalization is in fact socially benign. This may not be such an outrageous claim to an economics student or an IR student, but to the layman this is simply an outrageous statement. Isn't it sweat shop workers who are stealing the jobs of Americans? Aren't they virtually forced to work in these plants under terrible conditions? This is one of the major problems Bhagwati is trying to ameliorate with this book. The anti-globalization forces have seized `high-ground' in the debate. This is why they can mass thousands upon thousands of protestors every time there is a WTO summit or a G7 meeting in a developed nation. For too long the pro-globalization forces have been content to let their numbers do the talking against specific claims, while failing to get out the broader argument that globalization has a human face, is socially benign, and is (MNCs) subject to the laws of host nations. In Defense of Globalization is an excellent all-purpose book that hits the anti-globalizers at every level. It address specific and broad claims, draws from a wealth of previous research to support its claims and benefits from the 50+ years of experience Bhagwati has in the field of international economics/relations. His unmatched personal experience, connections and intellectual acumen make this book a pillar of strength for globalization to rest on. It is perfect for the layman who knows globalization is good, but lacks the lexicon to defend it against the many blustering critics it has gained.
   
   PART II: Format and Evidence
   
   Bhagwati breaks his book up into four major sections where he presents a total argument for globalization. In his first section, Bhagwati explores the whys and wherefores of anti-globalization in an attempt to get a grasp on what the `enemy' thinks of globalization; furthermore, he offers arguments and evidence to deal with these critics of globalization. Coping with Anti-Globalization, as he names this first section, is an in-depth look at the critique of globalization. First, Bhagwati asks why are people against globalization. Next, he attempts to prove that globalization (regardless of what critics say) is a social boon, but that it can be improved- both of which are ideas he explores further in later chapters. Finally, he looks at the major players of the anti-globalization movement: the NGOs, who have become incredibly well-funded and powerful in the developed nations, yet oftentimes remain at odds with their less extravagant counterparts in the developing world.
   In order to begin any defense of globalization one must understand why there are any anti-globalizers at all. Bhagwati breaks the anti-globalizers into two distinct groups: the protestors who make every attempt to disrupt meaningful trade summits with costumed antics fit for the cartoons they resemble, and the dissenters who call for reasoned debate and response to their arguments. These dissenters are well-connected, well-funded and have raised serious claims that need to be met with serious responses.
   Identifying these dissenters is not enough though, Bhagwati also hits upon some of the core assumptions that these dissenters make about globalization. First among these is that globalization is a single, homogenous entity that is either all good or all bad. By this logic free trade was proven to be a terrible thing when the Asian Financial crisis happened in the late 90's. Far be it for an anti-globalizer to separate free trade (which was prominent in the East Asian miracle) from unrestricted capital flows-which were a causal factor in the financial crisis. (In Defense of Globalization 7) Another of these fallacies that Bhagwati brings up is that anti-globalization is a worldwide phenomena that is supported by the majority of the world's poor. Citing data from the World Economic Forum (WEF), Bhagwati shows that since the 1950s and 1960s globalization has taken a U-turn to become very popular in the developed world while becoming more feared in the developed world, although you wouldn't know this if you were an undergrad in the US. Is there any campus in America where students aren't completely sure that the people of East Asia had globalization unwillingly forced on them and would be rid of it if they could be? Thankfully the developing world doesn't take its cues from US campus' protests. Many of the nations of the `South' have seen the success that globalization brought the Far East while they chose to remain protectionist and have since open their own trade. Bhagwati does note though that the WEF data shows anti-globalization sentiment that left the Seattle talks in ruins has subsided since the 90's, at least in the US. This would be consistent with passage of CAFTA legislation that the US congress has passed recently, but how would this data square with the recent anti-immigration movement of US legislators? Indeed, even Bhagwati himself seems to be a bit skeptical of this last part of the data.
   How did these fallacies about globalization develop, and why are the anti-globalizers so ardent in their opposition? Bhagwati comes up with his trilogy of discontents that are at the heart of the anti-globalization movement. The first of these is the anti-capitalism movement. How can there even be an anti-capitalist movement? That is what the logical question should be, but clearly it is there. Anti-capitalism began, as it is seen today, after the triumph of capitalism. Once the West had won the ideological war against the USSR; China had left traditional communism behind for a more open, market-oriented economy; and the Asian economies that embraced market capitalism took off, the ideological left was left intellectually bankrupt. Socialism and communism were proven to be uncompetitive when put on an open field with capitalism. When there is no alternative to embrace the natural response is to hate that which has triumphed. That is the genesis of the anti-capitalism movement that has ensnared many of the young people on the campuses in the US. Further, many of these young people think that capitalism is unable to answer the social questions that are so important to the youth. Economics is hardly seen as the breeding ground of compassion that literature and the social sciences are, but it must also be said that people intellectually based in literature are hardly in the same reality as the rest of us. Of the social sciences, history may be the only one which offers a common sense and objective way to view any given situation. This is one of the main problems with the enthusiastic youth of the anti-globalization movement: they have not had a true intellectual awakening yet, they have only one side of the story. They lack a broad understanding of global issues that is needed to analyze something as massive as globalization. This is exacerbated, Bhagwati tells us, when these same young people can watch suffering 7,000 miles away live on FOX News:
   Today, thanks to television, we have what I call the paradox of inversion of the philosopher David Hume's concentric circles of reducing loyalty and empathy... What the internet and CNN have done is to take Hume's outermost circle and turn it to his innermost. No longer can we snore while the other half of humanity suffers plague and pestilence and the continuing misery of extreme poverty.... So the young see and are anguished by the poverty and the civil wars and the famines in remote areas of the world but often have no intellectual training to cope with their anguish and follow it through rationally in terms of appropriate action. (In Defense of Globalization 18-19)
   
   Second in Bhagwati's trilogy of discontents is the natural anti-globalization movement that has developed among these same youth out of their anti-capitalist feelings. This shift is as natural as breathing for any left-leaning student. Capitalism has been linked to imperialism for as long as it has had detractors, and globalization is seen as the imperial arm of today's capitalism. Since the sensibilities of the world have moved beyond the archaic, imperial mindset, empire must be disguised in clever ways that make the conquered actually embrace the conqueror. Of course, globalization is the means by which today's Western empires conquer the developing world. No doubt that if these developing nations do not willingly accept globalization it will be forced on them through economic coercion at best, and military intervention at worst. The catalyst for spreading the empire, globalization, has become the general target of these discontents, but the catalyst for spreading globalization, MNCs, have become the specific targets of these discontents.
   Indeed, the MNCs, Bhagwati's third target in the trilogy of discontents, may have more venom directed at them than the more general targets of capitalism and globalization combined. Trying to fight general terms like globalization and capitalism is difficult, while fighting something with a tangible face (like Microsoft) is comparatively easy, and in fighting the MNCs you actually are fighting the other two parts of the trilogy as well. MNC opposition is not limited to protesting students though, a great many people from all walks of life feel that MNCs are the unrivaled winners of globalization. Oftentimes MNCs are portrayed as monopolies that are able to sidestep laws and regulations at best, or are not even subject to laws and regulation at worst. Bhagwati explains that the anti-globalization camp uses specific examples, which are often overblown, to justify their general hate of corporations. Most importantly, they have been able to use this anti-corporate sentiment for some strategic success, disrupting the WTO, IMF and World Bank on separate occasions. Using the high profile nature of these meetings, these dissenters have been able to gain the favor of the media. Indeed, I've never seen CNN or FOX News broadcast the actual WTO meetings (something that would be eminently enjoyable) but they are both sure to have as many shots of and stories about protestors that they can.
   Rounding out his look at the whys of anti-globalization, Bhagwati tackles some of the `alternative' dissent to globalization. The ideological right would have America build walls figuratively and literally to keep unwanted immigrants and imports out of the country. How appropriate this sentiment seems today in the wake of the recent Mexican immigration demonstrations and English as a national language legislation that has been passed. Although this viewpoint was not the focus of Bhagwati's work (immigration is not specifically one of the economic aspects of globalization) it may become the most powerful form of anti-globalization in the United States. Politicians were conspicuous by their absence during the Latino demonstrations of a few weeks ago, and the US Senate has been quick to pass legislation making English the official language of the US. Surely both Democrats and Republicans realize that the vast majority of Americans (upwards of 70%) want some type of immigration reform. The political power of this heretofore silent majority is mammoth, even greater than the "Latino vote" which politicians have been pandering to for the last 20 years while our southern border became a turnstile for illegal immigrants. Bhagwati would have done well to spend some more time on this obviously important issue.
   Lastly, Bhagwati hits upon something that Chua noted in World on Fire (2003): that anti-Americanism fuels anti-globalization today. The worldwide hegemony of the United States is matched by the almost worldwide anti-Americanism that can be found. To be sure, anti-Americanism is not nearly as strong as American hegemony, and is balanced by pro-Americanism is several regions, but it is a concern the US has to deal with. With no prevailing alternative like that provided by the USSR, nations feel overwhelmed by the reach of the US. As a result, these nations begin to resent that the US (which is oftentimes half a world away geographically) exercises more power in their respective backyards than these nations do themselves. As Chua would put it the US is the world's market dominant minority.
   Bhagwati uses the next two short chapters of his first section to introduce his ideas that globalization is better than it is portrayed to be, but that it can still improve if governments implement it better. Globalization has become, in his mind, the punching bag for every social ill of the world. As he sarcastically exclaims, "...if capitalism has prospered and economic globalization has increased while some social ill has worsened, the first two phenomena must have caused the third" (In Defense of Globalization 29). He posits, on the other hand, that globalization has a human face, and that it is socially good. This is explored in some depth in Part II of his book. In his mind though, globalization can be implemented better than it currently is. This would reduce the anti-globalization sentiment and help some of the developing nations equally distribute then benefits of globalization to everyone. This idea he looks at in Part IV.
   Bhagwati finishes his first section with a look at the essential cog that makes anti-globalization go: the non-governmental organizations. NGOs have proliferated at a rate that would make the AIDS virus green with envy; in fact, a small number of them have probably just began in the time it took you to read this sentence. Interestingly enough, one would think that Western nations dominate the numbers of NGOs (their NGOs certainly dominate media coverage at WTO ministerial meetings), but developing have as many NGOs as developed nations. They are just not nearly so well funded or well connected. As Bhagwati points out in this chapter, NGOs of the Western world have come to resemble that which they oppose a great deal: the multi-national corporation. The NGOs though oftentimes do not have to keep transparent record keeping or file quarterly reports like MNCs do. Under close scrutiny some of these so called benign NGOs have been so laced with corruption that the costumed protestors would be better to set up shop outside of their local Red Cross rather than a Wal-Mart.
   Bhagwati's goal for his second section of his book is to prove that globalization has a human face, and that that face is none other than the free trade and MNCs that are so vehemently protested against. He does this by systematically going through every point of attack that anti-globalizers level against corporate globalization and by refuting them one by one. First on the chopping block is poverty and the claims that globalization worsens the plight of the poor. This simply is not the case as the evidence shows. Bhagwati is able to site several studies that conclusively show that, "trade enhances growth and growth reduces poverty" (In Defense of Globalization 53). To put it simply, when the pie gets bigger everyone begins to eat more of it. It is the policy responsibilities of the individual nations to see that their poor are experiencing as much of this growth as possible.
   When it comes to child labor, Bhagwati demonstrates that globalization has helped this cause as well. By showing that globalization spurs growth and overall wealth for the poor, Bhagwati is able to trace this to a reduction in child labor. He argues that when poor parents in the developing world are able to make more in wages, they do not use this extra money to consume more. In most cases, "education of one's children is a superior good, the consumption of which rises as income rises" (In Defense of Globalization 70). Citing Dehejia and Gatti's studies of 163 countries Bhagwati tells us that, "improvements in the financial sector... is associated with a reduction in the use of child labor" (In Defense of Globalization 70).
   In the case of women's rights Bhagwati finds some areas where globalization (in the form of MNCs) can do more for women, but he still concludes that globalization has been beneficial to women in general. Feminism, Bhagwati argues, was spread in large part due to globalization. Bringing Western ideas of equality to the formerly developing world and the current developing world has opened up opportunities for women that previously would not have been there. Further, working conditions in EPZs, that often employ many women, are oftentimes better than those in the rest of developing nations and pay a better wage than those other jobs as well. On the other hand, MNCs that employ these women should take a greater role in ensuring that they can get to and from work safely if the host nations have proven themselves unable or willing to police their neighborhoods. Passing all of the blame to governments in poor nations is an easy way for corporations. They would do well to provide more for their workers, the good will sentiment alone would more than defray the cost.
   The next question is whether or not globalization interferes with democracy. Herein lies a paradox. By promoting international norms, obviously democratic sovereignty is reduced in any given nation, but it can also be stated that globalization promotes the transition to democracy by formerly autocratic regimes. This is one of the principle debates about globalization that has yet to be answered to any real satisfaction. Huntington speaks to this debate in The Third Wave: Democratization in the 20th Century (1991). One of his six independent variables that influenced the movement of developing nations to democratization was the snowballing effect of other nations becoming democratic. That is, that global pressures pushed nations to democratize as their neighbors did. Yet some nations have been conspicuously resistant to this change. China is obviously the first to come to mind here. While they have opened their economy they have remained politically repressive. Bhagwati asserts that China's political repression cannot last, but this is a guess at best. Many scholars have been saying the same thing for 20 years, but that doesn't mean it will happen.
   What Bhagwati is getting at in all of these successive chapters of his second section is that globalization as a whole entity is a socially benign thing. Specific examples of globalization setting back the social agenda can be found, but on the whole the evidence shows that globalization in the form of MNCs is under too much scrutiny to be as rapacious as its critics would assert. MNCs realize that they will always be fighting an uphill PR battle in the media, so their representatives have to be above the standards of other local companies inside of developing nations. The scope of globalization is so huge that focusing on specific examples of what one corporation did is no way to make a general argument for or against it.
   In Part III of his book Bhagwati briefly shifts focus to some of the other dimensions of globalization. Namely, transnational migration and international capital flows. International capital flows are among the most dangerous aspects of globalization, and this is not lost on Bhagwati. He was at the forefront of those who saw the Asian financial crisis coming and those who knew how to stem the tide of this crisis, but were unable to change IMF and World Bank policy. Capital controls keep money from fleeing a region with the speed that it did during the financial crisis, and they were present in the few East Asian nations that were able to avoid the worst of the crisis. Bhagwati makes it known that he is for some restrictions in capital flows, but trying to turn this into protectionism is the wrong answer. It was open trading that brought about the East Asian miracle and closing it off would be wrong.
   To deal with massive immigration Bhagwati would ask that we cope with it instead of trying to stop it. Essentially, he argues that it is impossible to stop, and should be dealt with in any case. Granting limited civil rights to illegals is just the tip of the iceberg for him. He has proposed a World Migration Organization that would take charge of national migration policies. Here is somewhere that I feel Bhagwati is off the mark. His solution is simply implausible, I cannot see many developed nations joining any World Migration Organization. The loss of sovereignty is simply too much. The US, for its part, is beginning to lean more and more towards stopping immigration rather than coping. To be sure coping has failed the US for the last 20 years.
   Part IV of Bhagwati's work focuses on how to better implement globalization in the world today. As he tells us, "It should be clear that globalization will yield better results if it is managed" (In Defense of Globalization 221). Breaking into three chapters, Bhagwati sees three ways in which globalization can be managed better. First, he wishes to enhance the human side of globalization which he demonstrated in Part II. This can be done by strengthening the review processes of international organizations, not by allowing trade sanctions to be imposed by developed countries on developing nations that have differing labor standards. Second, he sees that globalization is going to have some eventual downsides, and these need to be coped with. These downsides are often country specific and institutions need to be funded inside of these nations to confront these downsides. This means that careful study must be done of specific nations and their respective problems, there is no cookie-cutter globalization policy that will work in all developing nations. Furthermore, stopping globalization completely in a given area to prevent a proposed downside is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. It just doesn't need to be done. Lastly, Bhagwati thinks that the transition to globalization needs to be managed as well. It is the speed with which a nation globalizes that he is primarily concerned with. Indeed, he isn't the first scholar to note that rapid globalization can lead to trouble, even disaster. Chua definitely notes this as one of her biggest concerns with globalization. Nations are becoming democratic and capitalist overnight, leaving the poor in power and the rich in fear. Bhagwati's fears are not as great in this matter as Chua's, but he recognizes that globalization should happen at optimal rather than maximal speed.
   What strikes the reader most about Bhagwati's work is that when you read it you realize that you are reading the words of an expert in the field, perhaps the expert. The wealth of knowledge that Bhagwati can draw on for this subject is limitless. He cites several studies (some of which were his own) and never seems to be at a loss for ample data to back up his claims. At points one feels that Bhagwati may be patting himself on the back, but a quick look at his resume will quickly take that notion from you. He simply is the authority on this issue, and if he isn't shy about it at points it's because he doesn't have to be. I found myself awestruck for a moment when Bhagwati recounted an encounter with Justice Scalia where upon the good Supreme Court Justice and our author discusses the finer points of the Justice Bhagwati's (the author's brother) rulings on the Bangalore Principals. So too, when Bhagwati talks of being part of the committees that helped India to globalize and being at the very top levels of the IMF, one cannot help but pay close attention to what he has to say.
   
   PART III: Globalization Debate
   
   Bhagwati's contributions to the globalization debate are unrivaled. In Defense of Globalization clearly is the book that the casual free trader can rest his hat on and be confident that it will give him the answers he needs to brush of the protests of anti-globalizers. Bhagwati's work would clearly agree with Drezner's Bottom Feeders (2000). Drezner goes to great length to dispel the myth of a "race to the bottom" in which global standards of labor and environmental conditions are sacrificed at the alter of the MNCs. He is able to cite evidence which clearly shows that multinational corporations have in fact raised the standard of living and the condition of the environment in the nations where they have been. Further, they often use their influence to nudge developing nations into raising their environmental and labor standards so that they (the corporation) does not have to face the potentially damning criticisms of the anti-globalization NGOs. In fact, Drezner's work is one that Bhagwati cites in his book.
   I think Easterly's Cartel of Good Intentions (2002) might be one that would give Bhagwati some pause. Bhagwati puts an unreasonable amount of faith in multinational institutions in my opinion and clearly this is the opposite of Easterly. Easterly sees these institutions as being a roadblock oftentimes to the aid developing nations need to manage globalization properly. Bhagwati's slant towards multinational institutions would lead him to disagree with the principal of Easterly's argument. In fact, there really is no point at which Bhagwati does not support globalization, be it multinational organizations or eliminating trade barriers. He shows some needed reserve when it comes to restrictions on capital flows, but other than that he is an unabashed globalist. Unlike Chua's work which isn't meant to be anti-globalization stuff, but can be used that way, Bhagwati's work is purely pro-globalization.



2. "In Defense of Globalization" is a point by point rebuttal of the cacophony of arguments put up by the so-called anti-globalization movement. Jagdish Bhagwati employs wit and facts to set the record straight and as a native of India, he speaks first hand about the defects of the state-managed semi-closed economy of his youth (although he does not contend it was all bad).
   
   I did have to dock one star for the often self-reverential commentary. He also makes some arguments that he thinks are stronger than they really are. On page 142 he makes a convincing case that young environmentalists fail to see the trade offs in the policies they demand and then asserts this is true of the old as well (the middle aged being the exception). While his assertion about the young seems reasonable, he offers nothing but anecdotes to back up his assertion about the elderly.
   
   However, he offers considerable evidence that trade and foreign investment do more harm than good. Many anti-globalization activists are quick to criticize international corporations who employ people in third world countries but Bhagwati shows that while living standards of these employees may be below those of their counterparts in the developed world, they are higher than alternatives in the developing world.
   
   In his chapter on wages and labor standards, Bhagwati suggests, quite convincingly, that the critics assertion that globalization leads to a "race to the bottom" in living standards is without foundation. Rather he shows historical examples that suggest a "race to the top" is more likely.
   
   The hard core anti-globalists will not be satisfied with Bhagwati's argument, but he notes many of them are not open to being persuaded anyway. However, a fair-minded reader will find plenty of good information this book.



3. a well built construction of what is globalization and the reason to apply to it . Interesting. Engrosing and over all illustrative of a "global" phemomenon that reaches everybody and also determines the future of the world and humankind .In Defense of Globalization: With a New Afterword



4. In rather readable style - I just love his sense of humour - Professor Bhagwati (JB) sets out his case in favour of globalisation.
   
   Part One sets out the arguments of the anti-globalisation movement. It would appear that a whole load of other issues not connected to globalisation found a home in the anti-globalisation movement, anti-Americanism being one of them. JB also notes that students of economics tend to be in favour of globalisation and that those opposed to globalisation rarely know anything about economics. Perhaps that situation could be remedied by spreading more knowledge of economics amongst the "anti-globalisationists".
   
   In Part Two, JB examines the effect of globalisation on a number of issues including poverty, child labour, women and their treatment of, democracy, culture, wages and labour standards, the environment and multi-national corporations. He finds that globalisation is not a threat but rather beneficial to any of these subjects and that multi-nationals are not thriving by playing economies against each other or exploiting countries by abusing their corporate might.
   
   Part Three deals with legal and illegal movement of labour and the challenges arising from it and the perils arising from the move of international capital where he also looks at the 1998 Asian crisis. Whilst I agree with JB that the reason for the crisis was not an end of the economic miracle experienced in the 30-odd years before the crisis I think that these countries' economic mismanagement played a large part in it. But you are of course free to read JB's book and make up your own mind.
   
   In Part Four, JB discusses ways in which globalisation could be managed in such a way that potential downsides in the course of economic development could be met in a better way than is available at present. You will notice that JB is terribly impressed with the efforts of the IMF and the World Bank in helping countries in need.
   
   In his conclusions, JB mentions that his book was written against the background of the mass demonstrations accompanying the WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999.
   
   Also in his conclusion, JB tells of an argument put forward by the anti-globalisation movement that globalisation kills jobs in the industrialised countries. This line of argument would suggest that investment and economic development to the non-industrialised world must be denied because these jobs must be retained in the industrialised countries in order to secure `our future'. Who is the selfish party here, I wonder.
   
   Jagdish Bhagwati's book should be compulsory reading for everyone because he proves that the arguments put forward by the anti-globalisationists are simply not true, including the one about killing jobs outlined above. I look forward to these people demonstrating in favour of globalisation, soon, or at least after they have read JB's book.



5. I must say it took me a bit to get through the book - however here are a few pointers
   1. This is a comprehensive overview of Globalization as we know and understand it.
   2. The reasoning is coherent, and sometimes the facts are totally unexpected / surprising.
   3. The book is chock-a-block with references - extremely well researched
   4. This book is not for beginners - it is fact based, slightly dense at times but then again, much much easier to understand than a standard text book :)
   5. It doesn't build up to a euphoric end - there is a steady pace of revelations, detailed cross referenced understanding of the concepts and all points are re-iterated at various stages, in different contexts. Think of it like wikipedia - almost :) You will see various facets of the same issue being discussed.
   6. I would recommend reading 5-10 pages daily... i was not able to read it at one go - too much to digest :)
   
   Overall, comprehensive text, good read - slightly dense for me, but I think I get it - this is really how much there is to globalization and Prof. Bhagwati explains it the best.
   
   You can keep it and refer to it for a long time to come.

5 comments about Class Matters.

1. Heavy on the anecdotal but not on the philosophical, that is, where are we heading with the gross concentration of wealth in a few hands?



2. I read two of the articles in this book when they originally came out in the NY Times and I'm glad they are out in a book form so that they can be read by everyone. The sociologist James Loewen in his book, Lies My Teacher Taught Me, said that the way history is taught in American high schools makes us "stupider" about social class because the subject is entirely avoided. Many Americans think we live in a classless society, one big, happy middle class, though the contrary is true (look how suburban subdivisions are divided by house prices, even on signs: the 300-399K development, the 499 and up, the 899K and up, the 100-159 "starter homes", and so on). A strength of this book for the general reading public is that it approaches class divisions in a number of different ways (healthcare, education, etc) by examining the lives of real people. This is a sociology text that uses concrete instances to elucidate general themes.
   
   When I attended Haverford College in the late 1970s and early 1980s after having grown up in a poor, working class neighborhood, I was struck by encountering people who were far more urbane, well-traveled, well-spoken, and well-dressed than I was. It was intimidating, but I learned to be a member of this world (I chuckle now at how kids made fun of my "accent" and corrected my grammar while I was speaking to them) and for the rest of my life I've been going between worlds, conscious of how I speak and act in each (I've "escaped" the social class I grew up in). Because of these experiences this book really resonates with me and I'm sure it will resonate with people who have had similar experiences. For everyone else, it is a welcome introduction to what we Americans are "stupid" about: social stratification in American society and how it determines our behavior, our opportunities, and our health.



3. "Class Matters" is an insightful examination of our seemingly "classless" society, indeed.
   The authors do a thorough job of discussing how upbringing, education, race, and ethnicity can be determinants one's class standing as an adult. However, the authors fail to discuss a key element here: gender. Doesn't gender often determine class? Have the authors forgotten the age-old debate about men making more money than women in the U.S., and why this might be so?
   
   Just reading the responses of some of the (male) interviewees is an eye-opener with regard to this wage disparity between genders. According to the interviewees, a key criterion for one having "made it" is that his wife doesn't need to work. However, the authors never pursued this fact as being worthy of any discussion. For example, what problems do these middle class (male) values pose for females who are either single or the financial head of the household and who are also the counterparts of these men at their workplaces? Might it present of clash of values in the workplace?
   
   If these men who have "made it" don't like their women to be working outside of the home, how do their wives feel about staying at home, even though many of these wives are educated, some beyond the college level? We get a glimpse of one such wife in a chapter that highlights a family that falls into a particularly category: "transplant" (an upper-middle class family that moves around the country every few years to follow the ever-changing corporate career of, presumably, the head male of the family). The wives in these transplant families certainly not hold down paying jobs; instead, the spend their days shuffling their 2.5 children to and fro; searching for new properties and packing up their homes due to their husbands' new job transfer; feeding their families; and volunteering in their children's schools and/or in the community, etc. These wives are slaves to everyone's dreams but their own. What about their own educations? What type of subliminal message does this send to their children?
   
   And, finally, and sadly, there is the story of the African American single mother of six who pulled herself up from below the poverty line and into the middle class because she became a nurse--but she couldn't have done it without the help of several men along the way. In fact, the only time that this woman could attend her nursing courses is when she had a man around to pay for some of her expenses. In the end, her nursing dream nearly became a distant memory until she married a man who "rescued" her by giving her financial security, and then her seventh child.
   
   Perhaps this gender-class correlation had not gone unnoticed by these authors, but instead was simply too much of a painful, hopeless reality to face, and that's why they chose to keep it out of the book. But for me, a well-educated, single working woman, the message is obvious: American women, if you are not independently wealthy, then get yourself an educated man who will be your savior and secure your place in the middle classes because there is very little chance for you to do that on your own.



4. I really liked this book. It really gave me a new perspective on viewing class and wealth in a way that I hadn't thought of before. I wasn't aware that there was still such a distinction between "old money" and "new money". I really found the book easy to read with a lot of interesting information. I would recommend this book to everyone.



5. I read the articles from which the book comes. And they prove that your income, occupation, and personal financial resources have a major impact on the quality of your education, health care, housing and even your place of worship. It affects with whom you socialize. And this also has an impact on what class your child is likely to end up in when he or she graduates.

5 comments about High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families.

1. This is a GREAT book and I would encourage every citizen of America to read it, young or old. It's actually a hair-raising book. Well researched and each chapter has a personal, true life story of a family or individual that has been challenged with the topic being discussed.
   
   Since the other reviews to date go over the book, I want to share what I took from it. First, I got out all my insurance policies after reading the chapters on how the insurance industry has slowly & slyly sandbagged us consumers. I read them with a fine tooth comb and voila! wouldn't you know it - just like the author said they were doing, well that is what they are doing. Sneaky company (and this is one of the Big Three property/casualty companies in California and the rest of the country) well guess what, they did exactly what the author said they were doing - changing the terms of the policy in such a way that the ordinary consumer, you & me, who (unfortunately) trust our agents so well ... are/were clueless that this got by us. Yep they changed me from the Guaranteed Replacement coverage on my home to the Limited Replacement + some percentage of cost overrun. And it got by me and I'm pretty smart (at least I thought I was). Just as it has probably gotten by most of you too. I called my agent last month and he told me it was the best policy money could by, Limited but with a 150% total replacement ratio, and furthermore the company I was considering replacing them with, well they had a reputation of quoting low and then next year WHAM they would sock it to me. I don't think so because that company is the one used exclusively by AARP and I just don't think AARP would stand for that kind of treatment. But back to my agent .. funny, but my policy said ... 125%. My agent disagreed with me and spoke to me in such a way that I would never want to go look further. But I did look further and HE WAS WRONG. I called the Home Office and got clarification and it is 125%. MY AGENT DIDN'T KNOW WHAT HE SOLD ME and my agent has been my agent since 1988 - or my agent wants that commission. He's a nice guy, I really don't know. But I'm not asking him. I got very angry when I realized that I had been sandbagged and g-d forbid if my house did burn to the ground, I would end up paying out of pocket over $200,000 to rebuild it just as it is.
   
   Just as many of the Oakland/San Diego and other parts of California that have faced total losses have had to do.
   
   The case studies in the book are all the same - about how the families of Oakland and San Diego fires really took it on the chin. The losses above the policy limits were/are staggering. Guess what, with rare exception, I'll bet you a zillion bucks that if you are reading this review or the book, chances are you are grossly underinsured.
   
   I changed that. I changed companies and policies in the last 2 weeks. And surprisingly, between my car, home and umbrella policy, I went DOWN $600/year in premium along with going up from $1M to $2M in my umbrella. That was worth the book right there.
   
   Then on to the ERISA chapters. What a shocker. I really was stunned at what I read. Imagine this law, passed to protect US the workers, in reality does not protect anyone except the insurance companies. Coincidentally there was a story in the LA Times last week about a woman whose 30-yr old husband died and was covered with $400,000 in his group life policy through his job. Guess what, the company and the insurance company refused to pay the death benefit even though the deceased employee paid the premiums for over the 3 years he worked there. The widow sued in state court, the insurance company knows its rights and got it into federal court (because this is ERISA) and the grieving widow was ordered by court to get the premiums paid returned to her and no payment for the policy. And it is not appealable. Who in the world ever knew that? Did you? I didn't. Does this mean that all life insurance policies through your job won't get paid? I guess I was lucky when my dad died 21 years ago because his group life policy did pay me. But then again my dad owned the company so suspect they didn't want to futz with that claim. However the gall of the company to deny the claim and then the courts, under ERISA precedent rulings, denying the payment. I almost fell off my chair. This is just as the author described is happening in the book.
   
   So if ERISA is undermining employee's benefits (and this includes health coverage too, not just pensions, IRA's & other employer provided plans, employer offered disability and the rest of the benefits of the job) and if ERISA is stripping all our rights of we workers, what is left?
   
   The chapters and stories on employeer provided disability coverage almost left me in tears. I usually shed tears only when reading fiction. This was just a scandalous nightmare to read. But I believe it. And the reason I believe it is that my former husband went blind in his last job due to a detached retina-like condition and his privately held disability company policy (coincidentally the same one talked about in the book) denied him his benefits for close to 4 years. Good thing my ex is an attorney and could take them on. 4 YEARS. While my ex is an attorney what he wasn't able to do was to pull money for living expenses out of a hat along with a few rabbits. He ended up on the brink of bankruptcy with this stunt the company pulled. How an attorney that goes blind can continue to be a litigator and read his briefs is beyond me - and the disability company plays the 'let's see who can hold out the longest' game.
   
   This really is sick stuff.
   
   I realize this is a long review. But I decided to list real life stories to support exactly what this book is all about. I have to say, anybody reading this review that is thinking about buying the book, STOP NOW and buy this book. I came upon it at Borders by accident, it was shelved under Economics and not my favorite category which is Investments - and I don't really like economics, but this is an easy & engrossing book to read. And the time has now come at this passage of time in our history that the public, ALL OF US, need to get our heads out of the sand and meet these challenges head on, informed, and not stupidly ignorant. Ignorance costs and at this point of our historical times, NOBODY can afford to be ignorant anymore.
   
   Please read the book. And thank you for reading this review.



2. I read this at work. Mr. Gosselin's descriptions of the displaced "c class" executives shows an expanded view of how so many of us may be going to the dogs. I am just wealthy enough to be able to cruise through the rest of my life, if nothing bad happens. By the way, the book arrived quickly and in excellent condition.
   jb



3. Wow, what a fantastic book! In my quest to understand the financial workings of American society, I came across this book. What an education. As a British expat now living in the US, I have been shocked by just how insecure I feel in my financial life here. Attempting to build an element of security into my family's new life, I am faced with insurance companies that no longer keep their promises, pensions that no longer exist and a host of eager sharks fighting to get me to invest my meagre savings with them. College costs are exorbitant and the economy so fragile that even a masters degree is now more of an albatross around the neck (debt) than a guarantee of a stable income.
   Peter Gosselins book confirmed what I was beginning to realise myself. I'm caught in a game that I have no chance of winning. It is a call to arms; a warning shot across the bow of the presidential campaigns to ensure that the real issues facing this country are included in the ballot. These are the issues that affect Americans every day, so 'Excuse me, Mr. President. In your run for the White House, could you please remember the electorate.'



4. I don't think this book will get much notice or have much impact. Sure, it will encourage those who agree with its points, but I can't imagine that it will reach the general population in a big way. The idea of the book is that Americans, all but the very richest, are being sacrificed on the alter of private ownership that only benefits that thin upper crust of wealthy people. The rest are losing their ability to retire, to have health care, to securely own their homes, provide college educations for their children (or get them for themselves), or even have a job with a good company.
   
   The author does point out the very interesting idea of the "unjob" where many of us work because the traditional career is closed to us for a variety of reasons, yet we can't start our own profitable company (or are working towards that goal), and we scrape by making a living and providing our own benefits with consulting, contracting, or other short term work. Usually we have multiple gigs running at the same time.
   
   My own view is that our system does put too much of the burden of dislocation and disruption on the workers and too little on the companies and executives who either create or decide to use these dislocations as part of their business strategy (even if that is bankruptcy). However, many of the examples Gosselin cites in his book, while unfortunate, are also fairly well to do people who chose to live a life of consumption rather than with prudence and thrift and now want someone to bail them out of their difficulties. Sure, some of them got some very bad breaks in health or dishonest companies. And others did not read their insurance policies closely enough. Still, there is no doubt that some insurance companies push those with expensive claims into court hoping that either the claimant will die before they can collect or that the legal approach will simply be more costly than they can bear.
   
   I thoroughly disagree with Gosselin's notion that somehow we need to turn back the clock and go back a few decades to large corporations that employed people for life and provided pensions. We can't go back because the world has changed, people live too long after 65 to have that be the retirement age. Do you realize that when Social Security was first created only about 3% of the population lived to collect it? We would have to push the retirement age up past 72 or more to achieve similarly "secure" retirements that would not bankrupt companies or society.
   
   While I appreciate Gosselin's good heart and like some of his observations, his prescriptions are faulty and too nostalgic to be taken as a serious prescription for what ails us.
   
   Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI



5. Book arrived just days after I ordered it. Great service from seller. Everyone should read this book to understand exactly what has happened in the past 30+ years that has weakened the economic security of middle income and low income American families. It is frightening and it is happening because so many of us are too busy to keep up with what is going on politically at the national level. No wonder we are in the economic crisis we are because the big corporations have been allowed to run amuck (and over us) for so long.

2 comments about The Case for Big Government (The Public Square).

1. Let me start by saying that I am a conservative. I went to the bookstore to find a book about the federal budget. I didn't find one but the title of this book caught my eye. As a conservative I was curious what case could be made for "big government." I'm always eager to challenge my beliefs so I bought it.
   
   I was disappointed. The title of the book suggested to me that a rational case would be made for big government. I didn't find that in the book. It seemed to me that the majority of the book was simply a history lesson on the American economy and where government was part of that history--the history itself was interesting, but I grew impatient for the *case* to be made for big government.
   
   The problem I had with the "history" portions of the book is that, again and again, I felt that the book was assuming that if the reader read how the government did something and the economy did something positive, that was proof that what the government did was good--but there's no logical connection to prove that. The argument is made that since the size of government was growing in the 1900's and the economy was growing, it can be concluded that a growing government does not hinder growth--but that is a non sequitur. I found no real evidence or strong arguments that suggest that the growing economy was because of the growing government, nor no real answer to the belief that the economy could have grown even more had it not been for the growing demands of government.
   
   As a conservative I found pages 136-138 particularly disgusting: The book goes on for three pages essentially fantasizing about all the different ways the government could tax the citizens and how much revenue the government could raise by doing so. Some of the ideas presented are downright confiscatory: Taxing wealth goes beyond the pale. It's bad enough that citizens cannot really own property, but rather are buying the right to rent it from the government (in the form of annual property taxes). The idea of taxing wealth takes that questionable idea to its logical (or illogical) conclusion: Such a tax would essentially mean that people would be working to earn the right to rent wealth from the government. The mind spins. But I digress.
   
   I guess I don't know who the target audience is. I suppose if it's targeted at frustrated liberals that need a little pep talk, perhaps it would serve that purpose. But with a title like "The Case for Big Government" I was expecting the case to be made compelling enough to hopefully convince some skeptics or, at least, explain the liberal rationale to the rest of us.
   
   If the latter was the intent, I think the book failed.



2. This book goes through the ins and outs of what the government can do and how it is best equipped to do it. This shows how the government can have a light at the end of the tunnel for everyone.

5 comments about How The Rich Are Destroying the Earth (Foreword by Greg Palast).

1. Amazingly accurate assessment of an old subject brought back to the forefront by this author. We don't have to search far and long to see that the examples of the ongoing environmental catastrophes given are happening now, right under our noses and presented in plain sight for all to see. It is similar to the industrial revolution after the civil war, then on to the overgrowth and wealth accumulation at the beginning of the 20th century. There is a problem...the planet was at least able to weather the ecological devestations somewhat...now at the current rate the earth along with its people can't keep up nor can it clean itself sufficiently to contain the onslaught.
   
   Old problems coming back to haunt activists on the sidelines are....the greedy gluttons known as the hyper rich reaping billions off the earths pillage, followed by the second tier rich wannabees .... increased poverty and inequality in the first, second, third and fourth world countries....possible shakeups of the global economic system...
   
   In an effort to protect itself , the hyper rich have instituted such safeguards as, blocking journalistic reporting of a perfected nuclear bomb, the B61-11, criminalizing protests of the anti GMO reapers, development of RFID'S, increased usage of prison, and then CONTROL OF THE MEDIA,
   
   And this ones for all the Africans Americans who accuse unjustifiably those activist as being whiners.....There are, data bank catalogs of genetic signatures mainly of blacks, 11.9 % of prisoners of African descent 25-29 years are captured behind bars, state of the emergency testing programs such as those practiced during Katrina and the ghetto riots in France. And anyone at anytime can be on the payroll...(V. Jordan) and (A. Young).
   
   Great comeback, great update and hope that it spurs interests then global action...
   



2. I watch a lot of documentaries and read books on this same theme, so most of what he discusses I was already aware. I thoroughly enjoyed his writing style and appreciated the concise way he got his point across. I think this is the perfect book to give as gifts due to its content and size. It does not take a huge time commitment to read, but gives a wealth of points to consider. Another plus is it would not overwhelm someone you are trying to persuade to see the light of these issues, although some of his wording might insult staunch non-believers such as the Righteous Right. He covers the topics from loss of civil liberties, to the raping of mother earth, and keeping the common man down economically. I think citizens of most of the western countries are realizing the full mess we are in due to greed and careless wastefulness. None of us wants to become third world nations, but at least now we are beginning to understand their plight. Will there be another French Revolution....or perhaps an American one? Change is in the air. Please vote 11/04/08.



3. The entire book is excellent. He makes the point that biosphere limits makes the development of the current on-the-threshold areas impossible along 19th century European and American lines. The interweaving of Veblen's observations of later 19th century robber baron industrial society to today is very interesting. This engine for growth now must be substituted for an engine that decreases material consumption letting go a yearning for more and more.
   
   Following the logic of leadership of desire by the hyper rich on the global middle class the rich must scale back to allow the larger group with the actual planetary consumption gravitas to scale back and lower global material consumption. Kempf sees the world's elites looking to the opulent countries as their standard and as the richest of them all the United States stands brightly lit.
   
   Of course, the explosive fear I had about this book was that it would be awash or subtly hide simple envy. Often comments I hear from Europeans seem to have a lot of envy hiding somewhere in them. But that is not where this book is coming from. You need only to be patient and read the next few pages wherever you are in the text to see that. Excellent and short enough and clearly written enough that it is not a burden to read.
   
   His ideas of future political structures under the war on terror are also very interesting.



4. There are many, many things to be angry about right now with regards to the state of the world. One of the problems with the left in America is that we have a tendency to have our pet causes, and elevate them to the exclusion of all others, as thought what we believe to be important is better than anything else.
   
   Herve Kempf offers up a text that links the destruction of the environment with the extravagance of the wealthiest people in the world, complete with 400-foot-long yachts, private jets, and other exorbitant luxuries. By shattering our tunnel vision about social issues being independent of environmental issues, he shows us how efforts made for the sake of one can be helpful for dealing with the other--and then some.
   
   The biggest weakness of this book is that Kempf gives us a lot of evidence, and a lot of complaining--but not much in the way of actual solutions. The final chapter is a scant four pages, and barely makes a very few vague scratches on the surface of all the grand problems he explores. So while he proposes some valuable connections between causes, he leaves us rather hanging about what to do about it all.



5. Rick Wagoner, current CEO of General Motors, opined in the Wall Street Journal (November 11, 2008) that he didn't think he should be fired. GM stock is the lowest it has been since 1946. The company can't sell its ridiculous cars and trucks because nobody wants these vehicles because everyone on the planet can see that the handwriting is on the wall for these gross, pathetic tubs of personal transportation and the carbon-dioxide-spewing internal combustion engines that power them. Consequently, General Motors will go bankrupt if we, the taxpayers, don't give them billions and billions of dollars of our hard-earned money to bail it out from Mr. Wagoner's and the Board of Directors of GM's supremely destructive and stupid business decisions.
   
   Ten years ago, General Motors had the opportunity to be first in line with an electric car. If they had done so, they'd be sitting pretty. But they killed the car and its technology. Doesn't this seem positively unremittingly ill-advised to you in every way, from failing to be able to read the financial signs--for which business people are paid to do--to continuing to contribute to the degradation of the environment? If you were working for a company as a middle manager and you blew a major project that cost the company so much money that it was going to go bankrupt, wouldn't you be fired? When things are going well, it seems, the people at the top take the credit, but when events turn, everyone and everything else is responsible for that turn except themselves. Too bad we couldn't vote for the president of GM. Mr. Wagoner could then meet Mr. McCain's fate
   
   This may seem like an odd introduction to this excellent, informative, little book by Hervé Kempf, the environmentalist editor for Le Monde. Mr. Kempf never mentions Rick Wagoner, but he would know why the GM honcho gets two paragraphs as an intro here. As Mr. Kempf says without mincing words, the rich--like Mr. Wagoner--are responsible for the pickle in which our planet and its people now find themselves. A small number of human beings--billionaires in America, China , France, India, Canada, Germany, and Saudi Arabia--i.e., the super rich, own the connections and the power; their decisions have put us where we are. Who else is in charge? The poor in Mumbai? The peasants of China? Middle managers? Joe the Plumber?
   
   Make no mistake, this book is not an updated Communist Manifesto. Mr. Hervé goes after the left for its blinkered view as much as he does the right. The left simply cannot drop its old allegiances to strictly social change, thus arguing only for a bigger piece of the pie. The increasing size of pie is ending because the ideology of capitalism, with its linear notion of endless exploitation of our Earth, of greater and greater GNP, is done, finished, over, kaput. Growth is not possible any longer and--this is a key point for Mr. Hervé--it is no longer desirable because growth is destroying our planet. No planet. No us. Quick. You decide.
   
   We are all going to have to take a hit in every way in the coming decades, and for the duration. We must simplify. And whether they like it or not, that hit has to start at the top because the top is where the hit can matter most in terms of freeing resources for the rest of us. But us, too, the lower orders, we must change. No more aping our so-called "betters", no more buying Ford Expeditions so that we can ape the rich with their Hummers. In this regard: Ever heard of Thorstein Veblen? He was an economist who coined the term "conspicuous consumption". Mr. Hervé re-introduces us to him, and a valuable re-introduction it is.
   
   I could go on, but if you read Mr. Hervé, a very nice French intellectual by the way, you will be filled with hope and scared at once. We have maybe ten years to turn the ship around. Maybe eight years. If we don't, we are doomed. No. Seriously. Doomed. It's that clear. The melting of the Arctic is not a plot point in a Disney animation. This slim book helps us to see things as they are. So let us begin with a reading of How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth, and proceed to the firing of Mr. Wagoner, and the refusal to invest one blue cent in GM--unless we as the taxpayers buy it outright and the plant starts to turn out electric cars and makes us a tidy profit so our taxes can be lower. As we should have been doing for the last decade if anyone at the helm had had any foresight. Socialism? Making money is fine, friends, so long as the planet is protected, and we all share. Liberty! Ecology! Fraternity!

5 comments about The Squandering of America: How the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity (Vintage).

1. This gets my vote for the best book in the category of "What's Wrong with our Country and How to Fix It." Other books spend the first 300 or so pages describing all that is wrong and then come on like the cavalry with their own formula solution. Not so with Kuttner's book. He makes it clear throughout that the problem is laissez-faire capitalism, manipulated by financial elites, and that the answer is managed capitalism, responsive to a democracy.
   
   The book is a great read for those of us who get all worked up about political economy, populism vs. elitism and the personalities of domestic politics and finance during the last half century. Kuttner has many specific suggestions for improving economic security for those of us who are not wealthy. However, he focuses primarily on increasing wages, benefits and employment security, not on building income from owning capital.
   
   There would be a limit, however, to what the government can do to make managers accountable to shareowners. As shown in the book's chapter, "Wall Street Rules," even the regulatory reforms of the 1930s did not fix the disengagement between individuals and corporate management. There needs to be a different, direct relationship between the ultimate providers of capital and the stewards of that capital.
   
   What government could do is encourage direct ownership of business, through changes in the tax laws and securities laws. Individuals could receive a tax credit for the amount invested, up to an annual limit. (The credit directly reduces taxes by the same amount, in contrast to a deduction, which only reduces taxable income.) Businesses would have to meet corporate governance standards of shareowner rights, director independence and limits on executive power and compensation. Investors would need to meet some basic educational or experience requirements. People who aren't already qualified could take a course through local community colleges or high schools. Interest, dividends and capital gains would be taxed at the going rates, recovering taxes to offset the investment credit.
   
   This would empower individuals to bring the discipline to corporate management that has not come from government regulation. If we had active, informed individual ownership of corporations, the opportunities would be reduced for private equity firms to join with management in buying and reselling a corporation. It may seem like a complex, politically difficult proposal, full of potential objections. But more government rules just mean that lobbyists and lawyers earn big fees finding new ways to do the same old thing.



2. I am very satisfied with the way the deal was made in purchasing this book. Book arrived in the specified time, price was fantastic and the seller is very reliable and trustworthy.



3. These days, bad economic news is plentiful. But according to economist Robert Kuttner, the future is even bleaker than the numbers suggest. The reason, he says, is that the two major parties have become cheerleaders for laissez-faire, forgetting the lessons of the Great Depression that market failures are widespread. Kuttner argues that financial derivatives, inequitable trade policies, union-busting and economic bubbles have weakened the economy. Wall Street has become enormously powerful, while politicians have been looking the other way. Although the book draws on academic research, it is clearly written and accessible to a broad audience. getAbstract recommends it to political and business leaders, policy makers and citizens concerned about the implications of deterioration in the U.S. political and economic system.



4. In this hard-hitting (naming names), but profoundly human book, Robert Kuttner analyses the reasons why the US is very close to losing its democracy, not just by rigged rules and stolen elections, but by the domination of politics by big money, the decline of political participation by ordinary people and the assault on basic constitutional liberties (using foreign threats to undermine freedom at home).
   
   Economics
   The squandering of America is the result of the deliberate dismantling of a managed form of capitalism, guaranteeing broadly diffused prosperity, better economic efficiency and higher stability in the system. The dismantling was called free markets and free trade (better dirty free trade, because agricultural products are untouchables).
   For R. Kuttner, rightly, free trade sacrifices the general interest for the self-interest of economic elites (`the class solidarity of insiders'). It resulted in a chronic structural trade deficit (making the US totally dependent on foreign banks), a collapse of the US manufacturing grid and the destruction of good wage contracts.
   Free markets are not better, because they are in no way reliable for providing (full) employment, decent wages, education, health care, clean air and water, economic stability, safety and the honesty of financial agents.
   
   Finance
   Financial deregulation increased inequalities, reduced economic efficiencies and increased economic risks.
   Extreme swings in retail gas prices, stealing of pension funds by take-over `artists' or disbursing 250B$ in fees for mutual fund managers between 1997 and 2002 while millions of investors suffered a net loss, can hardly be seen as financial efficiency.
   As Robert (!) Triffin in the 1960s correctly predicted the fall of the dollar, Robert Kuttner predicts now a serious decline of the dollar and the general US living standard.
   
   Government policies
   The conservative recipe of cutting domestic spending, of hugely increasing military outlays and cutting taxes for the wealthy, diminished vastly opportunities (education), security (jobs, health care) and living standards for the vast majority of the population. The resulting huge budget deficits were to be `solved' by cuts in social spending.
   
   Politics
   Money is the prime political currency in the US. Politics are there to serve the money holders, not democracy. The Bush II Administration spent more effort on suppressing voting than on expanding it.
   However, the ultimate test of a democracy is whether it is possible to throw out those in power. For R. Kuttner, the answer is YES. Therefore, real democracy should be revived. Mass quiescence is indeed a great convenience and a splendid political success for financial elites.
   
   Robert Kuttner's brilliantly argued book is a must read for all those wanting to understand (and influence) the world we live in.



5. Re-issued this November with a new preface, the author predicted a huge failure in the stock market, just before Wall Street took a huge nosedive and Congress planned its largest bailout ever. The author originally wrote warning of economic conditions in 1997, and the market fell in 2001-02.
   
   Kuttner contents that the tremendous stock swings have not been due to Federal regulations, which he says are virtually nonexistent, but rather to the fundamentalist rightward swing that our politics and politicians have taken in the last eight years.
   
   He writes extensively of Wall Street's history, saying that an unfettered market encourages insider trading and favoritism, and that the combination of laissez-faire government and big-bank and broker greed have given us an economy where credit card debt is soaring, with ordinary citizens no longer able to afford adequate health care, new homes or college educations for their children.
   
   Kuttner backs everything up and writes how conditions today are ominously like those of 1929 just before the crash and the Great Depression. He says the country will need a return to some kind of stock market regulation-and he ties this to a return to basic American freedoms. Nor is he optimistic that this will happen soon. He cites scientific studies which show that while costs of such things as health care, education and housing have risen tremendously, middle/lower class real wages and earnings have stagnated at a level they had thirty years ago. Only the top 10 percent of this country got richer, he says, and the highest returns went to the top one percent of that.
   
   With massive grassroots ` voting in this recent presidential election, it looks like most of the country is searching for a dramatic change in the way it does business and politics. It will give Kuttner's theories a unique test in the coming four years, to see if America can pull itself out of foreign fiscal debt, stop American jobs going overseas, and recapture those lost freedoms. Otherwise, he doesn't hold out much hope. It's a big order to ask of anyone.
   
   The book's figures and studies support its contentions and will provoke a firestorm of debate among people who want to know "what went wrong."
   
   Armchair Interviews says: The author is a political analyst, was a regular columnist with Business Week, a graduate of Oberlin College, and co-founder of The American Prospect magazine.