1 comments about Japan's Policy Trap: Dollars, Deflation, and the Crises of Japanese Finance.

1. I've only read half of the book for about a month now. I'm sLOWLY digesting the information. Quite a good read and interesting to note the author wrote, " The current account surplus [of Japan] will probably keep expanding until the world collectively cannot run.... Or else until the surplus buries the Japanese economy under an avalanche of deflationary dollar claims that can neither be exchanged nor redeemed."
   
   Interesting to note Japan is now bailing out the US for some 50 Billion US dollars . Their neck is on the line for sure.
   
   Interesting

2 comments about Under the Rose: A Confession (The Cross-Cultural Memoir Series).

1. Under the Rose by Flavia Alaya

   Let me start by saying that I've known the author for many years. When I received a copy of this book I was curious. Within a few seconds I was plunged deep into her Italian immigrant family, so strongly depicted that you almost smell tomato and garlic sauce steaming from the pages. I had thought I knew them. Now I understand that I didn't even begin to know my own family, and I barely knew my friend.

   She has remembered for us with unremitting honesty one womanlife impelled by the dynamics only possible in late 20th century America, emerging from the Roman Catholic traditions of Europe into the political upheavals of the 60s. She tells us what happened to her and how she felt about it, avoiding the pitfalls of psychological interpretation, self-pity and justification. This is how it was for her, driven by inner passion, perhaps not yet fully understood, into a impossible relationship nurtured by both defiance and high ideals, balancing a challenging public career, a hidden family life, and political action around her irresistible love. I knew she was always very busy; but of her indomitable strength and courage I had only inkling. While we were all wondering about managing a career and a family, she was taking on whole dimensions of additional stresses. I think it should be classed as a survival manual for those who demand everything life can possibly offer.

   I laughed and I cried and I understood things about my own mother as the author discovered hers; I was stirred to question dozens of my own accepted assumptions. The book has moved and astonished me. I didn't know my friend could write like this.

   -J.L.




2. I was first intrigued by the topic of illicit but loyal love but after reading the book I became more interested in the strength of the author who was able to pursue a career even as she maintained her secret relationship with a public figure until he left the Church and as she faced the rejection of her parents and some family members. These two burdens alone could have felled an average woman today but she was also coming of age in an era of turbulent social mores which placed greater strains on her life and yet she persevered. This is a worthwhile read for those who are interested in immigrant assimilation issues, feminism, New York urban development, and Italian American issues. I enjoyed the first half of the book the most because it evoked such a passion for life but the last half of the book honestly detailed their relationship thus saving it from being just another storybook romance.

1 comments about Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries (Cornell Studies in Political Economy).

1. Haggard writes in opposition to the neoclassical and dependency perspectives regarding economic development. The neoclassical perspective argues in favor of market-regulated export-led growth development strategies. They argue that the state intervention which accompanies import-substitution industrialization strategies leads to inefficiency. However, Haggard argues that export-led industrialization is "accompanied by economic, legal, and institutional reforms that the neoclassical interpretation has generally ignored" (p. 15).
   
   Dependency theorists argue that the international economic system plays a strong role in shaping national policy in NICs. Haggard offers a number of critiques of the dependency perspective: (1) the problems attributed to the international economic system are actually the result of various other national policies; (2) they fail to examine the politicization of the international trading system; (3) dependency theorists are apolitical; (4) domestic politics and state responses vary between NICs. Dependency theorists tend to lump them all together.
   
   Haggard argues that we need a theory which looks at the political incentives facing political actors in order to understand economic development in NICs.
   
   Haggard examines the economic development of East Asian and Latin American NICs through extensive comparative analysis. He finds that both groups originally undertook similar development strategies (ISI), but around 1960 the East Asian NICs moved towards export-leg growth strategies while Latin America remained using ISI. Haggard seeks to explain these policy choices/changes using four causal variables: international factors, domestic coalitions, political institutions, and ideas.
   
   The author argues that international factors (composed of market pressures, i.e. price shocks, conflicts between trading partners and political pressures, i.e. control of market access, military or colonial occupation, etc) are the most powerful causal variables in regards to policy change. In the case of Korea, declining aid and increasing US pressure forced the hand of the Korean elites to pursue more liberal policies (export-led growth). In the case of Brazil, major balance of payment problems forced the nation to look inward, thus subscribing to ISI policies.
   
   Also, domestic coalitions (agriculture, labor, and capital) "can constrain or widen the feasible set of policy reforms" (p. 28): (1) industrialization is often accompanied by weak agricultural interests; (2) in regards to industrial labor, the timing of mobilization and its relation with politics shape policy choice. In Latin America, labor was mobilized early, along with the emergence of leftist governments. The coalition support ISI. The longer ISI is pursued, the more engrained labor becomes in politics. This makes it more difficult for economic policy to change. However, when labor is weak, we may find export-led growth. This is because: (a) it grants freedom to business and state coalitions; (b) the government purposely represses labor to achieve its specific goals; (3) the interests of capital also shape policy choice. In the case of Asia, the government used a lot of instruments to lower the risks of capital investors. It steered industry into areas where it had comparative advantage by reducing costs and risks to investors. In the case of Latin America, ISI and the subsequent protectionist interest become entrenched which makes a move towards a more outward looking policy difficult.
   
   Haggard's third variable, political institutions, addresses the interests of politicians and the structures which shape what they can do, thus shaping policy formation and change. For example, in the Korean case, Park maintained a very strong government. He centralized decision-making, bureaucratized the economic policy-making machinery, and created measures to steer industry into specific areas. In the case of Latin America, the politicians were committed to ISI - they couldn't change it because their support base was composed of disparate interest and the elite had to maintain ISI to keep their support.
   
   Haggard also sees ideas and ideology shaping policy choice and change. The ideas available to political actors shape policy. In the case of Korea, Park turned over control to technocrats who pursued export-led policies, while the opposite was the case in Latin America, "technocrats brought the `structuralism' ideas...that sanctioned and active state role to promote secondary ISI."

1 comments about Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States.

1. Great overview of the most crtical issue confronting the world today undertaken in the context of current socio-political systems and the real power behind them. Highly recommended.

5 comments about Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth.

1. My grandfather was born in the rural South in 1885. With little help from family and no help from his government, he put himself through college. He married, became a dairy farmer and sired seven children which he brought up and thoroughly educated (all seven went to college)during the Great Depression. Of those seven children, his four sons all became his working partners and one son lived and raised his own family on the family farm.
   My grandfather worked HARD, all of his life, to buy and build up a large and prosperous farm. He had 21 grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren. One grandson was born with Down's Syndrome and will need costly, special care as he grows older. As an intelligent and well educated man, it is interesting to note that Grandfather started out his adult life as an ardent, LOYAL (his word) Democrat, serving in county politics as a Democrat. Toward the end of his life he switched to the Republican party where most of his progeny now reside.
   When this fine, decent man died at the age of 99, his family was death taxed at the exact same rate as Bill Gates, the Kennedys, Steven Spielberg, Warren Buffett, and every other billionaire roaming around today espousing the fine merits of the death tax.
   This is the paradox surrounding those Liberals who defend the death tax: family farms ARE being shut down, cut up and sold to pay the death tax. In turn, those family farms are being bought up by developers who are then doing what the Liberal establishment deems so evil: destroying wetlands and natural habitats for wildlife, wreaking havoc with vast tracts of woodlands thus creating increased sprawl or, in John Denver's famous words "more scars upon the land".
   All of this because of the supposedly egalitarian notion that the death tax is a well deserved tax for the super rich.
   The only thing I have to say about the death tax is this: if we children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren had wanted to sell half of the family farm (which we did NOT wish to do), we would have preferred to have been able to do so and then actually KEEP the proceeds of the sale rather than turn those proceeds over to the federal government.



2. As a tax attorney, I was excited to purchase this book and get a non-partisan, in-depth look at what was going on with respect to the estate tax. Michael Graetz has a stellar reputation as a law professor, so I was doubly excited.
   
   I was very disappointed that the book's political bias appears on virtually every page. I think reasonable people can disagree on whether we should have an estate tax, but Graetz presents each and every proponent of repeal as a self-interested opportunist. I would have liked to have seen an unbiased account of what "really" goes on in Washington, but this book failed to satisfy.
   
   If you're looking for a book that will confirm your love for the estate tax, and need a reason to pat yourself on the back, this is the book for you. If you are looking for a book that gives you an unbiased account of the world of politics, this book isn't for you. I found Showdown at Gucci Gulch much more interesting.



3. This book was written by two distinguished experts on tax policy and reviews the development of the campaign to end estate taxes at the federal level. In many cases it is quite informative. But compared to Jeffrey Birnbaum's book on the development of tax policy in Congress (Showdown at Guccci Gulch) is it quite light in a couple of areas.
   
   The book begins with three questions - fundamentally, how did the coalition that formed get together, how did the repeal coalition successfully resist amendments, and finally how did an item like this (seemingly without a high level of support and which cost a lot of revenue and only affects a small number of people) not cause more generalized opposition to the Bush tax bill?
   
   The book is excellent in some of its history (especially the chapter about the use of science in public policy) but is weaker in telling the story of how the current provision was adopted in a consistent manner. The description of the initial phases of the development of the coalition is pretty detailed. The coalition brought together some seemingly disparate interests.
   
   Where the book falls down is in two areas. First, there are some amazing omissions in this book. Bill Gates' father was indeed a leader of the opposition - but at no place in the book does the narrative explain that Gates' father was an attorney who helped to structure estates and thus had a direct interest in the continuation of the tax. At the same time the authors keep coming back to themes - for example, a minor figure in the fight (farm owner Chester Thigpen) is highlighted more heavily than a key Senator like Max Baucus. I would also have liked to have these policy wonks think creatively about the elements of the estate tax which opponents might go forward with - when the inevitable fights come in the future. The opponents of repeal were inept - but how do they go forward? The last time the estate tax was eliminated (surprisingly not mentioned in the book) was in the 1954 revision - the problems which brought the tax back should be instructive to opponents of repeal.
   
   The second area is the authors' limited understanding of how coalitions are built. This book should be more about the politics of the process. The concluding chapter decries the mix of research, politics and moral issues in the current political environment. Indeed, as one who writes about tax issues often, better research involvement could help the process. But the realities of politics that mix moral/philosophical issues and coalitions and evidence are what we should be thinking about.
   
   So if you are interested in tax policy, this is a good book. But if you want to understand how tax policy is made in the real world - there are better books.



4. Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro successfully explain the history of the estate tax, the lobbying battles over it, and the shift from consensus to its repeal in their book Death by a Thousand Cuts. By investigating a range of opinions from Congressmen to farmers, the authors effectively portray how the pro-estate tax side underestimated the ability of organization, group affiliation, and passion to bring about the repeal of a tax that had been accepted without contest for generations. The authors criticize the efforts of large groups and Democratic congressman to organize against the repeal - by illuminating the fact that there was too little organization. While the book provides an accurate and thorough account of the lobbying process that helped lead to the repeal of the estate tax, it provides much unnecessary detail and is obvious in its bias against the repeal of the tax.
   
   For readers who are uneducated in the history of opinions on taxes, Graetz and Shapiro thoroughly describe the evolution of progressive taxation. While not clearly defined in the book, progressive taxation can be explained as a tax that increases as a person's income increases. They describe the shift of opinion on the estate tax when the Republicans made estate tax reform part of their "Contract with America." (Graetz and Shapiro, 15) By using rhetorical frames and spins, pro-repeal groups were able to effectively present the estate tax not as a tax only affecting 2.4% of the wealthy, but as a "death" tax that could potentially "punish" family businesses and farmers by double-taxing their hard earned money. In other words, the authors show how the pro-repealists were successful in presenting the tax in a way that best supported their cause. The authors do a good job showing how much influence organized interest groups can have on government decisions. While the repeal of the estate tax might not necessarily have been a practical crusade, it was a passionate one that eventually won out against the greater good of society and economy, in the opinion of the authors. By putting direct pressure on members of the legislature, pro-repeal groups built a coalition including large numbers of business owners, gays, and the working class, thus encouraging politicians that it would be beneficial to represent and support their cause. With a few wealthy elites being represented by large groups of non-estate tax payers, effective lobbying became the force behind the tax repeal. While the estate tax may have actually benefited some people who worked for its repeal, a pluralistic system prevailed and ended up benefiting the few elites who represented only a fraction of the masses. For an ordinary reader or college student who is unaware of how effective lobbying can be in enhancing American democracy, the authors do a great job portraying the process.
   
   The authors also do a good job providing simple facts on the tax, such as its ability to tax the deceased estate up to 55% and the subsequent $24 billion in government revenue. While they covered some of the services and people who benefit from the tax, they could have been more specific in displaying the direct economic benefits of keeping the estate tax around. If the authors favor the tax, which seems to be the bias throughout the book, why do they not put more effort into displaying its benefits? Despite this lack of information, the authors do a good job explaining the basic components of the tax for readers unknowledgeable on the subject.
   
   When writing about such a widely debated topic, the authors would have benefited by being more cautious in displaying their bias towards keeping the tax around. It tends to distract from their entire argument. From the very beginning, they describe the pro-repeal group's goals as being ones of "conviction and anger" in place of "practicality" (Graetz and Shapiro, 23). While this might be true, blatantly stating their bias against the pro-repeal argument is a good way of losing the reader's trust. Instead of making readers cope with the bias, the author's argument would have been stronger if they would have merely shown the impracticality of the pro-repealists.
   
   The authors also include much un-needed information in the book that tends to get repetitive and boring. Describing all characters by their eye color or ability to cook tends to lose its appeal by the sixteenth chapter when the authors describe Bob Johnson and the paintings covering his walls and his casual way of dressing in black pants and a black polo sweater. Is all this information necessary?
   
   Overall, the book provides good background details on the estate tax and displays the ability of interest groups to change the American government. Graetz and Shapiro successfully provide readers with an educating, enjoyable read that was easy to follow and understand. While it could have been improved by eliminating the obvious bias and the un-needed details, it provides a good look at American government and the power of group affiliation in reaching a goal - whether practical or not.



5. As its subtitle indicates, the book is about the nitty-gritty details of how the near-repeal of the estate tax got enacted into law. The authors discuss tax policy only tangentially: their focus is on who did what and why. Some actors on both sides acted out of idealistic (or, if you prefer, ideological) motives, many out of self-interested motives. According to the book, the pro-repeal forces were shrewd and far-sighted, whereas the anti-repeal forces were slow and weak. For example, charities have a strong interest in preservation of the estate tax, but were not effective in opposition to repeal, because they did not want to offend their donors and boards of directors. Having finished the book, I now believe I understand what happened. I even understand why the estate tax dies in 2010 and then springs back to life in 2011, a situation that seems insane, but which is a perfectly logical consequence of arcane Senate procedural rules interacting with the fact that the pro-repeal forces had no hope of mustering 60 votes in the Senate.

2 comments about NATION, STATE, AND ECONOMY (Lib Works Ludwig Von Mises PB).

1. Ludwig Von Mises perhaps deserves the honourable title of "last of the 19th Century classical liberals". This is despite the fact that all his writings are works of the 20th century. This is not to say that he has been made obsolete or irrelevant, far from it, but his work has generally been unfashionable in the 20th century, even by those who would be considered his intellectual and political allies. In a sense Mises debates the issues on his own terms not by following or chasing the coat tails of others.
   
   "Nation, State and Economy" was Mises' first book, published in 1919, it discusses the great war and in some ways anticipates the events to come. Despite the author's pedigree as a former Austrian treasury official and pioneer of the Austrian school of economics, this is really a book best pigeon holed as political sociology than economics per se. Originally written in German and, assuming a greater knowledge of German / Austrian history than I possess, I had to rely upon detail provided in the forward to help me through.
   
   The book covers wide intellectual ground and has been compared to John Maynard Keynes' "Economic Consequences of The Peace", written about the same time with much of the same concerns, as it's most comparable peer.
   
   Perhaps the section that most interested me, and it should be of interest to those, including modern liberals and social democrats, not normal Mises readers, was his discussion of the weakness of 19th century liberalism in Germany and Austria. Elsewhere in the west liberalism, nationalism and democratic reform marched side by side as brothers in arms. But what happened in Germany and Austria?
   
   Peter Viereck has argued that in the Germanies, the idea of "volk" triumphed when and where liberalism and democracy was defeated. Viereck argues that the German soul was split between rival western "liberal" looking and northern "volkish" looking hobgoblins. Mises, ever the practical economist, who sees nations as essentially linguistic constructs, offers a more down to earth interpretation.
   
   Liberalism and democratic thought flourished among the German peoples of Prussia and Imperial Austria, but the multi-ethnic demographic realities of the German colonization in Eastern Prussia and the Austrian Empire meant that any advances for democratic majoritarian self rule would come at the price of retreat for the social, economic and political status of these Empire's eastern German subjects. Thus many liberals and indeed socialists found it easier to compromise with the Old Regime authoritarians, elsewhere the mortal enemy of liberals and democrats, than abandon their German speaking peers. The compromises made by Prussian liberal democrats were leveraged across the whole of the Second Reich as Bismark unified the central Germans.
   
   Although Mises doesn't say it, in a sense it's the Westerners, the French, British and Americans, where liberalism, democracy and (effective) linguistic homogenity worked in parallel who are the odd men out. The Austrian and German experience has probably more to tell us about the prospects of liberty and democracy in the ex-colonial Third World and the ex-communist Second World than all the ostentatious lovers of democracy layed end to end.
   
   These issues of nationality, multiculturalism and the relation between language and liberty have a renewed urgency in the 21st century. Von Mises' "19th century" insights are probably of more use than those inherited from the 20th.



2. Nation, State, and Economy is an early effort by Mises to do what he accomplished in his 1944 book Omnipotent Government. Mises wrote this book at the close of World War One in effort to explain why this war occurred. Mises explains some concepts that show up in his later work: capital accumulation bias, the nation as a speech community, the decline of liberal thought in Europe and the rise of socialist/nationalist beliefs.
   
   One key element is missing: his calculation critique of socialism. Mises started down an intellectual path towards the calculation critique of socialism when he wrote The Theory of Money and Credit. It was in this earlier work that Mises began to see the significance of monetary calculation. Yet, Mises did not fully grasp the significance of money in capitalism when writing his 1919 book. Ironically, Mises came to recognize what was missing in Nation, State, and Economy just after it came out. In 1919 Mises wrote his article Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth. From then on economic calculation would be the central issue in his economic and historical analysis.
   
   Nation, State, and Economy is important to those who are interested in the evolution of Austrian ideas. It also has some interesting history of the First World War (that is, interesting to those who want to understand history). As such, this book has a relatively narrow audience. But it is a well reasoned gem for the few who find such subject of interest.

No comments about Development, Security and Unending War.

No comments about Creating Value: Smart Development and Green Design.

2 comments about Fefu and Her Friends (PAJ Books).

1. this book is a nearly forgotten classic of 70's theatrical avant garde; it is so good to see it in print. Read it. It's a hoot!



2. "Fefu and Her Friends," by Maria Irene Fornes, is a witty and disturbing contemporary play. A key image from the play occurs early on, when one character talks about the experience of lifting up a stone and seeing the slime, fungus, and worms underneath. "Fefu" is about peeling back the gentile facades of life and seeing the unpleasant decay that lies beneath.

   The play, which has an all-female cast, takes place at an elegant New England country house where the characters of the title have assembled. As the women gather to talk in various groupings, Fornes dissects such topics as gender roles, marriage, and educational conventions. Stirrings of insanity, violence, heterosexual frustration, and repressed lesbian desire contribute to the play's unsettling atmosphere. Overall, a memorable work from a grand master of contemporary theater.

2 comments about Thailand: Economy and Politics.

1. In the past, Thai history was written by noblemen and created an idyll of a virtuous past, filled with happy peasants living a simple life under the watchful eye of benevolent despots. Unfortunately, many Westerners followed in this tradition, although they (and Thai nobles) criticized more recent, military regimes. This book breaks out of that box and makes it clear that life has never been easy for Thai peasants and that upper classes have rarely been all that virtuous. The authors also show a much more diverse Thailand than the "homogeneity" that is popularly ascribed. In addition, they detail the corruption of recent decades that should make Americans (as well as Japanes and others) who abetted it ashamed of the role they've played in in supporting horrible regimes. An excellent volume that is revisionist in the most positive sense of the word.



2. While living in Thailand for most of the 1990's, I was determined to understand the history of that wondrous country. Unfortunately, at the time there was little written that provided more than the chronologies and "accomplishments" of the Thai monarchy. That was, until "Thailand: Economy and Politics" was published.
   
   This wife and husband team - she (Pasuk Phongpaichit), an economics professor at Thailand's top university, and he (Chris Baker), a history major from Britain - has written the most enlightening history book I've ever read. Beginning with the peasants and the impact that the aristocracy had on their lives, this book looks at history from an economic rather than a time-line perspective. It may be academic in nature, with plenty of tables and references, but it is immensely readable. Rather than fixating on the "who, what and when" of traditional history books, the authors explain why and how events happened as they did.
   
   More than just explaining the past, this book (stealthily) explains a lot about what made the Thai people the way they are. Why are Thais so deferential to authority? Why is petty corruption so endemic in the bureaucracy? How has the large Chinese minority so easily integrated with Thai culture, unlike in many of its neighbors? How was Thailand impacted by the war in Vietnam? How does the monarchy cohabitate with the military and political leadership?
   
   For those unfamiliar with Thailand, this book provides a beautiful portrait of the making of a country. For those who have spent a bit of time in Thailand, it will provide many "Ahh, now I understand" moments. How can a history book be any better?