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.

5 comments about The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World.

1. When I decided to read this book, I did so with the expectation of learning something only after wading through a great degree of partisan political rhetoric. It did not take me long to realize that Mr. Roberts' book is not what I had expected.
   
   He makes this complex issue accessible to the layman looking to familiarize himself with not only oil, but the energy economy. Rather choose a side and engage in partisan sniping, he tells the good, the bad, and the ugly of the policies advocated by every party involved in the energy debate. Not only does he analyze our present situation, but he also studies our several possible ways forward into a new energy economy.
   
   If I were pressed to make a complaint, it would be that I read the original hardcover edition of the book. A lot of the speculation regarding "worst case" scenarios involve $50 a barrel oil. Now that we are nearly $100 past that worst case, the educated speculation portrayed in the book should be coming to pass in the market. I would like to see either a completely updated 2008 edition or at least one with an updated preface.



2. this is a very intertesting book for me because present a high perfomance for the our future



3. This book was published about four years ago, and it is interesting to compare some of its future projections with the current reality. The worse case scenario envisioned in the last chapter has oil going to $50 a barrel, a far cry from the habitual $100 or more for a barrel now, not to mention a high of almost $150. The United States has arrived at the point of sending on the order of 700 billion dollars a year overseas to mostly unstable governments. Yet, despite what in the context of this book would be a horrifying emergency situation, the winds of change have been very slow to make much of a difference. The entrenched oil interests, which the author does not underestimate, have kicked into gear; the Bush Administration has battened down the hatches and basically all they have to say is "drill! drill! drill!". Oil industry influence continues to do its work putting the breaks on renewables: tax credits have not been extended by Congress.
   
   A case made here is that almost all of the easy oil has been exploited. Oil is only produced in Nature under special circumstances. Organic material has to be buried and then cooked in a narrow temperature range (100-135 degrees C). Then, it has to to be confined by rock formations so that it does not leak away into nothing. Worldwide, there is estimated to be 600 geological systems where oil can be extracted for commercial uses. Of that, about 400 have been explored and the remaining lie in hard-to-reach areas such as the Arctic and continental shelves. OPEC has clearly emerged the winner in the battle for easy oil, and has left the big oil companies and most of the non-OPEC world desperately scrambling to find new supplies. The likelihood that enough oil can be extracted from costly out-of-the-way places to compete with the power that OPEC can exert in the marketplace is not great, to say the least. In other words, drilling in costly, remote places will not make a dent anytime soon in the 700 billion dollars that the U.S. pays every year for its oil import bill.
   
   Time is not on our side and the subject is much larger than just finding oil and dealing with OPEC. It concerns not only the use of oil but the use of all hydrocarbons. Just how much carbon dioxide can the atmosphere tolerate before serious disruptions occur to life on planet earth? The author cites experts who maintain that 550ppm might be a tipping point and that we are speeding toward that state. Of particular concern is the developing world - China and India - and the breakneck pace in which dirty fuels, namely coal, are being burned in order to grow emerging economies. The author asserts that the developing world will never take a leadership role in developing alternative energies. They cannot afford to invest except in the quickest and dirtiest. The rich countries, particularly the United States, will have to take the lead.
   
   The author reviews the positives and negatives of alternative energy: hydrogen, wind and solar. Wind and solar offer growth opportunities in the near term, but are problematic as dependable sources because of their intermittency. Hydrogen may work as a substitute for oil sometime in the future but not in the near future. A very important factor in reducing hydrocarbon use is efficiency and conservation. In the 1980s energy efficiency was a significant factor in quelling OPEC's power to raise prices, but energy efficiency was a victim of its own success and Ronald Reagan moved to shutdown such efforts because of the free market meddling.
   
   The big question concerns the role of government - particularly the United States and the rich countries - in instituting a price on carbon and encouraging the development of alternative fuels and "bridging" solutions. Will the world act proactively with a plan to move away from hydrocarbons or will it only react after disasters? If free market supply siders have their way and carbon is never recognized as having an economic cost, there will not be an economic incentive not to use cheap hydrocarbons; and if government does not step in and aid research and development for alternatives, it's less likely that in the near future the private sector will find enough economic incentives to make energy breakthroughs. Then, China and India will have no alternative but to continue to burn dirty fossil fuels.
   
   In enshrining the free markets and the economics of supply, the U.S. will most likely be involved in more overseas conflicts and wars, particularly in the Middle East. Despite the way politicians downplay the matter, the two wars the U.S. has fought in Iraq have both been about opening up the supply of oil. If oil continues to be the life blood of the economy, then the forces that protect that oil will become more militant in protecting that crucial supply especially from the Middle East. If the Saudi royal family loses control to fundamentalists, the stage will be set for another war.



4. The title of the book makes it sound like an alarmist clamour concerned with peak oil. This couldn't be further from the truth. It is instead a comprehensive overview of the whole shebang: the energy crisis and the shape of things to come. Not only oil, but other hydrocarbon fuels, hydrogen, nuclear, wind, solar, energy efficiency and the economic implications of all the above are discussed, in a sober and impartial manner. Roberts does not appear to be lobbying for any particular energy source, in fact, he details the great leaps currently made in wind farms, fuel cells, clean coal and solar power, but is quick to point out the practical shortcomings, economic considerations and incredible technical challenges.
   
   The book is rife with well-backed claims, interesting (if unsettling) facts and cogent arguments. I also found the important history lessons on the emergence of the hydrocarbon economy and the 1973 oil embargo very informative and interesting (do take into account, however, that this is from a lay reader's perspective).
   
   Some reviewers note that the book quickly became a bit awkwardly out of date. This is true to some extent. The "worst case" scenario where oil reaches $50/barrel and sends the world economy plunging now seems like a bright picture. Another case in point is where Roberts predicts that since US interference in Iraq to "secure" oil supply caused more harm than good through disruption, Iraqi oil exports will essentially never rise above pre-war levels. This turned out to be wrong: it did in fact shatter that barrier in 2007.
   
   A commendable aspect of the book is how Roberts courageously and continuously lambastes the Bush administration, the automotive industry, the coal lobby and other major hydrocarbon stakeholders, but at the same time acknowledges that the massive asset inertia of the current energy industry makes lowering emissions and improving efficiency an immense economic and pragmatic challenge. These kinds of objective analyses almost go as far as watering down the author's plea: sometimes the reader may get the impression that there's enough ammunition in the book to argue both for complacency and immediate action.



5. Roberts has written an readable book covering the problems of further oil exploration, discovery and extraction, and then talks briefly about the problems of global warming. He then goes on to talk about alternatives to oil.
   
   Here he gets a little confused between two separate things, one, the source of energy, and two, the delivery of that energy to where it's needed. Oil does both of these.
   
   Roberts talks about a possible future "hydrogen economy" as the most viable alternative, while dismissing nuclear and renewables and other sources of energy, but hydrogen is not an energy source: it is an energy delivery method. Some energy source has to make the hydrogen in the first place. Therefore his dismissal of solar and nuclear is not as easy as he makes out. Also, he dismisses geothermal energy in less than a sentence, which is far less than it deserves.
   
   In doing this, he confuses the physically possible with the economically viable. Solar, nuclear and geothermal are at least physically possible as alternatives, as they can probably produce the required energy: the only question is their economics. His discussion of their economics is perhaps valid, but economics is all relative. The question is at what point other energy sources become economic and what the consequences of using them are.
   
   All that is less of a review, and more of a critique. While the book is highly topical, and very readable without dumbing down, it confuses a number of points that need to be distinguished.

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.

5 comments about The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics.

1. I understand that it's a book written to be accessible to people like myself who are not economists and will NEVER be economists, but that does not mean I have to be treated like I am severely unintelligent. The reading level of this book falls far below what any college educated person should be expected to read. I don't think the author of this book is nearly as deserving of the high accolades (not to mention profits) he has been receiving for writing this book. When a book contains the phrase 'I think learning under the right circumstances is a very good thing' you know that the quality of the writing is deficient. It is elementary at best.



2. The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics by William Easterly is an honest answer to part of the question, "why hasn't the world improved like we thought it would?" Easterly conducts a post-mortem conference on western aid programs since the end of World War II, finding that in many cases we should have known better. The incentives created by some nations' economic environment, or the aid programs themselves led national economies into periods of stagnant or negative growth. Easterly's mantra is "people respond to incentives." Ignoring this truth, a central tenet of economics, has led to several irrational choices in the area of development aid, and many failures to achieve our objectives.
   
   While pessimistic at times in his evaluation of what we have done in the West, the truth behind the text is that all these problems are preventable. Overall, a valuable and essential piece of information in understanding the state of the world today in regards to differing economic outcomes and how it has come to be that way.



3. Easterly is a brilliant and talented writer, as one would expect from the World Bank. At times, though, the Bank is isolated from the benefits of being subjected to such talent. Individual efforts are certainly reviewed, but at the end of the day, Stiglitz and others have argued that the very points Easterly makes suggests that the Bank is far off the course set by its mandate. We are therefore left with yet another recommended "fine tuning" of WB programming without a serious reflection over whether the WB is the proper mechanism for fiddling with the intricate clockworks that are national economies. I sign off by asking the Americans, Britons, Australians, French, Swiss and others from "developed" countries what it would take to allow an autocratic, bureaucratic and politically un-accountable (and this series of adjectives in no way lessens the tremendous respect I have for nearly every WB staff member I've met) organization tip-toe into THEIR administrative systems. I argue that the problem with economic tinkering in the Pacific is that it is, and looks to remain, the product of bureaucratic meddling on a scale similar to Mao's China, which undermines both the development of governance systems that can curtail corruption (i.e. local acocuntability for performance based on available resources- NOT (!!!!!!) in any way similar to efforts to make local authorities better subsidiaries of the notably corrupt central governments as is currently being pushed in the Pacific and elsewhere) AND legitimate free market systems. This book is a fantastic read, and I highly recommend it be paired with Stiglitz's "Globalization..." and Jeffrey Sach's "End of Poverty..." for a very ponderous but enriching book club series.



4. Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RN4QXC248QBRO Nathan Kirkland's review was made as part of a critical review assignment for the Fall 2008 Honors Colloquium on Creative Destruction at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, taught by Art Diamond. (The course syllabus stated that part of the critical review assignment consisted of the making of a video recording of the review, and the posting of the review to Amazon.)



5. The Elusive Quest for Growth, precisely lists the main reasons why slow or negative growth per capita has plagued emerging economies. Its thesis statement: people respond to incentives, brilliantly proves how many traditional ways of dealing with low growth economies is misapplied by bad government policies. The book is well structured and develops with great ease. The book is perfect for social entrepreneurs and economists.

5 comments about Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One.

1. Alone, this book is a very good, quick read on several important issues of our time for anyone who already understands the most basic economic concepts like prices, supply and demand. I rate it 5 stars based own its own merit, but for those who have already read Sowell's "Basic Economics," little extra can be found here. In this book, Sowell skips the introduction to basic economic concepts and goes directly to briefly analyzing issues like health care, discrimination and the development of nations. While there is some new information to be found, and although I still enjoyed the reading, I had seen most of it before.



2. I studied forensic chemistry in college and I very much enjoyed and was good at it. But, If i chose another discipline to study economics would have been it. Thomas Sowell has brought great enjoyment to a very real and useful subject. Economic thinking is wonderful because you can use it everywhere.
   
   Even though this book comes after Basic Economics, I don't think the first is required to follow this book. Sowell simply takes us into real life examples of "incentive" and "constraint" and the consequences political decision leave on society. The greatest asset of Sowell is his ability to stay so level-headed and not get wrapped up in the drippy pathos of noble intentions. Everything has a cost, how great is that cost going to be on real people?
   
   "Every economic system must operate within the inherent constraint that people's wants will add up to more than they can possibly get: therefore, the quetion is not what is the ideal system, or how do people behave ideally to produce ideal results, the question is what is the best economic system producing the best results, with people behaving as they actually do." (a rough quote of Thomas Sowell)



3. This book is absolutely fantastic. Thomas Sowell is truly an intellectual of the highest breed. His explainations on how economic policies, which look good on paper, can have far reaching and counter productive effects is clear and interesting. Somehow all his books apply to more then the sphere of life he intends to educate. This book likewise contains a message - of looking at long term outcomes - which applies to not only economists and policy makers but the average man as well. Economics, which has been called a dismal science, tells us of the necessary trade offs that people and institutions with vested interests will not.



4. 1. The purpose of economic analysis is not the goals being sought but the incentives and constraints that are created in pursuit of those goals. What we need to know is the characteristics of the processes set in motion and the incentives and constraints inherent in such characteristics rather than judging these processes by their goals. Once we start thinking in terms of the chain of events set in motion by particular policies and follow these events beyond stage one - the world begins to look very different.
   2. Political decisions tend to be categorical, while economic decisions tend to be incremental.
   3. Government subsidized prices force the tax-payer to pay for things that they have not chosen to pay for as consumers.
   4. Most politicians when making economic discussion about policy on a wide range of issues stop at stage one with little thinking about the economic consequences going into decisions at the highest levels.
   5. In high tax cities there is likely to be an increase in the rate at which business go out of business. When new arising companies have option of deciding where to locate their factories or offices, cities and states where high tax rates are likely are to be avoided. The high-tax jurisdictions can begin the process of losing business, even in stage one. But the losses may not be on a scale large enough that they are noticeable. Overseas shifting of production migrates towards locations where taxes are not so high. The reductions in local business in turn beings to reduce the locally earned income. Employees transfer to the new location and hiring new people at the remote location. Eventually, enough companies' desert, high tax city or state, for which, total revenue is less at a higher rate than during the time of lower rates. By this time, many of the politicians that set in motion higher-tax rate processes in motion have moved to higher office in state or national government. Remaining politicians in office are likely to be blamed for declining tax revenues.
   6. New York city was home to 100 of the fastest growing companies in the country. NYC had the highest tax rates in the country and the most expensive real estate per square foot of business office space. Yet the city was spending twice as much per capita as Los Angeles and three times as much per capita as Chicago on a wide variety of municipal programs. The large, spend-and-tax policies had success political outcomes, but negative economic consequences. Killing the golden gooses is a viable political strategy.
   7. Most government agencies are monopolies. Monopoly tends toward self-indulgent inefficiency. Monopoly is a norm for government agencies, whereas, few private firms are able to prevent rival firms from arising.
   8. When government power is used to control price as a way of reducing the cost of various goods and service they are creating shortages. A classic example of controlling prices without controlling costs was the electricity crisis of Californina, 2001-2002. The cost of generating electricity used by California rose for a number of reasons, one being, a year of reduced rainfall and reduced water flow through hydroelectric dams and less electricity production. The cost of electricity of running the generators did not decrease the cost of generating the electricity increased. Electricity from natural gas was rising, so cost of electricity generation from those means increased. Normally, rising costs means rising price, but California politicians imposed legal limits on how high electricity prices would be permitted to rise. The companies generating the electricity passed on cost to the public utilities that distributed the electricity, to the public. The wholesale price was 15 cents per kilowatt and the retail price was 7 cents per kilowatt. "the wholesale prices signaled that electricity was increasingly scarce, but retail prices told consumers that nothing had changed." Blackouts were the inevitable results. The California public utility company went broke. The public companies lacked money and credit with the wholesalers. The governor used state money to buy electricity. In the end Californians paid more for their electricity: billing problems, higher taxes, and depleted surpluses. The rescue attempt was a failure.
   9. Price controls have been causing shortages in countries around the world, and for literally thousands of years of recorded history. Almost all price controls were popular when they were implemented because most people did not think beyond stage one.
   10. When a private or governmental institution that can no longer satisfy its customers are forced out of business. Government agencies, can continue on despite demonstrable failures, and the power of government can prevent rivals from arising.
   11. All economic systems must find ways to restrict and deny the use of both resources and finished products through one mechanism or another.
   12. Central planning is often used to describe an economic system where key decisions are made by political authorities.
   13. Economic planning means the state takes a decisive role in the economy by using inducement and restrictive controls over the private sector.
   14. Central planning put into effect in a variety of countries around the world turned out to be worse than anyone expected leaving planned economies falling behind free market economies. By the twentieth century some socialist and communist have abandoned central planning and selling state owned enterprises to private entrepreneurs.
   15. The USSR is one of the richest endowments of natural resources on the earth, including larger reserves of petroleum than the middle-east, fertile farm ground, well-educated population. While it had the ingredients for prosperity, it was much poorer than the United States. What the USSR lacked was abundant incentives and mechanisms capable of converting its abundant inputs into outputs at a rate comparable to the United States.
   16. The USSR set prices by the central planners. The prices did not reflect the relative scarcities of particular resources and did not correctly reflect the upward or downward movement of price according to supply and demand. The central planners could not have clearly reflected the complex and volatile relative scarcities of 20 million, resources and finished products. This was an impossible task.
   17. In a capitalist economy, the prices of surplus good piled up in warehouse would have fallen because of cut backs on production. This would release labor, in order to avoid losses. On the other hand, shortages would create higher profits, greater demand for labor and material, and larger available supplies. Central planners allowed surpluses and shortages to last for years.
   18. Price move is required to move resources, finished goods, and people where they are in demand.
   19. The Soviet Union had surplus food to export before the government took over agriculture. The Soviet Union later had shortage and starvation and forced to import food, even while fertile soil existed to grow food.
   20. Economic analysis systematically examines the consequences of various economic actions and policies over a period of centuries.



5. Dr. Sowell picks up here where he left off with "Basic Economics." For the average person who would like to learn more about economics on a practical and not just theoretical level, start with "Basic Economics" and then move on to "Applied Economics." The author does a wonderful job in both books of explaining concepts and giving practical examples to illustrate the concepts. There is a good chance you will walk away from this book with a brand new perspective on certain accepted policies and ideas. Dr. Sowell is especially adept at making the point that politicians and much of the public live in the world of short term thinking, while economics forces you to think beyond stage one.

2 comments about One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth.

1. I might not agree with significant parts of the book, but it is interesting and, as is true with Rodrick's work generally, it makes one think. I suppose that the most problems that I had were with Chapter 4 on industrial policy. Take the issue of Coordination Externalities. There are large areas of the US market economy where these activities have been coordinated without government involvement (e.g., gasoline stations and cars, bee hives and farms or groves, the development of private highways during the first century and a half or so of US history, radio and television (coordinating stations and people who can listen to them), coordinating telephone exchanges, etc). Often government intervention has slowed or harmed that coordination. Do I agree that in theory that greenhouses and electrical grids go hand in hand? Sure. But it is not clear to me why the problem isn't that in some places the government is the one making these decisions. To me that would have been the hard question to answer. Anyway, I found the book interesting.



2. This is a terrific book. It begins with a good and troubling question: If economists are so smart, why have the most prominent success stories in economic development in recent decades been in countries (China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore) that ignored our advice? Rodrik's answer is that the advice - mainly Washington Consensus and then its follow-ons - was not so much wrong as a) premature and b) insufficiently flexible. His analysis of recent experience suggests that there are many ways to get growth started in a stagnant economy, and that it takes a very specific, informed, and open-minded local analysis - what he terms "growth diagnostics" - to determine what exactly are the binding constraints in each setting. Furthermore, policies that address those constraints must be politically viable, and that may mean tailoring them so that they create better incentives at the margin without destroying or transferring existing rents.
   
   Once economic growth has started, THEN some of the more standard policy prescriptions, introduced carefully and gradually, may be appropriate and even necessary in order to make growth sustainable. Thus, for example, Rodrik argues that both China and India are moving now in more orthodox policy directions, and appropriately so, but that both relied on quite unorthodox measures to make their initial way out of stagnation.
   
   There are many other issues addressed, including the importance of political arrangements that allow local needs and preferences to be expressed and the case for international trade policies that allow for diversity in national institutional arrangements. The book closes with a detailed and (to me) quite persuasive critique of the focus of the WTO on increasing trade for the sake of trade rather than considering more carefully which changes in trade policy actually make a difference in the lives of the world's poor. His analysis of the Doha Round suggests that, contrary to the received wisdom, a general worldwide liberalization of agricultural markets and removal of developed country subsidies would lead to only small reductions in poverty, and in fact would likely harm many poor consumers in many countries.
   
   I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in globalization and development. It is extremely well written, though some sections may be slow going for non-economists. The overall analysis should be quite readable and thought-provoking for the general reader wishing to get a fresh perspective on these important issues.

5 comments about The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.

1. From the back cover:
   "In the Sovereign Individual, Davidson and Rees-Mogg explore the greatest economic and political transition in centuries - the shift from an industrial to an information-based society."
   
   The book was first published in 1997. It is now 2008 and I was struck by how prescient and relevant "The sovereign individual" is, several of the changes described in the book are already happening.
   
   In the first chapter they describe four stages for society:
   1- hunting and gathering societies
   2- agricultural societies
   3- industrial societies
   4- information societies
   
   Most of the book is devoted to explaining the transition from the industrial to the information society. Chapter 2 "Megapolitical Transformation in Historic Perspective" provides a useful framework for understanding the four stage of society and it's transitions:
   1- Topography
   2- Climate
   3- Microbes
   4- Technology
   
   According to the authors technology is the most important factor, because of it's impact on the means of production and on the use of force.
   
   They spend quite a bit of time discussing the importance of violence in each of the four stages of society in shaping the political and social organization.
   
   They share their views on how the information-aged society will impact:
   
   - politics and violence (weakening of the nation-state and the rise of organized crime)
   - wealth creation and distribution (unequal and unequal)
   - the changes to morality, especially among the elite
   
   The book is written in a friendly but somewhat dark tone. 'Join us on a tour of the past, present and future' they might say. Read it.



2. A provocative book that aims to forecast the technological, political, and financial shape of things to come. The authors draw upon lessons of history and economic and sociological theory to offer strong opinions about the steps necessary to master the dynamic and, in their view, often chaotic transition to the information age. Among their predictions: the devolution of the governments of the Western industrialized nations, the creation of a cybercurrency initially linked to the gold standard and protected by unbreakable encryption technology, and nationalist reactionary policies fueled by protests from segments of society left behind by the advances of the information age.
   
   The writing is suffused with dry British wit, sarcasm, and an unflinching sense of realism (some might call it hyperbole). Combined with the occasional right-of-center rant, this might be a too much for some readers, especially for those with left-of-center sensibilities. However, the book's transformative value and intellectual heft more than compensate for the stylistic foibles of its authors. Highly recommended.
   
   [...]



3. "Are you ready to free your mind, Neo?"
   
   Just as Morpheus set about freeing captured minds from the grasp of The Matrix, James Dale Davidson has been passionate about showing people the real world political and financial MATRIX around them...and how it is used to control them and their ability to amass a fortune. He has done this quite well in several of his books, including this one.
   
   I am well versed with James Dale Davidson's writing. I started off with The Great Recogning, subscribed to his private newsletter, went to see him in person, spent a weekend at one of his seminars (EXCELLENT) and went on an investment tour with him. James is the real deal...a thinking man that knows alot about wealth creation and wealth protection. His major thrust has been for individuals to NOT see themselves as citizens of one particular country or governmental structure, but to see themselves as free entities who CHOSE which governmental structure best serves THEIR interests...because the greatest threat to your wealth and financial security is GOVERNMENTS (see Bankrupcy 1995 for statistics of what happens when a country becomes insolvent).
   
   Thus the concept of the Sovereign Individual.
   
   This book is an introduction to the world of being sovereign. If you read The Great Recogning and/or Blood In The Streets, you are very familiar with the concepts and really, not much new is offered by this book. If you haven't read those other books, then this book is a GOOD place to start. Then quickly move to The Great Recogning - because it is for THIS reason above all esle, that you will want to position yourself as sovereign and protect your family, your freedom and your lifestyle.
   
   IF freedom is important to you, if you feel a little uneasy with what is going on with the American economy and concerned about its imminent collapse...or America's POTENTIAL for collapse, this book is a MUST read for you.
   
   Buy it now!



4. Keep in mind that this book was written around 1997, before 9/11/2001.
   It is summer 2008 and the "US empire" is in decline.
   The US debt is quickly approaching the $10 trillion mark.
   (that is a one with thirteen zeros behind it)
   The US dollar is in decline.
   The US financial markets are in meltdown mode.
   The FDIC has taken over IndyMac, more banks to follow.
   The government is talking about a bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
   (how high can the US deficit go?)
   The government has enacted the so called "patriot act".
   The government has expanded the FISA rules.
   The housing market is in deflation mode.
   The commodities market is in inflation mode (oil approaching $150).
   
   Here are few quotes from the book:
   Page 20: "Governments will violate human rights, censor the free flow of information, sabotage useful technologies, and worse".
   
   Page 23: "All nation-states face bankruptcy and the rapid erosion of their authority".
   
   Page 29: "We forecast and explained why militant Islam would displace Marxism as the principal ideology of confrontation with the West".
   
   Page 137: "You can expect to see crises of misgovernment in many countries as political promises are deflated and governments run out of credit".
   
   Page 196: "Governments that tax too much will simply make residence anywhere within their power a bankrupting liability".
   
   Page 197: "Paper money also contributed significantly to the power of the state, not only by generating profits from depreciating the currency, but by giving the state leverage over who could accumulate wealth".
   
   Page 198: "Control over money will migrate from the halls of power to the global marketplace".



5. This is a very interesting book with disturbing implications: the authors contend that, in our lifetimes we will see the messy demise of nation states, with the most advanced of the Western democracies falling the farthest and hardest. The grim future they depict is essentially that of Stephenson's "Snow Crash" or Gibson's "Neuromancer".
   
   In making their case, the authors draw an interesting and convincing parallel between today's concepts of patriotism and national duty, and the Church in late medieval Europe.
   
   I'd fault the book for its hyped up rhetoric and excessive repetition of the same historical factoids. Also, the dire predictions of this 1997 book are somewhat undermined by the predictions of the scope of the Y2K computer failures, and also by the odd depiction of Peruvian ex-dictator Fujimori as the wave of the future.

5 comments about The Commanding Heights : The Battle for the World Economy.

1. This book was rather fun to read but I am not convinced that the authors have as deep an understanding of the phenomena they are writing about as they would like the readers to believe. The book reads like a narrative, full of assertions that are not backed by rigorous analysis of hard evidence. The authors do not critically explore causal relationships, nor do they talk about research that has done so. They present only one particular perspective on the unfolding of events, and they do not defend this perspective against potential criticism.
   
   My experience with economics has always reinforced the idea that causality can be difficult to establish, and can often operate in unexpected ways. An economist must proceed skeptically, being careful to explore alternative explanations and being prepared to defend assertions with theory and data. The authors do not seem to share this view, taking instead a more naive approach.
   
   Maybe I was expecting too much; after all this book is meant to be accessible to non-economists. However, making a book more accessible does not necessitate a lack of rigour or the absence of critical thought; the authors could have removed some of the redundancy in the book (their writing is far from concise!) and replaced it with explorations of alternative perspectives. The book would be greatly enriched by adding more discussion of research that supports (or opposes) their views.



2. That's the central message of this book. But to know why it happened, how it happened, and the geographic extent of this outcome, you need to read this fascinating book.
   
   Now if we can just get our own federal government to realize this . . .
   
   Also read what could be a good companion book: The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else



3. &Both the book DVD are excellent. It is one thing to have lived through global change, it is another thing to understand the interconnections and long-term effects. The focus in several countries is a centrally planned or market-driven economy. Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, China and the United Kingdom are examined in detail for their success and failure. The Soviet Union - Russia, tried to retain dictatorial control and continues to have problems. The "Chicago School of Economics" celebrates its wisdom, models and planning in country after country. However, in every country and economics system, the sustainable natural resource base is overlooked. Keynes may be the "father" of market economics, but Keynes is a short-term perspective. We are approaching Peak Oil and Peak Water and 6.6+ billion people all striving for a USA standard of living. The USA standard of living is based on cheap oil and cheap water and we are entering the "Crude Awakening."
   
   Commanding Heights is an appropriate title, reinforced by knowledgeable people from Harvard, Washington DC and around the world. Commanding heights are about to come tumbling down in country after country as human population exceeds carrying capacity and countries compete for resources and food. The authors did an excellent job, but need to follow-up in light of resource, water and food limits.



4. If you want to understand globalization, this book is required reading. This book provides a full overview and history of 20th century globalization. It discusses the economic choices that third-world countries were making in order to become integrated into the first and second-world international trade system. It discusses the international financial institutions, the newly industrializing economies, market economic policies vs. state controlled economies, trade liberalization, trade policy decisions, and global economics and trade. I found this book to be much better than Thomas Friedman's The Lexis and the Olive Tree (which was also excellent). Although, I would also recommend that students of globalization should also read The Lexis and the Olive Tree and all of Thomas L. Friedman's books.
   
   There was a PBS series of the same name (Commanding Heights) that was based on this book. The PBS series is good, but it is not as good as the book. If you like The Commanding Heights book, you will also like Daniel Yergin's previous book called The Prize which is a history of the oil industry. The Prize is also excellent. It is the definitive history of the oil industry. In fact, I believe it is better than Command Heights. Although both books are excellent. The PBS series or special on the oil industry which was based on the book The Prize was excellent, but again it was not as good as the book.



5. A book from Dr. L's class that help to shape my belief in freedom in the marketplace. A very good historical overview of the economics of the middle and late 20th Century. There are wonderful historical explanations of the rise of socialism in the west and communism in the east as well as the two grand economic schools in the west which were the products of Keynes and Hayek.

5 comments about Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and StickYou with the Bill).

1. When writing a book about problems in economic policy, the author of such a book should pick an objective. Some authors have an objective of educating the public by pointing out policies or unintended consequences of policies that the public might not be aware of. An educational piece should cite statutes and sources of information and statistics MUCH more thoroughly than this book. This book presented a terribly disorganized one-sided story of the facts.
   
   Usually, the second objective of a book of this type is to propose solutions. This book contained a chapter called "What to Do?" roughly 6 pages long, 4 of those pages were just more ranting to make people upset; the last 2 pages of "solutions" were no solutions at all. I was not impressed with the book.
   
   He had a good intent - to bring to light all the injustice involved with "welfare for billionaires." However, his message is lost with too many words, poorly cited research, and claims that are partially true, but deceiving in that they are presented out of context.



2. This an excellent book. Some of the things that it brought out I suspected ,but for the most part I could not have amagined that the tax system was so badly rigged. This is a must read for anyone who want to understand why there is such a great gap in the wealth of the haves and the have nots.



3. Free Lunch is full of documentation and examples that show how the very wealthiest politicians, corporations,and other individuals have milked US tax payers by using and abusing US Law, using subsidies for great profit. Sam Walton, George W., Enron, and many others are cited for a great fleecing of America. Through intimidation and finagling, The wealthiest have enriched themselves.
   
   I ask: How long will American taxpayers put of with this abuse and misuse of our tax dollars? Does anyone in America even have a conscience? Who will stand up for what is right? Who will demand what is right and just?
   
   Like many jobless people: I don't want a bailout, I just need work. And even if I did get a bailout, I wouldn't party with it.
   What is wrong with people? How can they be so very selfish and ruin America with their greed and lack of principles?
   The wealthiest don't get it. How much do they even contribute to charities to help others? How do they sleep at night, knowing that their greed has contributed to the economic downturn?



4. Get this book: it will make you wonder why the middle class receives so little individual welfare with no apologies to the rich.



5. 1. The stock market has replaced the local bank as the place where people keep their savings.
   2. In 2007, seventy percent of Americans own their homes with a mortgage payment with a potential collective worth $20 trillion.
   3. In 2005, the 300,000 individuals comprise the top 1 percent had nearly as much income as the 150 million lower income individuals.
   4. Bandon Dunes golf course, historically, benefited from subsidized air travel from the Department of Transportation. Bandon Dunes is the Hampton, of the West Coast.
   5. Where ever, the world has civilized rules based on some moral or practical principle one can see prosperity and freedom, though not always together.
   6. For more than a quarter century the government has been adopting rules that tilt the playing field in favor of the rich, the powerful, and the politically connected.
   7. In 2001, Steve Jobs was alleged too have received 7.5 million share options at a board of directors meeting that never took place. "7.5 million-option grant to him in 2001 had been backdated by two months--and that company records were falsified to create the impression that a special board meeting had taken place to approve the grant when no such meeting had ever actually occurred." The back dating is illegal and implies falsified documentation and causing government governance to raise red flags. Backdating is picking a date in the past, when a stock's value was lower, and assign an exercise price of the option. Backdating affects the reportable amounts in terms of earnings to the investors.
   8. Wal-mart and target and a host of lesser-known retailers receive city taxpayer subsidies when they open new stores
   9. Buffett's firm has a two-thirds-billion-dollar, interest-free loan from our government
   10. Shanghai is expected to have 5,000 skyscrappers twice the number built in New York city. China is a magnetic pull. Magnequench, a pioneer in Neodymium iron boron magnets. "In 1995, Beijing San Huan New Material High-Tech Inc. and China National Non-Ferrous Metals Import & Export Corporation partnered with investment firm the Sextant Group Inc. to acquire Magnequench." The result is that China now possesses the largest production capacity for Neodymium iron Boron powder. The technology is being used in military smart weapons and brushless magnetic motors used by Toyota, Honda, and Nissan. Complaints on the sale of Magnequench were made in the US because of the military application for the magnets.
   11. 85 percent of the planet's known stores of neodymium are in China.
   12. Chinese Corporate income tax trends towards taxes owed to US will going down. The first reason is that American business profits earned overseas are not taxed so long as the money stays offshore. Second, the US allows American companies to reduce taxes on profits by the amount they pay to foreign governments, a dollar for dollar credit. US tax credit originated with the oil industry. Corporate income taxes paid in China are often used to benefit the company that pays. Taxes may finance a new road or railroad spur or police presence and other services the company requires.
   13. A company with operations in the US and another country can borrow money at home, deduct the interest and lower it taxes.
   14. Company that moves its factory to China will not have worry about unions and union rules. China ignores rules it finds inconvenient. Pirated movies and music are openly sold on the streets of China; forced labor abounds; government controlled unions are allowed; toxins pour into Chinese rivers; toxic ingredients have been found in food, toys, and toothpaste imported from China. In 2006, the trade balance with China reached $232 billion.
   15. In 2006, the US imported $136 billion more from Canada and Mexico than we sold to them and imported a third of our oil. China, Japan, Canada, and Mexico accounted for 60 percent of our worldwide trade deficit of $764 billion.
   16. Moving a 1,000 jobs to China adds $72 million to the company's annual profits. A company can not raise prices enough for the same volume of production to increase profits by $72 million if it stays in America.
   17. Alan Binder states, in the next decade or two, as many as 40 million US job will be at risk of moving overseas. In 2007, there were 147 million civilian jobs with fewer than 7 million unemployed and another 4 million, no longer drawing unemployment. The loss of 40 million jobs would be an economic catastrophe. Binder says, "the balance is shifting against us." Services in medical, legal, information, and accounting are moving overseas. X-Rays being read offshore by technicians, remote robot surgeries, and remote tele operation. Binder suggest spending more money on job retraining, make health care available to all, and improving protection of pensions. In a future where tens of millions of job migrate offshore, who will pay for the economic band-aids?
   18. Warren Buffet calculates, America is selling close to 2 percent of its wealth each year to sustain our appetite for imported oil and cheap manufactured goods.
   19. Mattera has discovered Wal-Mart subsidies total $1 billion. Subsidies give Wal-Mart against other competitive retailers that do not receive a subsidy and not politically connected. In the past decade, Wal-Mart has collect $52 billion in sales tax from customers and paid a small fee for processing the money. Over the last decade, Wal-Mart paid $4 billion in local property taxes, 25 cents for every 100 dollars revenue. Walmarts revenue for ten years totaled more than $1.6 trillion. The company paid $192 million in income and unemployment taxes to local governments. Income and jobless taxes amount to a penny for each $100 revenue. In 2006, Wal-Mart tool in $348 billion in sales.

5 comments about Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence.

1. Gusher of Lies gives a cogent convincing rebuttal to the idea that America should be energy independent.
   
   Robert Bryce is a journalist and author who has been writing about energy issues for awhile. He is thoroughly knowledgeable about the topic and explains the issues clearly.
   
   Gusher of Lies starts with three chapters describing the idea of energy independence in American politics. This sections is a good summary of the politics and press behind the idea.
   
   In part two Bryce gives an overview of energy markets over the past thirty years. I found a lot of new information in this section, and good explanations of a complex subject.
   
   Part three covers in detail why the idea of American energy independence is so flawed. There is a lot of data in this section, and it is presented well. This is obviously an area of strong interest to Bryce. I found the arguments through and convincing.
   
   Part four is were Bryce explains how interdependent we really are, and offers some advice on what we should do. This section is fairly weak. He made the crux of this argument throughout the book, and this sections devolves into show and tell. He describes his visit to Saudi Arabia and Dubai. There was little new in this section. The last two chapters offer some advice about what to do. They mostly seem to say stay the course.
   
   Gusher of Lies is well written thoroughly researched book on an important topic. I learned a lot from reading it. The author is strongest in parts two and three were he leans most heavily on real data. His proscriptive section is weak, in my view.



2. What I love about Gusher of Lies is that it's highly entertaining, educational and subversive, and it will appeal to readers across the political spectrum.
   
   I think so highly of the book that I have the hope -- perhaps naive hope -- that it will open the eyes of voters who have been subjected to the campaign rhetoric of energy independence. You don't have to consider yourself on the left or the right to enjoy Bryce's dissection of those "energy independence" claims.
   
   I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the ethanol scam, and if you don't think it is a scam, just check out the evidence.
   
   Broadly speaking, this is a one-of-a-kind book on the realpolitik of energy.



3. As someone that's been in the energy business for 34 years I am happy to say that this is the best overall book on the energy business I have ever read. The ample supply of cold, hard facts as opposed to rhetoric makes it vastly different from most books that delve into the realms of alternatives to an oil based energy system. I would like to have seen a little more discussion of natural gas and the ongoing development of tight gas plays coupled with the possibilities of Gas to Liquids technology which is superior in many ways to Coal to Liquids.
   
   Having said all that, I found the author way too sanguine about the terrorist threat; and naive concerning the drivers for and intent of Islamic terrorism. The continual "neocon" bashing seemed to serve little purpose other than making the book more palatable to his liberal readers. To be fair he did spend a little time taking liberals to task on the nonsense they spout on energy but it was somewhat cursory compared to going after conservatives which seemed to be much more in his comfort zone. Some of his sources on the more political issues such as "All the Shah's Men" by Stephen Kinzer are more than a little dubious and certainly not objective.
   
   The energy stuff would rate five stars or more if that were possible. Too bad he had to salt the broth with liberal talking points related to the political issues. Even so this book is highly recommeded for anyone that wishes to become knowledgeable on the energy business.



4. This is a great book. "Gusher of Lies" goes too far. As does "Dangerous Delusions." Robert Bryce does not make a case for lots of lying and delusional behavior by proponents of energy independence. The title of the book is hyperbole.
   
   But Bryce does make a case for working on energy "inter"dependence, rather than "in"dependence. Energy issues are hard to handle. Nothing simple about them. Bryce takes the time to look at them carefully. He writes well, and supports his case with facts and argument.
   
   Hyperbole aside, Bryce makes a very persuasive case that we will be better off if we strengthen our energy connections with all other countries around the globe. Not try to wall ourselves off with energy independence.
   
   But critics of this book are right on one point -- you will not get a fair view from this book of the case for the other side. Bryce does what he implies in the title of the book. He treats those who support energy independence as lying and delusional. For Bryce, if you do not agree with him, you are wrong. Period.
   
   That focus on the one side did not bother me. This book is like a buffet with a limited selection. I supped on the facts, and spurned the opinion. That gave me a hearty meal. I enjoyed Bryce's writing style. His organization was particularly well done. I have read many books and articles on this subject, but Bryce presented facts and arguments that I had not seen before.
   
   Different people have different tastes. If you do not share Bryce's view on energy independence, and do not like to hear only a view you do not share, you will find little to your taste here. You will go away hungry, perhaps completely empty.
   
   If, on the other hand, you have an open mind on energy independence, give this book a read. You will, I'm pretty sure, come away with as full and satisfying a feeling as I did. Bryce's book is as good a book as I've read for a while, on any subject.
   
   My habit when reading a book is to tear up a piece of paper for bookmarks to put into pages I want to come back to later. The first fifty pages into the book I had already marked most pages. Later pages got less. But that's the first time I can remember marking more than ten pages in a book, let alone fifty. That told me something.
   
   Bryce's book may not appeal to everyone. But it appealed to me. Ignore the hyperbole, and I think you will find a great book.



5. Mr. Bryce's Gusher of Lies is a bracing antidote to the pervasive fantasy of U.S. "energy independence." Touted for over 35 years by any number of people who should know better (including, alarmingly, both of our most recent presidential candidates), the chimera of energy independence has misinformed American domestic and foreign policy and acted as a kind of soothing substitute for reasoned actions on America's undeniable energy problem. Lately, and most perniciously, energy independence has been sold as a natural and necessary step in the country's War on Terror. In his extensively researched and closely reasoned book, Mr. Bryce persuasively shows that achieving energy independence is technically infeasible, economically undesirable and of no particular value to our national security.
   
   In a career in the energy field that has spanned six presidential administrations, I have yet to hear "energy independence" explicitly renounced as a policy goal, and yet the nation has moved steadily in the opposite direction. Mr. Bryce's book will show the open-minded reader why this has happened and why it's time we ceased pursuing a pipe dream in lieu of formulating a rational energy policy.