Customer Reviews

The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century

5 star:		(118)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(47)

 

 

Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add comment and links.

New Comment: the author was ahead of his time. See new links below.

The book is worth buying for the Preface and Introduction alone. The rest of the book is a somewhat irritating replay of every column the author has ever written, and not nearly as well done or as riveting as, say, Tom Friedman's replays in "Longitudes & Attitudes". However, if you have not read the author's columns, his bite-size descriptions of irrational exuberance, crony capitalism, the failure of the Federal Reserve, fuzzy math, how markets go bad, and global spoilage, then they are all certainly worth browsing.

The Preface has three core ideas: 1) the elites are ruling badly and not beneficially for the majority of the population including all the voters and most of the stockholders; 2) politicians and corporation chiefs are getting away with blatant lies to the public because of a media that avoids critical inquiry; and 3) open sources of information--all that lies in the public domain--are more than adequate for anyone to get a grip on reality.

The Introduction is a bit scarier and more pointed. The author joins Mark Hertsgaard, author of The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World in suggesting that the radical right is creating nothing less than a Reichstag in America. In the author's view, and he quotes Kissinger in chilling terms, the radical right is a revolutionary power that is very deliberately and with malice at all times, rejecting and undermining the democratic rules of the game. In the author's words, the radical right is "a movement whose leaders do not accept the legitimacy of our current political system." The author goes so far as to suggest that the radical right considers elections as "only a formality" and that they will do anything--including subversion of the Constitution--to "win" those elections and reap the domestic and foreign "looting rights."

Disclosure: I used to be a conservative Republican and used to think such ideas were simply over the top. I have been radicalized by the last 200 books I have read (and reviewed on Amazon) and I have to say, while the third of the nation that is close-minded and ideologically-blindered on the right may give the author short shrift, the other two thirds--the drop-outs and splinter parties, and the failing Democrats--they should take Krugman very seriously. He is an economist, teaching at Princeton, not a journalist nor a sensationalist, and in my view, when one combines his book with that of Clyde Prestowitz, a Presbyterian elder and solid Reagan Republican and fiscal conservative (Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions), with that of William Greider, writing on the immorality and social costs of capitalism as we practice it today (The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy), one can only conclude that the Republic, and that for which it stands, have been hijacked, are being looted, and the American Democratic experiment is on very thin ice.

The index to this book is helpful in running down specific individuals, corporation, and organizations that have committed crimes against the Nation that the author has addressed in his many columns for the New York Times, as repeated in this book.

See also:
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism: How the Financial System Underminded Social Ideals, Damaged Trust in the Markets, Robbed Investors of Trillions - and What to Do About It
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win It Back
Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed Are Tearing America Apart

It is a shame that Krugman, a first rate economist, MIT grad, and award winning professor at Princeton will be excorciated by the right as shrill and hackneyed. He is none of those things, nor is his book. The book is an investigation of the economic collapse of America since 2000. It is a 'liberal' book only so far as Krugman can point to the policies of the adminstration which have gotten the US to the point of economic collapse. And he wield numbers mightily. It is his own homework, his own number crunching, his own math based on the economy that leads him to his conclusions. The book does not rely on his opinions of the people that he likes and does not like, so it's difficult to compare it to a Coulter or Franken book.

The book is important and outstanding. It should be required reading for every one of the 3,000,000 Americans who has lost a job in the past three years. It is an argument against supply side economics and deficit spending of the best calibre.

Krugman is a godsend. As a Princeton economist, he has the training, the time, and most importantly, the job security to take on the huge job of analyzing the Bush administration's policies and exposing them for what they are. The corporate-owned mainstream press must bow to many masters, including popular opinion, and must placate the administration officials they cover for fear of losing the most precious thing in news: access. Krugman has the luxury (if that word applies to the daunting task he's taken on) of assiduously digesting the Bush camp's proposals and actions, including complicated economic plans that most of us have neither the training nor the time to study in detail, and point out in clear language how they differ not only from many of the administration's own statements but from what most people (i.e., the majority of us who aren't millionaires) want out of our government. I've been reading his Times columns faithfully, and find that they have done some of the best work widely available of demonstrating factually just how socially retrograde and economically dangerous the Bush policies are. He details the frightening arrogance and irresponsibility of those at the top of this government, facts that are only now beginning to be brought to the attention of the general public. If you're now surprised by the titanic budget deficit and what it has done and will do to the economy, the huge mess in Iraq--including the deceits that got us involved there in the first place--and the White House's cluelessness in dealing with it, the jobless 'recovery,' critical cuts in basic social services like schools, police and fire houses, health care and more, and revelations about continuing domestic security vulnerabilities, well, none of this is news to Krugman readers. Simply put, he's one of the best.

This is the book we've been waiting for! Unlike most other books in the genre, The Great Unraveling is smart and informed, it avoids selectively choosing facts that artificially make the author's points seem clearer than they are, and it does not rely on comedy as a substitute for insight and intelligence.

Bravo to author, columnist and economist Paul Krugman for creating the first political book I've seen this season that is at once honest enough, well researched enough, and also well written enough that it can target an audience that stretches far beyond the usual policy wonks and think tankers. Mr. Krugman somehow manages to be angry and sensible at the same time, no easy trick.

Yes, of course, the author has an agenda. But anyone who thinks it is a simple "get-Bush" agenda is looking at it too simply. In this book Mr. Krugman looks at policy with an extremely critical but fair eye -- exactly what the fourth estate is supposed to be doing. Thank goodness someone is still doing his job.

I have been a reader of Mr. Krugman's columns in the International Herald-Tribune for some time, and so I had read many of the "chapters" before they appeared in The Great Unraveling. But there is a great value to having all of these pieces in one place. And those who do not read Mr. Krugman's thoughts on a regular basis will find it hard to believe these writings were not written with the intention of forming a logical and cogent argument as they do on the book's 300-plus pages.

I have always thought that Mr. Krugman's strength is his ability as a writer to make complex arguments understandable without cheapening them, but what I like best about his work is that he uses his writing skill in a supporting role, letting the facts tell the true tale.

My complaint? I would have liked to see more new and longer commentary here. There is some, but one of the shortcomings to Mr. Krugman's normal forum in the New York Times is that he is limited to 500 or 750 words to make important points regarding issues as complex as the nation's budgetary problems, the justification for the war in Iraq, and corporate blunders. But I see no reason for such a limit here.

Academic economists are by their nature non-partisan (they would not survive professionally otherwise), which is why it is so telling to see a serious economist like Krugman writing what amounts to a diatribe over the Bush administration's policies. Careful reading will reveal that what makes Krugman so upset are not the Bush administration's particular stands (e.g. tax cuts over deficit reduction, privatizing social security, subsidizing the energy industry, selling off national forests, etc.) but rather that, instead of openly declaring their intentions and engaging the public in an honest policy debate over priorities, they consistently "mislead" the American public about the goals and effects of their policies. My colleagues in government - even the conservatives - lament that while Clinton allowed economic analysis to guide his policy choices, the Bush Administration employs their economists largely to concoct justifications for their policies, and have little interest in any actual policy debate.

Krugman, by highlighting the impact of the Administration policies is not "left-wing" (in fact, far from it). He would be the first to admit that properly-designed tax cuts can be used to stimulate the economy or to promote incentives to save and invest. He simply points out that the Bush Administration's policies claim to do things they are not designed to do, and that while eliminating taxes on capital income may increase America's low saving rates, they are unlikely to boost consumer spending (as claimed) and overwhelmingly benefit the super-rich. Whether such a policy is "good" or "bad" is an individual voter's choice - but voters cannot make those decisions for themselves if the Administration doesn't present the choices honestly. In effect, the Bush administration is promising a free lunch where one does not exist.

A glance over other reviews of this book is both illuminating and depressing: it reveals that those, like me, who recommend the book do so because it redresses a terrible gap in current public debate, making arguments based on facts rather than knee-jerk opinions and/or political spin, whle those who give it one-star do so based on Karl Rovian-style attacks that the author once received a check from Enron for consulting services. (Huh!?? And how much have the President and his handlers received from Enron??)

The bottom line: You may not agree with everything Krugman has to say, but if you are seriously interested in public debate over the future of the country and the economy, this book is a must read. Yes the author is vitriolic and a tad arrogant, but he has good reason for both of those characteristics. If, on the other hand, you're content to ignore honest, informed discussions in favor of suckling at the teet of the latest RNC talking points, who cares what you think anyway...?

First, who cares if these are reprints from the New York Times? This is the first time I've encountered Krugman's work, and I was certainly not put off by the knowledge that these had appeared in print elsewhere - nor does this fact, of multiple publications, affect the economic analyses contained in the articles, which is surely more important than the circumstances of publication surrounding it.
In any case, reading these (for the first time) was not eye-opening but relieving - that intelligent, numerically-informed economists actually are paying attention to the latest rounds of policy decisions in Washington and Wall Street. Krugman finally says what more than half of the US - if you believe opinion polls - has been hoping someone would say, which is that the emperor has no clothes, and Bush's economic policies are based purely on murky ideologies and not at all on rational future-planning. Why paying taxes is considered worse than having no public universities, no public healthcare, even no sidewalks, is beyond me. Taxes, really, aren't that bad - they buy you quality of life, community, and allow for an institutionalization of generosity in the modern governmental state. I have no problem with paying taxes. That said, the brink of ruin upon which our economy seems to be teetering is an engineered brink; we have been put there, deliberately, it seems, by irresponsible policies about which no one seems to have a clear end-view.
I strongly recommend this book. It's literally of no relevance to the book's content if these essays have been published elsewhere, in a newspaper I, for one, do not even read. If you've already read the essays - don't buy it. But if you have a problem with the direction our country is moving in - ie. toward toward total collapse - buy this soon and read it quickly.

...

The Introduction in particular is a must-read. Krugman makes the case that America is under attack from within. Right-wing extremists have hijacked America, and these people will go to any length to expand their power and remake America to their liking. Unfortunately, "their liking" is a pretty dismal place -- think Brazil without the samba.

Most of the book is a collection of Krugman's best NY Times colummns over the past three years. He has a rare talent for making economics easy to understand and even interesting. More important, Krugman shows us where America is likely to head if we stay on the present course.

Trust me; you don't want to go there.

If I had time I would refute the ridiculous lies and distortions in the multitude of one-star reviews below mine, strangely enough mostly from New York. Just to start, the excellent NY Times Magazine article Mr. Krugman wrote recently was NOT an excerpt from this book but a long, beautifully reasoned examination of the devastating impact of Mr. Bush's previous and upcoming tax cuts. Other comments are rife with mistakes as well, but they were obviously placed on this forum to keep the American taxpayer and voter from knowing the truth. If many of them weren't out looking for the 2.6 million jobs that have been lost since Mr. Bush's last tax cut, perhaps they would have time to write their own comments about the broken promises of the president and his cabinet ministers. Mr. Krugman tells the truth based on the depressing data of the administration itself. His critics have sadly forgotten what that looks like.

Are you ever puzzled by the fact that the Bush Administration seems to say one thing and then do another? Well this book explains the Bush Presidency not by what it says but by the consequences of what it does. Mr. Krugman's book will be attacked on this forum by all the right wing pundits, disclosed or undisclosed, who now write book reviews on Amazon for the purpose of dissuading the public from reading meaningful books or books that run counter to their own views. Read this book, think and be enlightened.

This book didn't start as a book but as columns Mr. Krugman, who teaches economics at Princeton, wrote mostly for the Op-Ed page of the N.Y. Times from 2000 to 2003. Therefore he had the benefit of a great deal of feed back from counter columns on the same page and elsewhere. His accumulated writings were then organized in topics and published in this book. His statements and concerns were tested in the public arena long before they became a book. If he were just attacking the Administration on trivial grounds or for minor compromises made to gain some larger political concession for the common good he would have been booed off the stage long ago. He was not and the reason is two fold, one, he is a gifted writer able to take complicated economic matters and political situations and make them lucid and readable and two, as an educator he has no stake to protect except that of a concerned citizen.

Why would Mr. Bush want tax cuts that send us in to mounting deficits? I always thought compassionate conservatives were against deficit spending. Well the unstated reason differs from the stated reasons of tax relief, economic stimulus, supply side capital formation for investment etc. The real reason is that the present administration wants to starve what they perceive as big, unnecessary government into small government. Something like we had in the nineteenth century. You remember the nineteenth century don't you with its unrestrained capitalism leading to the exploitation of the public and the rape of our natural resources, the sale of tainted food products, the exploitation of labor, the amassing of great wealth by a few while average families struggled to make ends meet on six day weeks with ten hour days etc. Male life expectancy then was around forty and widows with small children were common. Also you remember the Spanish American War. A war historians are still trying to explain. Was it to free Cuba, to acquire the Philippines as a colony, to make Puerto Rico a state or just to make the world safe from the despotic rule of Spain? Does this sound like Iraq?

Mr. Krugman examines the Administrations actions and points out with logic and with factual examples the following:
The compassionate conservatives are really radical conservatives, who wish the following:
1.To shrink government by tax cuts to the size it was in the administration of Herbert Hoover.
2.To bankrupt Social Security by using the SS security trust, meant for the Baby Boomers, to pay for other programs with budget deficits because of the draconian tax cuts that benefit mainly the top two percent of taxpayers.
3. To, shrink the SEC, Labor Department, Health Education and Welfare Departments and any other perceived department or bureau charged with the protection of the public (except the military with whom these people do a lot of business) so that it has a budget so small to make it meaningless. This is especially true of any environmental protection programs that might be bothersome to the friends of the Administration.
4. To regress foreign policy back to at least the McKinley Administration.
5. To limit taxes to the income earned by ones labor.
6.To eliminate taxes on income from capital.
7.To eliminate inheritance taxes.
7. To provide as much corporate welfare as possible at the expense of the wage earning citizenry.
8. To make economic and social opportunities dependent on ones connections rather than abilities.

These actions resemble the aims of those who wish to establish a plutocracy based on inherited wealth just in case such an aristocracy is not already in place.

Does all this sound way out there? Consider that in 1983 Senator Pat Moynihan, Alan Greenspahn and others on a committee to reform Social Security recognized that the baby boom generation created a huge bubble in the population. Social Security is set up so each generation pays for the preceding generations Social Security through payroll taxes. Since there would be less people working after the baby boom generation retired adjustments were made. A two percent increase in payroll taxes was enacted to be held in trust until it was needed to pay for the baby boomers Social Security. Well Bush has "borrowed" the trust money issuing treasury bonds as security. So thirty percent of every payroll tax dollar is going into the general fund. Something like one trillion dollars has been borrowed. This method of borrowing keeps interest rates down now because the government is not competing for private capital to finance the deficit, but the debt will have to be paid by future generations and since taxes have been cut to mainly benefit the top two percent of taxpayers the burden will fall on the middle class. Also payroll taxes are a very regressive tax falling mainly on the poorest segment of society and take money out of the hands of those most likely to spend it on consumer goods so in effect the cost of financing the government is falling on those least able to do so in a way most damaging to the economy.

This book tells us to stop listening to buzz words like, compassionate conservative, no child left behind etc and look to the actions of the Bush administration for the truth.

Since Bush took office the gap between rich and poor is steadily widening. Wondering why? Mr. Krugman explains the reasons for this. Do wonder if your children will have decent jobs or if you are a baby boomer, will you have a secure retirement? After you read this book you will know the reasons for your concern. When you finish this book then read Robert Rubin's, In An Uncertain World, for a further discussion of responsible fiscal and monetary policies. Edsopinion.hopto.org.

Krugman exposes the Talibanization of American politics by the ultra right wing money-chasers who occupy the white house presently. Some of the right wing reviewers have obviously put a negative spin on Krugman's book, so I will just take one of them and unspin it for you. One of these reviewers makes four points as follows. Let me take them one at a time.

The reviewer says, quote,
"1. Krugman argues that the series of Bush tax cuts decimated the 'Clinton Surplus', and sparked the 2000-2003 recession. But the recession started in the last quarter of 2000, well before Bush was inaugurated. Similarly, the stock market began to plunge in March of 2000."

Yes, that is true, but what exactly did Bush do to deal with the recession. The credit goes all to Alan Greenspan who with a series of (about a dozen )rate cuts spurred home buying and investment, like never before in the history of FOMC. Bush had many options including a tax cut for middle class (but Bush gave most of it to the top 1% rich, who are least likely to "increase" spending), short term stimulus (but Bush gave a long term stimulus through tax cuts to rich that will become effective years from now), and stimulus through aid to majority of the states in deficit (but Bush chose spending those hundreds of billions in Iraq instead, a war that will create more terrorism instead of curing it).

The reviwer goes on, quote.
"2) Krugman is nominally a Keynesian, but only if a Democrat is in the White House. Keynesian theory argues that in a recession, loose monetary policy is called for---cut taxes and spend like crazy. Yet in the face of a recession made worse by the 9/11 attacks, Krugman would have the President's economic team *raise* taxes and *cut* spending, a recipe that would have curtailed investment and tightened the money supply. In other words, Krugman criticizes Bush for doing the very things that a good Keynsian (the Keynesian Krugman used to be) would do to stave off a recession."

The reviewer reveals his ignorance - he is talking about FISCAL POLICY, but calls it monetary policy. Monetary policy is doing just fine in the hands of Alan Greenspan. Regarding fiscal policy, lets be clear that Krugman has never opposed short term stimulus consistent with Keynesian economics. But what Bush is giving is LONG TERM stimulus to his rich buddies - a recepie not called for right now. Also, see the comment above for the right appraoch to shorter term fiscal stimulus.

The reviewer continues, quote,
"3) Krugman blasts the Bush Administration for currying favor with big business---like Enron---by pushing for business-friendly loopholes. He's right to call for corporate governance reform, but it's hard to take his tirade on Bush's Enron connection seriously, given that in 1998 he was a paid Enron consultant (taking in more than USD 50,000 per year from the firm) and a member of Enron's Outside Advisory Board of Directors. Moreover, contrary to Krugman's analysis, for all Enron's political donations, the Bush White House did nothing to save the firm."

Krugman was not an "elected politician" who was involved in getting favors (Bush and his buddies were). Enron was a huge company with many sides (energy, derivatives, etc.) and one cannot blame every one of the hundreds of consultants and clients for what Enron's top brass did by getting favors from Bush's team. PLus, Krugman did not continue his consultancy with Enron after 1998. And, why would Bush save this sinking ship anyway? You think Bush would have liked to go down with Enron? Grow up, your arguments border on being silly.

Finally, the reviewer says, quote,
"4) Finally, with year-to-year growth in 2003 projected at 5.7%, unemployment falling (at its worst we flirted with 6%, half that of most Western European countries), profit margins at their highest (13.7%) level since 1997, and stock markets roaring again (as of this writing, the NYSE is up 33% since April and the Nasdaq up 70% since October 2002), it's obvious that Krugman is just whistling in the wind."

The reviewer likes to make up the numbers it seems. The economy is not growing at 5.7% rate - go check your numbers, Mr. reviewer. And, go back to 1929 and see how many bear traps the market went through before it hit bottom. Unemployment is not falling - every indication is that this is a jobless recovery. It is just that discouraged workers who "stop looking for work" do not count in the official calculations of the unemployment rate. You are dreaming - profit margins are not 13.7% on average. Are you talking about margins before interest etc.? Nasdaq is selling at a p/E multiple of more than 50. Watch this bubble pop within a few more months. U.S. stocks are expensive even now, by any historical measure - ask Warren Buffett or Bill Gross, the two all time gurus of stocks and bonds.

The reviewer ends by saying, quote,
"Krugman's book is that most dangerous of works, a disingenuous political broadside masquerading as economics. To those who want to read the book as an inside account of a once fine economist's fall from grace, fine; but to those who want to learn about how the country's economy works, and how government can be used to stave off both inflation and recession, "The Great Unraveling" is worse than useless."

This reviewer confuses monetary policy for fiscal policy - so obviously he has no business of judging one of the finest minds in American economic/political landscape. And who said that Krugman must only write economics - as a columnist he writes as much politics as economics. Bush has not helped at all because he failed miserably in providing the big short term stimulus the economy needed. Instead he wasted the hard earned money on giving tax cuts to his rich buddies (who do not stimulate the economy, because they put that extra money in savings, and not consumption) and on a costly war that has all the potential of becoming a national nightmare sooner or later.