Customer Reviews

Money: Who Has How Much and Why

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In "Money: Who has how much and why", Andrew Hackermakes a decent attempt to illustrate the changes in the American economic profile. He uncovers some interesting and surprising facts from time to time and he provides the reader with more than enough statistics for one book.

The main focus of "Money" is the economic trends of the past twenty to thirty years. Hacker points out some of the important changes that have taken place and he is careful to emphasize that while these trends are a step in the right direction, there is still much room for improvement. Examples would include the overall increase in pay for women, the movement of women into non-traditional, higher paying jobs, and the upward mobility of blacks into higher social classes.

There are several other areas where the economic trends have not been necessarily favorable. The most obvious is the growing income inequality between rich and poor. While this is usually viewed in a negative light by most people, Hacker does not say much about the possible consequences relating to the income inequality gap or what can be done to stop this trend. He merely states that these financial inequalities are a fact of life, a direct result of the capitalistic system.

With subjects as diverse as economic trends, causes, predictions, etc., this book could have easily been double, perhaps triple, in length. Hacker provides a quick overview with lots of economic statistics in a relatively short amount of space.

As a former student of Professor Hacker, I've developed much respect for the man. While that certainly biases my opinion of his books (as I do view him as the God of Political Science), I know that I will always be getting a fresh perspective as I've never known anyone who could "cut the crap" better than Professor Hacker.

One of the most important lessons I learned from him is to always read between the lines; so that we may learn to think beyond the 68% norm. While Dr. Hacker could certainly fill hundreds of more pages with his insightful comments and statistical analyses, he knows that in between the lines, there is a whole other book yet to be created by the reader. I regret not having learned that until after he had already given me my final grade.

Andrew Hacker's Money is a great look at who has the money in America and how they got it. He talks in great detail about how the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. I was astounded to read that in 1997 there were 137 individuals who claimed over $1 billion in income. Almost 70,000 tax returns claimed an income of at least $1 million. There are far more rich people out there than I thought and it leads me to believe that if they can do it, so can I.

A mack daddy of statistical research analysis, the author pulls off another grand compilation of information relating to the title. The fun part about reading his stuff is that the stats are easy for everyone to see and relate, in otherwords its very simple...and he throws in tidbits of information that you won't be able to catch if you read too fast...for example for every $1000.00 the descendents of the puritans make the descendents of the ex-enslaved make $700.00, which means that they are making approximately three quarters of what they were approximately said to be worth almost two hundred and fifty years ago. whew, some stat...

Long on statistics, short on insight., August 29, 1999

Rather dry. Not very much that you couldn't figure out by yourself; not
much original insight. The author uses statistics throughout to the
point that it almost becomes meaningless. Anyone with the most limited
experience with statistics knows that you can make them say just about
anything you want.
What I had hoped for was some insight into why there is so much
economic disparity in this country and what we can, or should, do about
it. Instead the author gave more of a status quo, "we are here,"
appoach.

The last chapter was maybe the most insteresting. It focused on the
economic changes in the US since WW2. It is anybody's guess what the
future will bring, but it seems like it will continue as it is now
until there is some big crash or other disaster.

I am disappointed to have bought this book. More judgmental than analytical, the author clearly has an agenda and presents many one-sided arguments in support of it, resulting in numerous rhetorical fouls (e.g. completely ignoring the important distinction between statistical correlation and causation) in addition to complete dismissal of basic economic tenets.

The statistics presented are quite unidimensional and are given with opinion frequently presented as fact. After conventional attacks on the very real problems of CEO salary levels and increasing gaps between our nation's very rich and very poor, the book takes a turn for the surreal. To whit, while questioning salary differentiation between different types of medical specialists: "While we allow ourselves to be entranced by the mysteries of medicine, none of us really knows whether orthopedic surgery is any more complicated than overhauling a transmission. We know that police officers deliver babies with no ill effects, and on at least one occasion, a submarine corpsman has performed a successful appendectomy. Much of medicine now depends on high-tech equipment, which most of us wouldn't know how to plug in. As it happens, doctors are just as baffled by it."

The author offers this passage and many like it without trace of irony, satire, or devil's advocacy. If you are the type to argue that we will run out of a natural commodity in XX years by linearly projecting today's consumption rate into the future while ignoring the impact of increasing scarcity on prices and economic viability of substitutions (and therefore decreased demand levels and consumption rates), then this book is for you.