Customer Reviews

The Price of Prosperity: A Realistic Appraisal of the Future of Our National Economy (Peter L. Bernstein's Finance Classics)

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Writing in the early 1960s, the author basically argues that the federal government should increase taxes significantly in order to be able to employ the coming wave of 20 somethings on the front end of the baby boom. The underlying thesis: people often waste their money on frivolous things - better for Uncle Sam to claim it in order to spend it more wisely by addressing social issues. Frankly, I found the book very disappointing. I expected more from the author of "Against the Gods."

Since there is a constant battle between government officials on how much the government should be involved in fixing the current financial crisis, I wanted to read this book to gain greater understanding of how the government's involvement can help the unemployment situation. There is really no question that the unemployment level is making our economy suffer.

In this book, the author says that output and employment doesn't improve because people are looking for jobs. If they did, there would be no poverty and no unemployment. The answer lies in demand. Unless demand improves, unemployment will stay high. When private demand is falling short, government spending can be used to fill the gap, decrease unemployment, and therefore, stimulate the economy.

This is a short book, but I really enjoyed it. It allows readers to understand more what is happening with the government policies designed to fight the current economic crisis.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

Bersteins "Against The Gods" was a well written summary of the history of risk, then migrated to current relevancy of risk management thorugh probability and statistics. However, I found this book to be a promotion of name, a perspective of liberal economic philosophy, wordy, and to me presents a biased opinion. I would not recommend this book, but suggesten enrolling in a few hours of economics at a local university.