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The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy

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The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy Kindle Edition

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The New York Times Bestseller, with a new afterword

"[Michael Lewis’s] most ambitious and important book." —Joe Klein, New York Times

Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative of the Trump administration’s botched presidential transition takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its leaders through willful ignorance and greed. The government manages a vast array of critical services that keep us safe and underpin our lives from ensuring the safety of our food and drugs and predicting extreme weather events to tracking and locating black market uranium before the terrorists do. The Fifth Risk masterfully and vividly unspools the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works.

Print length

255 pages
Language

English
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W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

October 2, 2018
File size

4176 KB
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Popular Highlights in this book

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There is another way to think of John MacWilliams’s fifth risk: the risk a society runs when it falls into the habit of responding to long-term risks with short-term solutions.
Highlighted by 4,754 Kindle readers
There was a rift in American life that was now coursing through American government. It wasn’t between Democrats and Republicans. It was between the people who were in it for the mission, and the people who were in it for the money.
Highlighted by 4,538 Kindle readers
The only thing any of us can do completely on our own is to have the start of a good idea.
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The fifth risk did not put him at risk of revealing classified information. “Project management,” was all he said.
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From the Publisher

Praise for The Fifth Risk

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Lewis is the best-selling author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short, The Undoing Project, and The Fifth Risk. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and three children. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Review

"[A] page turner.… [Lewis'] most ambitious and important book."
― New York Times Book Review

"Fascinating―and at times harrowing…. Lewis tells an important and timely story, one that all of us who pay for, care about, and want government to work should hear."
― NPR

"A hymn to the 'deep state,' which is revealed as nothing more than people who know what they're talking about."
― Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

"[A] spellbinding, alarming analysis of the most serious threats to Americans’ safety happening now from inside the U.S. government."
― Quartz

"Displaying his usual meticulous research and fluid prose, [Lewis] makes the federal bureaucracy come alive by focusing on a few individuals within each agency with fascinating―and sometimes heartwarming―backstories.…[A] well-written primer on how the government serves citizens in underappreciated ways."
― Kirkus (starred review)

"Illuminating.… It's relevance to readers won't end with the Trump era."
― Publishers Weekly --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07FFCMSCX
Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Illustrated edition (October 2, 2018)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 2, 2018
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4176 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 255 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #47,639 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2 in Public Affairs & Administration (Kindle Store)
- #3 in Commercial Policy
- #6 in Public Affairs & Administration (Books)

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Michael Lewis

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Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of The Undoing Project, Liar's Poker, Flash Boys, Moneyball, The Blind Side, Home Game and The Big Short, among other works, lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Tabitha Soren, and their three children.

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limone

Ignorance is the greatest threat to our country

Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2021

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Michael Lewis is one of my fav authors because I’m a huge fan of data-based decisions and stories about the many brilliant and dedicated heroes that save our lives that we rarely hear about because they don’t seek fame or fortune. This book is, honestly, terrifying. There are departments in the federal government that save our lives now and in the future that many people don’t know about. The department of Energy, for example, is responsible for preventing nuclear disaster - not just from an attack but from an accident or radioactive waste making its way into a waterway (did you know that there is a plant in Washington with deadly radioactive waste that has a bin failure of 68% and still no plan on how to prevent the waste from continuing its slow and steady course towards the Colombia River?). Did you know that in the 60’s a nuclear bomb accidentally fell out of a transport plane over NC and didn’t explode because 1 of the 4 safety devices installed on it held - safety devices studied and implemented by the Dept. of Energy. There are so many threats to the U.S. that require constant vigilance (e.g. keeping track of the movement of uranium) that are managed by departments that are NOT the department of defense. Imagine an unqualified leader being put in place (in 2016) who didn’t understand what these departments did and put people in charge who were unqualified and knew nothing about science/technology or, worse, people who had a financial interest in removing data generated by these departments so they could make money off of the information (like hedging against a climate disaster in TX). And imagine these people took the spots (or spots were left vacant) of civil servants who had dedicated their lives to understanding and creating the science that kept Americans alive unbeknownst to those Americans. Americans at large are reactors, not preventers, and the media adjusts accordingly (covering disasters and not all of the prevented disasters). Like, you might see award ceremonies given to brave coast guard rescuers, but you don’t see award ceremonies for Art Allen who created a computerized model of how to pinpoint the search areas based on multiple data points (saving thousands of lives). Prevention needs to be celebrated. Public servants don’t do it for glory, but they need to start being recognized to bring this awareness and recruit young brain power (our federal knowledge base is retiring).
EVERY president on DAY ONE or being elected sent a team into all federal agencies to learn as much as they could before inauguration (this required many hours, many documents, and many people). Except Trump of course. He sent noone nowhere. Eventually, a month in, he sent one or two unqualified loyalists to meet for one hour and only so the press wouldn’t report that he hadn’t sent anyone. Mounds of knowledge transfer (of CRITICAL agencies) went un-read, and mounds of data (especially about climate change or animal cruelty investigations) disappeared off of Federal websites.
Trump shut down the Federal Government for an entire month in order to get 3 billion for his border wall. In doing so, he created major risk that will last for YEARS because of the 1 month halt in vigilance, in order to address a non-existent threat that he had made real in the minds of his followers.
Many of the most dedicated civil servants are first generation Americans. They have come from places with non-functioning governments and appreciate in a keen way the way the U.S. government has allowed for them to climb the ladder to success, and they want to repay the favor.
People don’t realize all the ways the government helps them. The U.S. government funds risky research where the benefits are HUGE but no bank would take the risk. These research programs funded life-changing inventions like the internet or the Kevlar vest for the military. They are also essential going forward for surviving climate change. Yet, Trump’s initial budget cut out the programs entirely. There are entire states (ironically, red) that would not survive without small business loans. Many/all recipients do not even realize these loans are made possible by the Federal government because it appears their local bank is issuing them (the government needs to market themselves better!)
My take-away from this book is that the federal government needs to do a better job of marketing itself. it’s important that the general public knows what it does for them, so they understand the risk of voting for someone that doesn’t understand it or understands how he can undermine it to make money for himself or achieve short-term gain at the expense of our children. There are definitely areas for improvement in Federal Agencies (and the quest for improvement should always exist). The media (especially right wing media) is always going to cherry-pick the failures and not say anything about the other hundreds of ways the U.S. government saves people every day.
And then the question about what to do about propaganda news that is ruining our country. It gets people all hyped up about inconsequential things (e.g. critical race theory being taught in law schools) and not about about the REAL and VERY SCARY risks - risks that are being held back as best they can by a group of smart, experienced and dedicated civil servants that haven’t yet been defunded by the U.S. government.

35 people found this helpful

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Ted Lehmann

Government from the inside in the Time of Trump

Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2019

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Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis (W.W. Norton, October 2018, 221 pg., $26.95, $10.58) shows in example after example how willfully ignorant Trump employees in Federal agencies were and are, as well as how much hard work and knowledgeability are required to do a good job within the federal bureaucracy. Lewis introduces the reader to a cast of dedicated professionals who provide necessary information and services to keep America running chosen from three million governments employs and with whom President Donald J. Trump has been at war since his inauguration.

Lewis is a story-teller who takes on interesting topics, spinning stories around them as his highly readable, informative narrative style draws the reader in, eventually capturing completely. He begins by showing us how unprepared and incurious the Trump minions were before introducing us to John MacWilliams, the first risk assessment officer of the Department of Energy. MacWilliams had prepared notebooks full of explanatory data and information about the job of DOE and the risks it oversaw, only to spend a few minutes with, of all people, the clueless Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, who inhabits the position.

Throughout the vast and dedicated bureaucracy, government civil service employees, upon learning that Donald J. Trump had somehow been elected President, swung into action. They prepared voluminous briefing books to prepare members of the new administration to understand and continue doing the jobs that provided crucial information and services to the American people. They expected to be swarmed with these appointees the day after the election….And no one came! When a few new agency heads showed up, they demonstrated a remarkable lack of curiosity about what their jobs entailed. Eighty-nine year old Wilbur Ross thought the Department of Commerce was devoted to business and could never grasp the breadth of services and information it provided. Curiosity and skill were absent. And so information essential to meeting the needs of every day Americans, particulalarly in the rural areas that won the election for Mr. Trump, were hollowed out...neutered and made totally ineffective by a President not interested in governing.

The advantage of Lewis’ style of story-telling lies in his ability to take a general principle of which we’re all aware, in this case the two facts that Trump is sending unqualified hacks to lead the major divisions of the government and that the agencies are being hollowed out, denied money and qualified staff becomes real in his hand. We see directly through the eyes of dedicated employees the importance of many functions we’re not aware exist protect and inform, as well as how cutting off the top and denying funding hollow out the agencies, denying the recipients of their services essential protections and advice that agencies provide. By focusing on the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy, Lewis shows the breadth of their portfolio and the importance of the high quality people working for them. Replacing what Trump has so successfully destroyed, with the canny help of one of America’s most underrated disablers, Mick Mulvaney, will take a generation or more to rebuild once we rid ourselves of their depredations.

The replacement of food scientist Dr. Cathie Wotecki with right wing political hack and talk show host Sam Clovis represents another example of removing expertise from important, but often quietly effective low-profile specialists with political people seeking to achieve political goals. The achievements of Wotecki during her time with FDA at the Department of Agriculture were monumental, and life
saving. Clovis job was to shut down programs and eliminate the words “climate change” from government lexicon.

The role of government in rural America hidden, by being administered through small banks, brings expertise and money into places where neither exists, while being hidden by local interests and their antipathy to what they see as “the government.” Lillian Salerno eventually ran for Congress as a Democrat as she became increasingly aware of the Trump strategy of replacing professionals with political appointees who had no expertise or interest in the areas where her specialization had helped strengthen rural areas. Simply a small example of the larger problem. She lost!

Instead of re-visiting the depredations committed daily on the American people, the Tweeting, whining, self-promoting course of the Trump train wreck, Lewis takes the time to burrow into the inner workings of the crucial agencies and programs operated by the lower level political appointees and civil servants who make the wheels turn. Often, the recipients of government services don’t even know these services are sponsored and paid for by the government. Lewis shows how commitment, expertise, hard work, and dedication have built a system that actually delivers necessary services, improves the national health, protects the environment, and places needed checks on the damage often perpetrated by big money and large corporate interests. The results are a hollowing out of the inner workings of the government, hidden by bluster and mis-direction from the top. There’s no little irony in Lewis’s ending the book with the story of a tornado chaser, who has learned to follow behind storms to avoid being killed by the object of his studies.

Michael Lewis is the author of a series of best-selling books mostly having, at least superficially, to do with sports and/or business (Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, Blindside, The Big Short) which have all been best sellers as illuminating changing aspects of our culture through his wonderful storytelling. Originally from New Orleans, and educated at Princeton and The London School of Economics, Lewis’ is 58 years old, and with Fifth Risk at the top of his game.

In the beginning of Fith Risk by Michael Lewis (W.W. Norton, October 2018, 221 pg., $26.95, $10.58), Lewis chats at length with John Macwilliams, who has identified the five risks facing the government as the Trump administration sets and achieves its chaotic agenda. MacWilliams has identified four risks for Lewis, who finally asks him what the fifth risk is, to which MacWilliams responds, perhaps in a toneless, hopeless voice, “Project management.” This book is highly entertaining as well as “Must Reading!”

15 people found this helpful

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YL

Unusual

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 11, 2023

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Very well written for such an unusual subject matter. Engaging nine the less. I enjoyed it a lot as always

Peter

This was ok but did veer away from Trump halfway

Reviewed in Australia on June 25, 2023

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This book deals with the issue of when a new Government takes over after an election but the new people in charge miss doing certain essential things such as familarising themselves with the best people in each department in the Government.

The book is quite scathing on the Trump administration and, based on what the book says, for good reason. They did not send appropriate people to understand some of the departments they were taking over and appeared to have a scant regard for the normal processes of Government.

I did find the book veered away a bit after the first half when it got a bit tedious and dove too deeply into the minutiae of the departments they were covering. I had thought it would be a book focusing on Trump exclusively.

Overall, it is not a bad book at all, just not as good in the second half as the first.

Vincent Leal

Article conforme aux attentes. Communication avec le vendeur parfaite.

Reviewed in France on July 15, 2022

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Article conforme aux attentes, la commande s'étant visiblement perdue le vendeur a renvoyé un exemplaire rapidement.

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G.C.

More than just Trump

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 6, 2020

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Michael Lewis’ The Fifth Risk is marketed as a Trump presidency book.

The Fifth Risk starts off by telling the story of Chris Christie. How he helped the future Trump administration organise a government in waiting. Christie and the team are let go. Trump was worried about spending money.

Given the revelations about Donald Trump’s finances in the New York Times; I can understand his desire to control cash flow. This goes some way to explaining the problems filling senior government places.

A second thing comes out in the first part of the book; Trump’s instinct to value personal loyalty. Which is fine; but doesn’t scale that well. That meant that people were often unsuitable for the jobs that they were given.

A final trait that came through was a massive root-and-branch concern against climate change.

So Lewis doesn’t say that much about the Trump administration that we didn’t already know. But that is only 30 percent of the book.

What the government does

The remaining 70 percent of the book tells the stories of different departments of the US government. The vital, complex roles that they play. He peels back the complex relationships between the federal government and the states. That interface builds in a lot of waste and inefficiency – to meet state political goals.

Lewis gets experts to explain how welfare payments work and why they’re needed. Or how departments like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Energy benefit the country.

Lewis also covers what motivated some of the government service. TL;DR – from the new deal to the Kennedy administration young Americans felt that they could make a real difference. They felt inspired in a way that probably only clergy or military service personnel feel now.

Finally, touches on risks. The fifth risk that the Department of Energy expert talked about was programme management. This is where the name of the book comes from. How is programme management a risk?

If a department is managed by someone who doesn’t understand the area involved.
Realpolitik – NASA was for years a victim of pork barrel politics and the o-ring failure that happened on the Challenger disaster was a function of it
If an administration takes a short terms, or small government world view.
In praise of Keynesian economics

The examples in the book tear away at the popular narrative around big government. Of inefficiencies and long queues of rapacious welfare queens.

It shows all the things that the government does for the collective good. Things that the market wouldn’t be able to address. It also shows the hucksters involved in the markets. In particular calling out Accuweather’s founders Barry and Joel Myers. That Lewis hasn’t been sued by Myers adds to the veracity of his claims.

This is essentially a criticism of the economic orthodoxy that has governed both of America’s political parties for the past 40 years, since the Carter administration. In this respect, the educated reader would appreciate that it fires a shot across the bow of all parties. From Sanders and Biden to Trump.

Style

I was introduced to Michael Lewis as a writer, when I read Liar’s Poker in college. It is a deeply personal book, full of humour and self examination. In it, he provides the ley reader an insight into the financial services system. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to have much impact as the financial recessions following the dot com boom and the housing crisis proved.

He then wrote a slew of books that owe a good deal to the new journalism style of Tom Wolfe. His writing covered sports, financial crises and politics. Some of the books were very of their time, such as The Future Just Happened, Boomerang and Panic!. Others like Liars Poker, are ageless. A couple of his books were made into films of the same name: Moneyball and The Big Short.

The Fifth Risk still feels like the classic Michael Lewis new journalism style. But it also feels like it has an eye on a documentary adaptation. In this respect he reminds me a lot of Ben Mezrich in term of his cinematic approach to writing.

3 people found this helpful

Rule 62 Ken

The Mission vs. The Money

Reviewed in Canada on October 9, 2018

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Perhaps Michael Lewis's greatest strength as an author is his ability to tell the reader something he or she doesn't know and would never guess. He finds his gems of intellectual curiosities in the most unexpected places, whether it be in sabermetrics, high frequency trading or the most vulnerable spot in a football team's offensive line. In his most recent work, The Fifth Risk, Lewis looks at a number of underappreciated departments and agencies in the United States Federal Government, and the disastrous consequences that might flow from the current administration's inability to appreciate the value of these offices.

The issue Lewis explores is not an ideological one. It is not one of right vs. left, conservatives vs. liberals or Republicans vs. Democrats. Rather, the divergence is between those in government service who are there for some noble purpose that looks out for the greater good, and those in powerful economic positions whose primary concern is self-interest and making as much money as possible. As the author states more succinctly, the struggle is "between the people who are in it for the mission and the people who are in it for the money."

One might think that a book about the inner workings of the Departments of Energy, Agriculture and Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) might be a snoozefest, but this is not the case when the story teller is Michael Lewis. Lewis goes from the macro to the micro as he describes the lives of a number of brilliant civil servants, each devoted to a greater purpose beyond their own career or financial enrichment. He uses their experience and vision to show how the much maligned and underappreciated civil service works to better the lives of many Americans caught in the undertow of the growing gap between rich and poor.

For example, many think of the Department of Agriculture as being concerned only with farms and farmers. But it also oversees the funding of vital programs like food stamps and school lunches, and provides weather and other information which provides information to grow crops optimally. Lewis explores how the Commerce Department may not have enough staff to conduct the 2020 Census properly and how census and other data collected by the government in tremendously valuable in all sorts of scientific advancements. The Commerce Department is also responsible for the NOAA, whose advances in weather tracking have saved the lives of those who live in regions affected by tornadoes and other hostile weather phenomena. Public sharing of that information is now being threatened by those in the private sector who want to make money charging for weather information gathered at taxpayers' expense, rather than making this information freely available, and who have the political connections to make this happen. Lewis notes that since the new administration has taken over, mountains of data previously available to the public on government websites, has been removed and how those in tornado zones and other at-risk regions are now in greater danger because of the influence of private sector weather services having influence with the new government so as to make such information available, but only for a fee.

Many think of the Department of Energy as being only concerned with oil. But as Lewis points out, this is a minor part of that department's responsibility. Government funding from that department, and not private lenders, has financed many of the greatest technological advancements of our generation and has done so profitably. That funding is now at risk and Lewis warns that this may stifle creativity in technological advancement. The Department of Energy also manages international nuclear risk as well as cleanup of nuclear waste at home. Cuts to the department will mean that there will probably not be enough inspectors to track and locate black market uranium before terrorists do, or to head off future problems from past nuclear development, all because private sector interests are demanding less government regulation. Lewis notes an overall effort to purge from government any acknowledgement of the risks of climate change and global warming.

Lewis provides an eye-opening account of the dangers of an inadequate transition of government, as well as from some of the short-sighted and selfishly-motivated policies and appointments made by the Trump administration. This book offers a valuable education about some of the unknown and unappreciated risks that flow from disrespect and contempt for science and data analysis. The author's telling the stories of the lives and passions of individual public servants concerned about these issues puts a human face on the points he is trying to make.

The book's only failing is in its lack of an epilogue or summary to tie these stories together and underscore the warnings that Lewis is giving. In spite of this, The Fifth Risk packs a lot in a concise (219 pages) package. It is told in the author's enjoyable conversational style, like listening to a friend over a cup of coffee. In the process, he makes it clear that there is much to be lost if the trend continues to allow science and information gathering and analysis to be suppressed in favour of the interests of privileged private sector greed.

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