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.
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The new American Way, you pay, Trump profits.
The Fifth Risk – Michael Lewis. I give it a solid 5 out of 5. Starts out as a discussion of Trump’s not seeming to realize that the US Government is not a small 3 person office, and that it is involved in more than seeking a profit, avoiding paying bills and avoiding taxes. Billed as a book on what happens if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works. It does that. “Christie called up Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowsky, to ask why this critical job hadn’t been handed to someone who actually knew something about government. ‘We don’t have anyone, ‘ said Lewandowski. “ That was the high point of the transition. We now, January 3, 2019, have four Cabinet Secretaries with no experience except as lobbyists, and Betsy Devos. The book is excellent, the only criticism I have is that it is really two small books and I would have liked two large ones. The first is a discussion of the Trump transition of the Presidency, which can be summed up as: There wasn’t one. Never the less I would have like to have seen a longer discussion of this, the implications there are in still not having many positions filled. The second book is essentially what happens when you take 50 years of data, hauling the 9 track tapes out of a basement someplace, transitioning them to the cloud and letting people look at them. I personally have spent decades trying to haul useful ‘stuff’ out of obscure data. My favorite project was being left alone in a room for two years, with a couple of high end computers (for 1985) and all 10 of our network feeds. I developed something which could not only tell the Technical Director he was outside parameters on about 8 different audio and video measurements, but record it so somebody could look at it later. On all 10 networks. Now you give somebody 50 years of weather data, world wide weather data, and you find you can now describe a tornado in real time, or even before it happens. That I would have loved to see more on, but I doubt the work would survive if Trump understood it, because the person in charge of Weather, thinks he should be selling you the predictions, the government shouldn’t be giving them away. You pay for it, Trump profits, the new American Way.
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Top reviews from other countries
- BraggiReviewed in Germany on November 9, 2018
Very informative about US government workings
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- Sally81Reviewed in Canada on June 29, 2019
Making Project Management Sexy Again ... or at least interesting.
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