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A review by matt99stevens
The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society by Binyamin Appelbaum
5.0
Best book I read this year. Applebaum makes a great case the Monetarists and Supply-Siders drank their own coolaid and refused to base their arguments on factual basis. The misdiagnosis of the economy and the solutions is still haunting us today.
In his conclusion, he hedges slightly, saying the forces of globalization (my word, not his) would have overwhelmed many other policy choices. He spends most of the book talking about the policy choices that entrenched the power of the wealthy, hurt the poor and middle class, and destroyed the industrial base of america. But then kind of says "there may not have been much we could have done different" and he's not wrong that it was a world wide phenonon that took away the industrial base of the much of the developed world. And yet, their are nations and regions with the US that still have strong industrial basis. Those are where we can learn how to rebuild our own.
I am also having to work my way through the consumer vs. the producer self identification. I want to be a fan of nader, and that we need to empower the consumer. And I understand that sometimes, monopoly drive down costs, and empower the consumer, at the expense of smaller or less cheap producers. In the end, that may not be actually better for the consumer or the broader economy.
In his conclusion, he hedges slightly, saying the forces of globalization (my word, not his) would have overwhelmed many other policy choices. He spends most of the book talking about the policy choices that entrenched the power of the wealthy, hurt the poor and middle class, and destroyed the industrial base of america. But then kind of says "there may not have been much we could have done different" and he's not wrong that it was a world wide phenonon that took away the industrial base of the much of the developed world. And yet, their are nations and regions with the US that still have strong industrial basis. Those are where we can learn how to rebuild our own.
I am also having to work my way through the consumer vs. the producer self identification. I want to be a fan of nader, and that we need to empower the consumer. And I understand that sometimes, monopoly drive down costs, and empower the consumer, at the expense of smaller or less cheap producers. In the end, that may not be actually better for the consumer or the broader economy.