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| 0446932647
| 9780446932646
| 0446932647
| 3.98
| 3,823
| 1978
| Jan 01, 1979
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it was amazing
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Narcissism (noun): 1) excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one's physical appearance. 2)PSYCHOLOGY selfishness, involving a sense of ent
Narcissism (noun): 1) excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one's physical appearance. 2)PSYCHOLOGY selfishness, involving a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration, as characterizing a personality type. 3)PSYCHOANALYSIS self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish the self from external objects, either in very young babies or as a feature of mental disorder. —-Dictionary.com
I’m guessing that Donald Trump has never been, and never will be, a pet person. One has to be able to think beyond one’s own narrow self-interest in order to take care of a dog or a cat or even a lizard. I’m pretty sure Trump’s initial thought upon seeing any domesticated animal is “Can I eat it?” But why pick on just Trump? After all, even his biggest fans know that Trump’s narcissism is merely a symptom of a bigger problem within our society. They would say that we’ve become too lazy, too soft, too apathetic as a society. Our ridiculous self-love is the least of our problems. Or is it? Despite its publication date of 1979, Christopher Lasch’s now-classic “The Culture of Narcissism” could just as easily be read and appreciated today. If it’s not already on required reading lists for college psychology courses, it probably should be. Lasch, in ’79, couldn’t have fathomed the level of self-indulgence in 2024. He couldn’t have foreseen the Internet and the subsequent generations of children addicted to an isolated virtual world. He couldn’t have foreseen the dangerous anonymity of social media where people can “speak” to millions of people but really only be speaking to themselves. He couldn’t foresee a political divisiveness that went beyond just a disagreement between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, but a hyper-dangerous mentality of “My opinion is the correct one, and anyone that disagrees with it is evil.” Whether it’s the epidemic of depression and anxiety of young girls so obsessed with smartphone selfies and trying to be as beautiful as those AI-generated supermodels or the sharp rise in white Christian nationalists or the uptick in violent incidents perpetrated by young men who dub themselves “involuntary celibates”, a.k.a. incels, or elected politicians who deny the values they supposedly hold so dear in order to align themselves with a megalomaniac that allegedly has the power to end their political careers if they don’t agree with him, narcissism is at the root of most problems. We all want to look good, get ahead, keep up with the Joneses, regardless of whether we are making a better world. That doesn’t matter anymore. Today, it’s all about making a better world for ourselves. It’s really all about “optics”. You’ve heard the word, ad nauseam. It’s the buzzword in entertainment, sports, politics, law enforcement, business, education. It’s no longer “How can we fix this?” but rather “How can we spin this to make it look good?” “For all his inner suffering, the narcissist has many traits that make for success in bureaucratic institutions, which put a premium on the manipulation of interpersonal relations, discourage the formation of deep personal attachments, and at the same time provide the narcissist with the approval he needs in order to validate his self-esteem. Although he may resort to therapies that promise to give meaning to life and to overcome his sense of emptiness, in his professional career the narcissist often enjoys considerable success. The management of personal impressions comes naturally to him, and his mastery of its intricacies serves him well in political and business organizations where performance now counts for less than “visibility”, “momentum,” and a winning record.” (p. 91-92) Trump, as the archetypal narcissist, is all about “winning”. To his credit, Trump’s brilliance lies in his ability to convince a wide swath of Americans that he actually gives a shit about them, that he actually wants to help them. In truth—-and his own track record shows this—-Trump’s only out to help himself. For a narcissist, that is the end-all-be-all: “The pursuit of self-interest, formerly identified with the rational pursuit of gain and the accumulation of wealth, has become a search for pleasure and psychic survival. Social conditions now approximate the vision of republican society conceived by the Marquis de Sade at the very outset of the republican epoch. In many ways the most far-sighted and certainly the most disturbing of the prophets of revolutionary individualism, Sade defended unlimited self-indulgence as the logical culmination of the revolution in property relations—-the only way to attain revolutionary brotherhood in its purest form. By regressing in his writings to the most primitive level of fantasy, Sade uncannily glimpsed the whole subsequent development of personal life under capitalism, ending not in revolutionary brotherhood but in a society of siblings that has outlived and repudiated its revolutionary origins.” (p. 131) In a narcissistic society, all the trust-worthy institutions that we once turned to for help and security are no longer trust-worthy. The media is “fake news”. The government is “broken”. The family is “broken”. Our teachers and professors are “spreading liberal propaganda”. Businesses are “price-gouging”. Hospitals are “in bed with insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies”. Churches are either “too political” or “not political enough”. “The superego can no longer ally itself, in its battle against impulse, with outside authorities. It has to rely almost entirely on its own resources, and these too have diminished in their effectiveness.” (p.342) The end result? We’ve stopped caring. About our own families, about our friends, about our community, about our government, about our world. “The narcissist feels consumed by his own appetites… He longs to free himself from his own hunger and rage, to achieve a calm detachment beyond emotion, and to outgrow his dependence on others. He longs for the indifference to human relationships and to life itself that would enable him to acknowledge its passing in Kurt Vonnegut’s laconic phrase, “So it goes,” which so aptly expresses the ultimate aspiration of the psychiatric seeker.” (p. 342-243) ...more |
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1
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Apr 20, 2024
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Apr 30, 2024
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Apr 20, 2024
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Paperback
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| B010EX6UT2
| 4.23
| 9,182
| Oct 22, 2013
| unknown
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it was amazing
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I knew nothing about the late Charles Krauthammer before reading “Things That Matter”, a collection of hand-picked essays and columns he has written o
I knew nothing about the late Charles Krauthammer before reading “Things That Matter”, a collection of hand-picked essays and columns he has written over the course of his 30-plus-year career as a syndicated columnist at The Washington Post, political pundit, and a psychiatrist. The only thing I had heard about him—-indeed, what initially attracted me to his writing—-was the fact that he was a conservative who, in his few final years before his death in 2018, continually maintained a loathing and disgust for Donald Trump. (https://whyy.org/articles/rip-charles...) That alone was enough for me to give him a try. And I’m glad I did. While I don’t think I agreed at all with a majority of his politics, I nevertheless found him to be intelligent and humorous and compassionate in his writing. Even when excoriating people he didn’t like, such as Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, he was never mean-spirited, and he always made it clear that he disagreed with and disliked the policies and not the person. His was a spirit of true old-fashioned gentlemanly political criticism that is not seen anymore, certainly not amongst his other conservative pundits and bigmouths like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and the late Rush Limbaugh. I think it’s important to read books by authors that you may not agree with or are not aligned, politically, with. It helps to broaden one’s political viewpoints and promotes intellectual growth. To my fellow liberal friends: if you are looking for a differing viewpoint, reading Krauthammer may be a good place to start. ...more |
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not set
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Mar 11, 2024
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Mar 11, 2024
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Unknown Binding
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| 0358439167
| 9780358439165
| 0358439167
| 4.58
| 4,086
| Sep 19, 2023
| Sep 15, 2023
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it was amazing
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I love history, but I have, lately, had the sneaking suspicion that many of the history books I have been reading are unfairly one-sided and biased. M
I love history, but I have, lately, had the sneaking suspicion that many of the history books I have been reading are unfairly one-sided and biased. Most, if not all, of the history books I have read have been written by white men. This is not to say that the information in them is wrong. It simply means that it’s not always all the information. There are perspectives that, historically, have, for whatever reason, been dismissed, ignored, or forgotten. The fact that a large percentage of human beings in this country, until the middle of the last century, have never experienced the same freedoms and opportunities that a majority of Americans have experienced is not a new fact. It is, however, one that, within the past fifty years, is finally being voiced. Elementary, middle school, and high school textbooks are slow to catch up with this trend. In many textbooks (especially some in Texas), the Civil War was a war fought over state’s rights. Period. It’s only half the truth. The Civil War was fought over state’s rights; specifically, the state’s rights to own slaves. Slavery was a vile institution that white people in this country—-whether they owned slaves or not—-benefitted greatly from, economically. This is a fact, one that can’t be erased from history. But slavery wasn’t the only horrible thing for which white people in this country are responsible. There’s the genocidal campaign against Native Americans (“Indians”, as Christopher Columbus mistakenly called them, as he brutally massacred many of them), the subjugation of women, the vilification of Mexicans, the mistreatment (and, in the case of the Japanese during WWII, internment) of Asian people. Michael Harriot’s “Black AF History” is an eye-opening, humorous, and brutal exercise in historical revisionism, and a necessary one. It’s not revisionism in the false sense that most conservatives view revisionism. In other words, it’s not an alteration or an attempt to twist history to conform to modern standards. That’s the kind of bullshit backlash arguments that white supremacist historians make. This is a “re-vision” of history, or an attempt to add to the existing story through the addition of voices and perspectives that have historically been left out of the story. For example, the Revolutionary War has always been taught as colonial America fighting back against the King’s unfair taxation, which is true. What isn’t mentioned is the role slavery played in the war, as Britain was toying with the idea of abolishing slavery (they finally did so in 1833), which worried the colonial leaders as slavery was a vital part of the economy. If slavery was abolished, a large percentage of the colonial workforce would suddenly have to be financially compensated. Plus, free slaves meant they could choose not to work, which means white people would have to fill those jobs, and no white person really wanted those jobs. Some historians argue that slavery wasn’t an issue in the revolution. Some agree that it was a minor issue. Harriot’s take is that, if you know white people, it’s not hard to see that many white people wouldn’t like the idea of giving up their slaves. Sure, taxation without representation was the main issue, but it’s silly to think slavery—-and the potential loss of a vital money-making institution—-didn’t play some part in the decision-making. Don’t worry: most of Harriot’s book isn’t this controversial. A lot of it is just fascinating and heretofore unknown people and incidents that have been left out of history books, mainly because they were black. For example, a gospel singer named Rosetta Tharpe is credited for inventing Rock & Roll music, which is why she was inducted in the R&R Hall of Fame and Museum in 2017. Don’t take Harriot’s word for it, though: Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, and even Elvis Presley at some point in their careers acknowledged the major influence that Tharpe had on their music. Harriott is also a foodie, like me. His description and histories of South Carolina cuisine such as chicken bog and chicken perlo—-both dishes created by slaves based on their ease of availability and the fact that it could easily be made into batches that could feed dozens—-is mouthwateringly delicious in his detail. “Black AF History”, besides being enlightening and educational, is also just fun as hell. Harriot incorporates a lot of his own childhood, being home-schooled by his parents and a slew of aunts and uncles, as well as a huge record album and book library where he discovered the works of Earth, Wind, & Fire and W.E.B. DuBois, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, and lots of science fiction. This should be required reading for every high school AP History class. ...more |
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Feb 28, 2024
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Mar 18, 2024
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Feb 28, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 1594030863
| 9781594030864
| 1594030863
| 4.37
| 8,962
| Apr 30, 2005
| Jun 01, 2005
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really liked it
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“Black Rednecks and White Liberals” is a collection of six long essays by Thomas Sowell, an economist and philosopher. Each essay is an examination of
“Black Rednecks and White Liberals” is a collection of six long essays by Thomas Sowell, an economist and philosopher. Each essay is an examination of certain racial/ethnic groups as seen through the lens of economics. To people who are not economists, this may sound like a dry, boring textbook. At least, this was my initial thought going into it, as I am not an economist and, to be honest, have always thought economics to be a dry, boring subject. Surprisingly, Sowell had me engaged right away. His style of writing is far from dry. While professorial (He was a professor, having served on the faculties of Cornell, Brandeis, and UCLA), he writes with an enthusiasm that demonstrates his fascination for his subject matter. He loves economics, and it shows. He also has a unique perspective, and one that I am ashamed to say that, going into it, I was afraid that I would find problematic. Sowell is a conservative. (This is the part in the review when my liberal friends shout, “Egad!”) I jest, of course, but I am familiar enough with some of Sowell’s reputation. He is a black conservative who is—-like other black conservatives Allen West and Candace Owens—-highly critical of governmental assistance for black people (such as affirmative action), as he believes that it has created a dependency that doesn’t actually help, and may actually hinder, the intellectual and emotional development of black people. While there may be some validity to this argument, I don’t necessarily agree with it totally. That said, I went into “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” with as open a mind as I am capable. I honestly didn’t know what to expect. To my delight, I actually enjoyed the book far more than I expected. I found Sowell’s essays to be enlightening and thought-provoking. They introduced me to concepts and ideas that I have never heard before. For example, in the first essay, “Black Rednecks and White Liberals”, Sowell writes about how much of “bad” Southern black behavior (laziness, drunkenness, misogyny, violence) as well as mannerisms (saying “I be” instead of “I am”) that contributed to many negative stereotypes that are still around today actually comes from identical bad traits exhibited by specific white immigrants that settled in the South from an area west of England. These white immigrants—-often referred to as “crackers”, “rednecks”, or “poor white trash”—-literally rubbed off , behaviorally, on many of their black neighbors in antebellum and postbellum Southern states. I found this fascinating. As I did the essay, “Are Jews Generic?”, in which Sowell writes about the historical mistreatment of “middleman minorities”, which are, historically, ethnic groups that often found success as bankers or merchants between the wealthy producers and the lower class consumer groups of another ethnic group, Jews perhaps being the most familiar within European countries. Being “middlemen”, these groups often felt the brunt of irrational anger and hatred during economic downturns and were often scapegoats. Every essay in this collection intrigued, shocked, and enlightened me in some way. They challenged some of the liberal “truths” that I have held for a long time, and helped to reconsider some things that I have always considered sacrosanct. It reminded me of what the late Allan Bloom (another conservative philosopher) said about how having prejudices was a good thing, because when those prejudices are challenged or overturned, it is in that moment when true learning happens. ...more |
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not set
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Feb 22, 2024
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Feb 23, 2024
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| 1541644980
| 9781541644984
| 1541644980
| 4.10
| 6,336
| Mar 05, 2019
| Mar 05, 2019
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really liked it
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Beyond all the statistics, graphs, interview transcripts, and anecdotes within Jonathon M. Metzel’s 2019 book, “Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics o
Beyond all the statistics, graphs, interview transcripts, and anecdotes within Jonathon M. Metzel’s 2019 book, “Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland”, there is a horror movie, one that has been giving white people nightmares since white people landed on these shores. It’s called “The Non-White Others”, and it is literally driving white people insane. Let’s be honest: Racism is at the heart of nearly every policy that has been enacted in this country. It has been the not-so-secret motive behind every war this country has been involved in, from the American Revolution (partly slavery) to the Mexican-American War (mostly slavery) to the Civil War (totally slavery) to Vietnam (hatred of yellow people working in rice paddies). It’s the trigger behind most, if not all, mass shootings in this country. It’s what got Trump elected. White people have always been, still are, and probably always will be terrified of anyone that is non-white. They (the “they”, as in “us vs. them”) are either going to steal your spouse, rob your house, take your job, or bring your property values down. They are lazy, shifty, dirty, angry, less intelligent, and always looking for a hand-out. They are rapists, super-predators, or just worthless drains on the system, and they probably come from a “shithole country”. Sure, Melvin who works in the meat department at the grocery store is one of the “nice” black guys, and Marcie, the Chinese receptionist at the bank is a sweetheart, but as a group, blacks and Chinese and Mexicans and Koreans and Pakistanis and all those other non-whites are secretly up to no good. White people know this. They may not say it, but they feel it. Metzl’s book is a thorough examination—-backed up by facts, statistics, and actual quotes from everyday (racist) Americans—-of how and why white people almost always vote against their best interests, not because they don’t know that the policies or candidates they are voting against will actually improve their lives but because they don’t want the Mexicans or the blacks or the Chinese or the other lazy immigrants to benefit from them. So, white people will continue to fight to own guns, which—-according to virtually every study—-exponentially increases their chances of being killed by gun-related homicide or suicide, as well as putting those of us who don’t like guns at higher risk for gun-related violence. White people will continue to vote against universal health care or health care reform that will actually improve—-and extend—-their lives, ostensibly because it’s “socialism”, but, in actuality, because they don’t want the government to help the blacks and the hispanics. White people will continue to vote for austerity policies that will cut funding for education, social services, and infrastructure repairs, so the school systems that made people move to the suburbs in the first place will start to fail miserably, and the bridges and roads will start falling apart, but, hey, the rich motherfuckers in their wealthy gated communities will get a tax break, at least. White people are fucking stupid. ...more |
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1
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Feb 19, 2024
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Feb 27, 2024
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Feb 19, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 0593446445
| 9780593446447
| 0593446445
| 4.35
| 933
| unknown
| Aug 02, 2022
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it was amazing
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Many people have an opinion about Critical Race Theory (CRT). A majority of those opinions are based on faulty information. More often than not—-in my
Many people have an opinion about Critical Race Theory (CRT). A majority of those opinions are based on faulty information. More often than not—-in my experience—-opponents of CRT are unable to actually define it when asked to elaborate. Harlan Ellison once said, “You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.” The key word in that quote is “entitled”, which is defined as “believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.” This word, more than any other, is perhaps the best word to describe the forces of white privilege/supremacy that CRT is trying to bring to light. A recent spate of books about CRT has been published to counteract the overload of disinformation and falsehoods about the academic movement, espoused by Republicans as an attempt to confuse and mislead the public. While I have not read them all, the one I have read is as concise and succinct an explanation of CRT that I have read thus far, one that may be a good start when conducting further research into the subject. Victor Ray’s “On Critical Race Theory: Why It Matters & Why You Should Care” may be short (129 pages of text, with nearly 30 pages of endnotes), but it is dense with information, and it requires careful reading. A brief summary of Ray’s main points might be helpful but would ultimately be a disservice to his in-depth and nuanced approach to the subject. Nevertheless, I will attempt to give a concise encapsulation of Ray’s already wonderfully concise examination. It may help to first point out what CRT isn’t. It is not, as some CRT opponents have incorrectly implied, an attempt to alter history through a lens of anti-white historical revisionism. It is not taught in any school, at any level. While some primary and secondary educators may have an academic knowledge of CRT, it is not something that can be implemented into any school curriculum. Ignoramuses, like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who claim that schools are being overrun with CRT agendas (read “woke”), have little to no idea what a CRT agenda actually looks like or that it even exists at all. (Spoiler: it doesn’t.) CRT, as described by Ray, is simply a belief—substantiated by lots of historical evidence—-that racism has played, and continues to play, a significant role in how our society is structured, in everything from education to the economy to the law. More importantly, it’s the belief that racism has been, and continues to be, a major motivator in American history. Racism is built into the political system of our country, and it is this systemic racism that continues to stifle and counteract attempts to improve the lives of Americans, white and non-white alike. At its core, CRT is founded on a few main beliefs: 1) Race is a social construct, not a biological one; 2) Racism is systemic; and 3) whiteness is more than just an identity, it is a sense of entitlement and property that has helped to maintain systemic racism throughout American history. The rightness of these core beliefs should be obvious to anyone with skin in the game (no pun intended), but the fact that a major backlash against the CRT movement exists at all is clear evidence that it is not. ...more |
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Feb 17, 2024
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Feb 18, 2024
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Feb 17, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 1324074337
| 9781324074335
| 1324074337
| 3.80
| 27,287
| Oct 03, 2023
| Oct 03, 2023
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it was amazing
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“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” —-F. Scott Fitzgerald You know who Sam Bankman-Fried is. At least, you can r “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” —-F. Scott Fitzgerald You know who Sam Bankman-Fried is. At least, you can recognize him when you see his face on the evening news. He’s young, always wearing a t-shirt and cargo shorts, and sports a Jew-fro. Seth Rogan is bound to play him in the inevitable biopic. But you don’t know who Sam Bankman-Fried is. Nobody—-not his parents, not his brother, not his friends (a very small group, to be sure), not his numerous employees, not his lawyers, not the general public—-truly knows this kid. (And let’s not forget: he’s only 31.) Even after spending a lot of time with him, and even after writing a book about him, Michael Lewis doesn’t even know who this kid is. Is he a financial criminal the likes of Bernie Madoff? Or is he just a socially-awkward (possibly on the spectrum?) financial genius nerd who got in way over his head? “Going Infinite”, Lewis’s attempt to explain SBF and the whole weird world of crypto-currency, is 254 pages of fascinating and riveting information as only Lewis can write it. Unfortunately, after reading it, I felt that I learned absolutely nothing. Crypto-currency is still a mystery to me. This was to be expected, honestly. I love reading all of Lewis’s books on the economy and the world of finance, but I rarely grasp any of it. If my brain was a pie chart of how much knowledge I take away and actually understand, the slice that illustrates my actual understanding would be paper-thin. The slice, however, that illustrates how much entertainment and enjoyment I get from reading a Lewis book would be about 75% of the pie. But, yeah, what I know about crypto-currency now, after reading the book: still not a lot. But figuring out SBF is the real enigma. I’m not sure whether to hate this guy as a typical super-rich asshole who doesn’t understand how much his actions have hurt people or feel sorry for him as a kind of clueless dumbass who got lucky in a business that only an idiot savant would truly succeed in and then lost it all because of a lack of business savviness. Because this guy is the very definition of “different”. Here’s a kid who did well in school and graduated from MIT, but hated reading books because they were “dumb”. He even admits that he only has the attention span to read blogs. Here’s a kid who has never made any serious lasting friendships in his life. Even his so-called “romantic” relationships with women have been more business transactional than romantic. Here’s a kid who claims he has never felt joy or pleasure in his life. It is an actual disorder called anhedonia. But imagine that: Never. Feeling. Pleasure. Here’s a kid who admits that talking about his feelings is pointless because he has none. I’m sorry, but does anyone else get the feeling that SBF is actually a robot? Or an AI in a human body? The strange thing is, SBF is precisely the kind of real-life outlier that Lewis loves to write about. Out-of-box (way way out of box) thinking, genius level understanding of a field that a majority of people have absolutely no clue about, social outcast, unwilling to accept no for an answer. As weird as SBF is, I think Lewis was rooting for him. Hell, a lot of people were. Which makes him a weirdly tragic figure. ...more |
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Nov 24, 2023
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Nov 27, 2023
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Nov 24, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 1250777747
| 9781250777744
| 1250777747
| 3.83
| 218
| unknown
| Feb 14, 2023
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it was amazing
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I’m sure something similar has happened to you: You are sitting in the break room at work, when one of your co-workers—-someone with whom you normally
I’m sure something similar has happened to you: You are sitting in the break room at work, when one of your co-workers—-someone with whom you normally get along but also happen to know that their political leanings are diametrically opposed to yours—-says something along the lines of “Universal health care will never work in this country” or “White privilege is a myth” or “Abortion is murder” or “The truth is: all lives matter” or (my personal fave) “God, I love my AR-15”. You just want to eat your sandwich. You only have 15 minutes. What do you do? In normal rational times, one would pretend not to hear it and not take the bait. Unfortunately, we are not living in normal rational times anymore. Nowadays, a break room argument can often turn ugly. In extreme cases, they can turn violent, and, before you know it, you have become a tragic story on the 6 o’clock news. Nathan J. Robinson has the answer. Actually, he has 25 answers, to 25 arguments that conservatives love to make, ad nauseam, about subjects ranging from abortion to gun control to immigration to white privilege, in his book “Responding to the Right”. Before he gets into his responses (which are incredibly rational, with evidentiary support), Robinson first offers a tutorial on how not to respond. One of his most important pieces of advice is also, sometimes, the most difficult to follow: Never assume that the person you are arguing with is stupid. This is actually quite integral in shaping an argument that won’t quickly devolve into anger and frustration. Because it is often way too easy for liberals to write off conservatives as stupid partly because, in many cases, conservatives have automatically written off liberals as idiots as well. (See anything written by Ann Coulter.) The truth is, many conservative arguments are simply more emotion-based rather than logic-based, and even extremely intelligent people (on the right and the left) can succumb to their emotions. The trick is to defuse the situation from the start by penetrating through the emotional part of the argument to the real issue underlying it. In many cases, it’s not enough to just relay facts and statistics. In fact, in many cases, having data on your side may actually make things worse. Not that making factual statements is a bad thing, but one must be very careful when using facts and statistics with conservatives, because more often than not, they double down with their own facts and statistics, many of which they pull out of their own ass on the spot. Here’s the important point to make: Have legitimate and trusted sources. And lots of them. Sources are the bane of a conservative’s existence. Seriously, read any book by Ann Coulter or listen to anything Rush Limbaugh says. They will often make up statistics out of whole cloth and/or quote sources that don’t exist. In Coulter’s case, she often likes to source herself. (Not making that up, actually.) One of the biggest examples is global climate change. Conservatives (actually, fewer and fewer, thankfully) will still insist that a majority of scientists still don’t have a consensus that it exists (the truth: virtually all reputable climatologists will agree that it is certainly real) or that it is being caused by deleterious effects of human overpopulation (again, a vast majority of scientists will agree on this point as well.) Many conservatives will cite studies or research that is either 10-15 years out-of-date and/or proven to be false. Or they will use as a source a scientist that has been discredited by a jury of his peers. It’s not that conservatives don’t like science, necessarily. It’s simply that many conservatives don’t want to take the time to learn it and are much happier quoting studies and data that are taken out of context, outdated, or just plain wrong. Moral arguments, such as abortion, are a bit tougher to argue. Robinson acknowledges that the argument is often predicated on two sides—-those that believe that abortion is murder and those that don’t. Neither side has ever offered a successful way to convince the other side, mainly because it is an inherently emotional argument. In cases like this, Robinson argues, it’s often better to simply “agree to disagree”. In a nutshell, Robinson simply makes the point that the best defense against a faulty argument is knowledge. Do your own research. Ask questions. Sure, compassion is important, too. Robinson makes that point, as well. Part of the problem with the world we live in today is that people on both sides of the political spectrum have stopped trying to listen to each other because they just don’t care anymore. People are mean. They’re angry and frustrated and short-tempered, which is what makes some of those break-room confrontations so fraught with tension and danger. Sometimes, the best response is no response at all. ...more |
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not set
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Jul 12, 2023
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May 07, 2023
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Paperback
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| 1797124730
| 9781797124735
| 4.27
| 1,329
| Oct 25, 2022
| Oct 24, 2022
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it was amazing
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“No president has accomplished more in North Korea than me.” “No president has done more for the black community, except maybe Abraham Lincoln.” “I d “No president has accomplished more in North Korea than me.” “No president has done more for the black community, except maybe Abraham Lincoln.” “I downplayed the virus. I still downplay it. I just don’t want to create a panic.” “I have a plan.” “It’s fake news.” These are actual, honest-to-God statements that Donald Trump makes (sometimes multiple times, ad nauseam) in “The Trump Tapes”, an audio book collection of the twenty interviews that Trump allowed legendary journalist Bob Woodward to record for posterity. There is something intangibly significant about listening to these tapes, as opposed to reading Trump’s words in transcript form. One misses the intonations and the subtle nuances of Trump’s rhetoric when they are simply written down. Even Woodward acknowledges this. I have, ever since Trump was serious about becoming president, wavered back and forth between two thoughts: either Trump is as incredibly stupid as he sounds or he is actually very intelligent but merely playing dumb. I still haven’t decided after listening to “The Trump Tapes”. What I have decided, though, is that Trump—-regardless of whether he is actually far more intelligent than he lets on—-suffers from the following handicaps: 1) He is completely unwilling or incapable (and I lean more toward the latter) of any deep self-reflection. I don’t know how many times Woodward, with the patience of an angel, had to ask Trump the simple question, “How did that make you feel?”—-or variations of it—-in regards to a variety of topics, from North Korea to the pandemic to George Floyd’s murder. Unfortunately, I don’t think it was a simple question for Trump, who makes it clear that he isn’t sure how to feel about anything unless he’s being told how to feel by a majority opinion in the room. This is why Trump quotes poll numbers like they are Gospel all throughout the many interviews. Even when Woodward makes a statement like “Well, poll numbers aren’t that accurate, Mr. President.” and Trump responds, “I know, you’re right.” and then, seconds later, quotes another poll. At one point, Trump tells Woodward that he’s not a “feeling” guy, he’s a “doing” guy. To me, that reads as chilling and somewhat sociopathic. (See #3) 2) He is a textbook narcissist. Now, arguably, one must probably have narcissistic tendencies to go into politics in the first place and, for sure, to want to be president. But I can’t imagine any other president doing the completely reckless and dangerous things that Trump has done, most notably refuse to concede an election that he lost and, in fact, create an entire bullshit narrative about voter fraud and a rigged election. Trump’s narcissism inevitably led to the violent insurrection on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. By sending out inflammatory tweets and riling crowds up during his rallies, Trump did everything he could to foment and incite the violence of that day among his followers. And he did it because he couldn’t accept the fact that more people in this country voted against him than for him. He literally couldn’t accept it to the point that he was asking his Vice-President, Mike Pence, to commit an unconstitutional act to overturn the election, and then he was angry when Pence actually did the morally right thing. 3) I truly believe that Trump is a sociopath. Sociopathy, also known as antisocial personality disorder, has several detectable traits, according to Dr. Andrew Coulter, MD, among those: constant lying and deception, callousness, manipulation, arrogance, impulsiveness, a lack of understanding the difference between right and wrong, lack of empathy, risk-taking, taking dishonest actions that violates people’s rights, difficulty in acknowledging one’s own faults. (https://health.clevelandclinic.org/so...) I could break each one of these down and offer clear-cut examples of Trump’s behavior that exhibits these traits, but the problem is that, for half the audience I would be preaching to the choir and, for the other half, it would be “fake news”. I have to give Woodward credit. He was always extremely polite and deferential to the president, even at the most heated moments—-moments when a lesser journalist would have been pulling their hair out and calling Trump a “liar” or worse. I have not read his book “Rage”, for which a majority of these interviews were used. ...more |
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not set
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Apr 25, 2023
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Mar 29, 2023
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Audiobook
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| 1101947314
| 9781101947319
| 1101947314
| 4.08
| 20,571
| Jan 25, 2018
| Jan 30, 2018
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it was amazing
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Like many Americans, my drug of choice is coffee. Also like many Americans, my knowledge of the history of coffee is quite lacking, mainly because my
Like many Americans, my drug of choice is coffee. Also like many Americans, my knowledge of the history of coffee is quite lacking, mainly because my knowledge of history in general is lacking. History is, unfortunately, one of those subjects many Americans find boring. It isn’t, but the way history is often taught in schools certainly doesn’t help. Alas, I digress... Dave Eggers, a writer who can’t seem to write an uninteresting book or one that isn’t socio-politically relevant, writes about the history of coffee in his book, “The Monk of Mocha”, a fascinating true story about a man in search of a bean. Who knew coffee could be so fascinating? Who knew the history of the world coffee industry could be so intriguing and exciting? Well, Eggers, for one. But Eggers probably didn’t know how fascinating coffee was until he met Mokhtar Alkhanshali, the real-life hero of his book, whose rags-to-riches story is a multi-layered examination of the American Dream in the 21st century, obsession, globalization, human rights, immigration, the situation in the Middle East, and why knowing exactly where your food comes from is better for everybody. Alkhanshali, a Muslim Yemeni-American, grew up in an impoverished section of San Francisco called the Tenderloin, an area well-known for being a high-crime area. Dreaming of breaking out of the “ghetto”, Alkhanshali worked a series of menial jobs---selling cars, doorman---which entailed helping out rich people for relatively mediocre compensation. It wasn’t until he started researching coffee that he realized his calling in life. He discovered that Yemen, his birth country, was the official source of coffee in the world. While academics may debate over whether Ethiopia or Yemen is the true source, most scholars would agree that Yemen was the place where coffee was perfected. Indeed, for centuries, Yemen was renowned for its spectacular varietals of coffee, a reputation that gradually dissipated to the point that, today, very few coffee aficionados (coffeecionados?) could imagine that Yemen would be the contemporary site of a revolution in direct-trade high-end coffee. This is, of course, exactly what is happening, and much of it is due to the almost religious zealotry of Alkhanshali’s quest to revitalize the Yemeni coffee market, improve the living conditions of Yemeni coffee farmers, and find the perfect coffee bean; a quest that, in 2015, nearly got him killed. It is, of course, this quest that provides the meat of the story in Egger’s book, as Alkhanshali travels to Yemen on business at the worst possible time: the start of the Yemeni Civil War. Stuck in Yemen as radical Houthi insurgents topple the Yemeni government, Alkhanshali and several other Americans must find a way out of the country. No easy task, as the Houthis have bombed all of the airports and blocked off every road in and out of the country with armed insurgents. What follows is an exciting and suspenseful, albeit horrifying, tale of survival in a war-torn country. Eggers, however, doesn’t believe in telling just one story. As he did in his best-selling novels “The Circle” and “A Hologram for The King”, Eggers tricks the reader into thinking he or she is reading one thing while subtly, and with deft sleight of hand, making a poignant statement about something else entirely. “The Monk of Mokha” is all the more intriguing given the fact that it is nonfiction. ...more |
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Aug 06, 2019
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Aug 12, 2019
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Aug 06, 2019
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Hardcover
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| 1250189993
| 9781250189998
| 1250189993
| 4.11
| 4,261
| Apr 25, 2015
| Apr 17, 2018
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it was amazing
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8/30/2024 addendum: Best known for her dead-accurate prediction of Trump's 2016 presidential win (for which she got major shit and ridicule), journali
8/30/2024 addendum: Best known for her dead-accurate prediction of Trump's 2016 presidential win (for which she got major shit and ridicule), journalist Sarah Kendzior saw the writing on the wall for years before Trump joined the race, and this book is essential reading in trying to figure out the how and why of Trump ultimately becoming president... For a large percentage of Americans, living in Donald Trump’s America has been a terrifying nightmare, one that seems to have no end in sight. Unfortunately, Trump seems to be shaping into a new Teflon president. Like Ronald Reagan, no bad policy seems to be bad enough and no scandal seems to be crippling enough. But Trump wasn’t born in a vacuum, and many of the problems facing Americans were problems long before Trump assumed the presidency. Granted, he hasn’t made them any better and, in fact, has worked to make a lot of them worse, but, as many astute critics have pointed out, Trump is merely a symptom, not the cause. Several astute journalists saw him coming. Many didn’t, but then again, many people who should have seen him coming didn’t. The Democrats didn’t. Many Republicans didn’t either. But he’s here now. One of the key points in Timothy Snyder’s excellent little book about the rise of fascism, “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century”, is the importance of good journalism and a free press. Thankfully, despite what Trump or his Administration lackeys seem to think in regards to “fake news”, there are many good journalists out there, fighting the good fight against the powers of fascism and censorship. One of those journalists is Sarah Kendzior, whose 2015 book “The View From Flyover Country: Dispatches From the Forgotten America”, a collection of essays she wrote for various publications from 2012 to 2014, immediately became an underground online sensation after the 2016 election. It’s easy to see why. Besides having predicted Trump’s win, she also, for years prior to Trump’s election, was witness to the building blocks and scaffolding being put in place for someone like Trump. Her astute and intellectual observations made it quite clear, in hindsight, that Trump was an inevitability. She writes about many things, but the following themes crop up with regularity: big cities are gradually becoming so expensive that nobody but the super-wealthy will end up being able to afford living in them; colleges are becoming so expensive and elitist, soon only the children of the super-wealthy will be able to afford attending; good, high-paying jobs are scarce and, not only that, limited to those who have good connections and/or are already somewhat wealthy; health care in this country is so expensive that only the super-wealthy will be able to afford it. See the pattern? Anyone with eyes and a dwindling paycheck should have seen all of this building to a head. Most Americans did, especially those groups of people who are bearing the brunt of the economic failure in this country---minorities, immigrants, the middle class, the inner-city poor, the rural poor. They are, unfortunately, the groups with the least ability to lobby Washington politicians. Today, Washington, D.C. is owned by the rich. Thankfully, journalists like Kendzior give voice to the voiceless. People like her must continue to be encouraged and protected from the authoritarian onslaught of wanna-be dictators like Trump. Support the First Amendment. Support good journalism. Fight fascism. Read this book. ...more |
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Jul 18, 2019
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Jul 21, 2019
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Jul 18, 2019
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Paperback
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| 0553447432
| 9780553447439
| 0553447432
| 4.47
| 102,536
| Mar 01, 2016
| Mar 01, 2016
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really liked it
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”Whatever our way out of this mess, one thing is certain. This degree of inequality, this withdrawal of opportunity, this cold denial of basic needs,
”Whatever our way out of this mess, one thing is certain. This degree of inequality, this withdrawal of opportunity, this cold denial of basic needs, this endorsement of pointless suffering---by no American value is this situation justified. No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become. (p. 313)”---Matthew Desmond, “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” There are a lot of disturbing, depressing, and infuriating statistics about poverty and the housing market in Matthew Desmond’s book “Evicted”, but what makes his book more than just a fascinating ethnographical examination of the relationships between landlord and tenant, home-owners and home-renters, the rich and the poor is the human face he gives to both sides. Embedding himself in the field (living in a trailer park and public housing in Milwaukee) for several months, Desmond (a wealthy upper-middle class white journalist) saw first-hand the conditions in which poor tenants lived, travelled with landlords and sheriffs during evictions, and interviewed dozens of people. It’s easy to judge both sides---the tenants and the landlords---from afar and just based on the numbers. It’s easy to look down on both sides when one is comfortably situated on the top. Hell, my liberal guilt is quite easy to play upon when I am reading this book, sitting on a beach at Hilton Head. It’s another thing to pass unfair judgments on people whom you know by name, after finding out their histories. It’s not so easy to judge people when you read the kind of shitty lives they’ve lived, knowing that your own life has been pretty fucking fantastic in comparison. It’s hard to pass judgments (and it’s just downright cruel) upon realizing that you may have made the same bad decisions (or worse) when confronted with the horrible choices that these people have had to make in life. I’m sure Desmond, on a personal level, judged these people when he talked to them and lived with them for months. I’m sure there were times that he thought, gosh, this person is fucked up or holy shit what an asshole, but if he did, he never mentioned it. Desmond’s book is objective journalism at its best. He treats everyone fairly. Prior to his investigation, Desmond discovered something shocking. Despite all the recent interest and research on poverty in this country, very little to no research was being done on evictions and the impact that evictions had not only on those being evicted but on the housing market and society in general. It was shocking because even by conservative estimates, the number of evictions nation-wide have exploded in the past fifty years. In contrast, according to Desmond, even during the years of the Great Depression, evictions were a rare occurrence. They were something that was not only looked at in sympathetic horror by both rich and poor alike but also by the banks executing the evictions and the law enforcement officers who usually ended up doing the dirty work. They hated doing it. Today, there are law enforcement officers whose sole job is to enforce evictions. Not only that, but moving and storage companies are making a killing. There is, sadly, a lot of money to be made in evictions. And very few people are shedding tears over it. Desmond tosses around a lot of economic terms and numbers in his book, some of which I understood and some I didn’t, but the bottom line as to why evictions have become so prevalent in this country is because a small group of people are getting extremely rich from it, and politicians aren’t doing anything about it because they are, essentially, getting lots of money by way of campaign funding from these rich folk. They could, very easily, enact laws that would reduce evictions, help poor families, and start to turn around some of the devastated communities in our nation’s cities, but they won’t for fear of pissing off their source of income. Unfortunately, their actions (or inactions) aren’t just hurting the poor, which they are. (Suicide rates among poor people have skyrocketed in the past ten years, directly related to the eviction rate.) Desmond makes the very plausible case that our society is crumbling because of the rising eviction rate. Strong neighborhoods have less crime and are more economically healthy than neighborhoods in which neighbors come and go on a weekly basis. People don’t trust neighbors that they don’t know, and they certainly don’t trust neighbors who have been evicted from previous places. Mistrust, hatred, violence: this is what white suburbia and the wealthy see in these neighborhoods, and their perception isn’t necessarily wrong. They avoid these neighborhoods like the plague, warning each other about driving in “that part of town”. In return, the (predominantly black) inhabitants of our nation’s ghettos and slums justifiably resent white suburbanites for being dispassionate and cruel. In effect, race relations suffer, the economy suffers, and, ultimately, we all suffer when our cities start to implode. Desmond doesn’t hold back on his political stance on the issue: “We have the money. We’ve just made choices about how to spend it. Over the years, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have restricted housing aid to the poor but expanded it to the affluent in the form of tax benefits for homeowners. Today, housing-related tax expenditures far outpace those for housing assistance... Most federal housing subsidies benefit families with six-figure incomes. If we are going to spend the bulk of our public dollars on the affluent---at least when it comes to housing---we should own up to that decision and stop repeating the politicians’ canard about one of the richest countries on the planet being unable to afford doing more. If poverty persists in America, it is not for lack of resources. (p. 312)” ...more |
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Apr 22, 2017
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Apr 24, 2017
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Hardcover
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| 4.31
| 25,772
| Jan 19, 2016
| Jan 19, 2016
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it was amazing
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“They live, and always have, in a rarefied bubble... They move in a world with people like them, or who want to be. They know no poor people at all. T
“They live, and always have, in a rarefied bubble... They move in a world with people like them, or who want to be. They know no poor people at all. They’re not the kind of people who feel obligated to get to know the help.” ---anonymous long-time family associate of the Kochs, speaking about the Koch family “It is beyond spectacular. It’s just gigantically successful. It is in everything.” ---Roger Altman, Wall Street investment banker, referring to Koch Industries “I just want my fair share---which is all of it.” ---Charles Koch It is easy to demonize brothers Charles and David Koch as power-crazed, money-hungry, greedy, selfish, monstrous, uncaring, soulless, cruel, vicious, etc., but to what purpose? Insults only go so far in convincing people---especially those that either don’t know much about the Kochs or those that seem to think that the Kochs’ free-market success is perfectly normal and indicative of a healthy capitalist state---that the Koch Bros. are assholes, but some may not even be convinced of that. Besides, being an asshole isn’t a crime, and many things that the Koch Bros. have done in their life to get where they are are crimes, both legally and morally. You can’t convince anyone of that either. All one can do is lay out the bare facts and let the reader decide for themselves what kind of people the Koch Bros. are, which is what Jane Mayer has done in her excellently researched book, “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right”. Part biography, part horror story, “Dark Money” tells the story of how the Koch Bros. have almost single-handedly pulled off one of the largest political coups in American history. Through a ridiculously large amount of money funneled through “charitable” foundations, think tanks, and Super PACs, the Koch Bros. have essentially bought Washington, D.C. They did it brilliantly, with philanthropy and back-door deals and without armed soldiers and tanks storming down Pennsylvania Avenue, and they did it almost without human costs. Almost. I could write a rather long-winded review, summarizing Mayer’s main points and throwing in my own self-serving bit of vitriol about how I think the Koch Bros. are devils in human guise, but I won’t do it. Mayer has done a brilliant enough job telling the story of the Kochs’ rise to power. And calling them devils won’t do anything but satiate my own disgust and hatred for the two men. Instead, I will simply recount a story about the Koch Bros, one that Mayer tells early in the book as one of many examples of the Koch Industries’ misdeeds and crimes. Danielle Dawn Smalley, 17, was a typical teenager growing up in a rural town called Lively, Texas. She played volleyball, liked the theater, and played bass guitar in a band with friends. Recently graduated from high school, she and a friend, Jason Stone, were packing things for college on August 24, 1996 when they noticed a strong odor, like gas, lingering in the house, the source of which was undetermined. Danny Smalley, the town mechanic, recognized the smell as liquid butane and told his daughter and Jason to drive to their neighbor’s house to report a gas leak, since they did not have a landline phone from which to call. A few hundred yards from the house, the truck that they were driving stalled. Danielle, at the wheel, tried to restart the engine. The spark of ignition lit a gas cloud of butane. The resulting explosion incinerated Danielle and Jason and destroyed one home. It was 3:30 in the afternoon. A raging fire continued until well into the evening, even long after the fuel to the line had been shut off. Over fifty nearby homes were evacuated. The pipeline that was the cause of the explosion started in Medford, Oklahoma and stretched to Mont Belvieu, Texas. It was owned and operated by Koch Industries, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Hoping to ameliorate any bad feelings and possibly prevent negative publicity, Charles and David Koch offered Danny Smalley money to drop his inevitable wrongful death lawsuit against the company. Smalley refused. During the trial, Smalley’s lead lawyer, Ted Lyon, suspected that his law offices were being bugged. A subsequent investigation of the offices confirmed it. While it was never confirmed that the Kochs had anything to do with it, Lyon felt that the timing was awfully coincidental. A National Transportation Safety Board investigation concluded that the company had been aware of the corroded pipeline for some time. It was deemed negligent in that it had done nothing to correct the problem nor had it informed the forty-plus families that lived in the area of the pipeline about the potential dangers. During trial, certified oil industry safety expert, Edward Ziegler, described the pipeline as “Swiss cheese.” He added that the explosion resulted from “a total failure of a company to follow the regulations, keep their pipeline safe and operate it as the regulations require.” Kenoth Whitstine, a former Koch employee, testified that he had told his employers of the incredible dangers that the corroded pipeline posed but was told that it would be cheaper to pay damages from a lawsuit than to repair it. On October 21, 1999, the jury found Koch Industries guilty of both negligence and malice. Smalley had asked for $100 million in damages. The jury instead awarded him $296 million, the largest wrongful death award ever. This is just one, albeit dramatic, example of who Charles and David Koch are. You be the judge. The following link is to the Danielle Smalley Foundation, set up by Danny Smalley in honor of his daughter: http://smalleyfnd.org ...more |
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Jan 22, 2017
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Jan 24, 2017
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Jan 22, 2017
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ebook
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| 1101882913
| 9781101882917
| 1101882913
| 3.67
| 10,256
| 2014
| Oct 14, 2014
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liked it
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Russell Brand has no qualms about admitting that he is a narcissist. He almost takes pride in it. If you’ve ever seen the movies “Forgetting Sarah Mar Russell Brand has no qualms about admitting that he is a narcissist. He almost takes pride in it. If you’ve ever seen the movies “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” or “Get Him to the Greek”, then you most likely recall Brand playing a rock star named Aldous Snow, a recovering alcoholic/sex addict whose enthusiasm for life is rivaled only by his idiocy. His hilarious scene-stealing performances carried those films, despite the fact that he was starring next to better-known powerhouse comedic actors like Jason Segel, Jonah Hill, Kristin Bell, and Mila Kunis. Even he admits that he wasn’t really acting. He was basically playing himself. Brand grew up in a small blue-collar town in Essex, England. Parents divorced, Brand lived with his mother until she was diagnosed with cancer, after which he went to live with nearby relatives. In the subsequent years, Brand was sexually molested as a child, suffered from bulimia, left home, and became a drug addict. Strangely enough, despite all this (or possibly because of it), he managed to shape a successful career as a stand-up comedian and an MTV host. Here in the states, his comedy career isn’t that well-known, but in England, his popularity is equivalent, perhaps, to the popularity of someone like Louis C.K. or Kevin Hart. Here in the states, he is, unfortunately, best known for his short-lived marriage to Katy Perry. Brand’s life of bacchanalia and debauchery was described in two previous autobiographies, “My Booky Wook” and “My Booky Wook 2: This Time it’s Personal”. I have not read those. In 2013, Brand developed more than just a passing interest in politics and the economy. His successful “Messiah Complex” comedy tour introduced fans to a different side of Brand, one that highlighted a sobering (and sober) intelligence as well as his new-found interest in spirituality and social justice issues. He joked that while he was still a narcissist, he was a narcissist for the people. Thankfully, sobriety for Brand has been a wonderful thing. Rather than making him less funny, his comedy has taken on a sharper, well-defined focal point. “Revolution”, his most recent book, is the culmination of this socio-political awakening. While somewhat unfocused in its tone and approach (Brand can’t seem to decide whether he is writing a memoir, a comedy act, or a college dissertation at times), “Revolution” is nevertheless a funny, insightful, and profound manifesto via a series of stream-of-consciousness essays. In it, he tackles the Establishment, capitalism, drug abuse, imperialism, and a slew of other topics, many of which are usually tangential but nevertheless interesting. I can’t say that I agree with everything he says. His stance on voting (he has never voted, nor will he ever vote, and he encourages everyone not to vote) is one with which I vociferously disagree. That said, his reasons for not voting are well-stated and compelling, despite the fact that I don’t agree with them. Brand is, surprisingly, quite eloquent, at times. He is, also, ridiculously incoherent at times, blathering on occasionally in some weird cockney accent that is as indecipherable as an Irvine Welsh novel. Not that it isn’t fun to read: it is. It’s also gibberish to an American reader like myself. No offense to those Brits with a cockney accent. What I admire about Brand is that he seems very sincere about his new-found interest in politics and, especially, wealth inequality. It’s a shame that critics (and fans) have too easily dismissed him, perhaps because of his checkered past. He touches on this in the book: “When I was poor and I complained about inequality they said I was bitter; now that I’m rich and I complain about inequality they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m starting to think they just don’t want to talk about inequality.” He may be on to something. In this strange, toxic political climate, the important issues are being drowned out by weapons of mass distraction, designed and choreographed by those who have the most to gain from the general public’s confusion and ignorance. Brand acknowledges that he was once one of those confused and ignorant masses, but he has had an awakening. That many people consider his awakening a joke is sad but also not surprising. I realize not many people will read “Revolution”, and of those that do, many will think it is ridiculous because they think Brand is ridiculous. This is a shame, because Brand has a lot of intelligent things to say. He just wraps it in humor and sarcasm and pop cultural references, speaking in a voice of an Everyman who is starting to realize that instant gratification, apathy, and narcissism are the tools that those in power use to stay in power. ...more |
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not set
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Jul 2016
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Jul 03, 2016
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Hardcover
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| 1568585217
| 9781568585215
| 1568585217
| 4.00
| 123
| Mar 08, 2016
| Mar 08, 2016
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really liked it
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“Each generation is as independent as the one preceding, as that was of all that had gone before. It has then, like them, a right to choose for itself
“Each generation is as independent as the one preceding, as that was of all that had gone before. It has then, like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness.” ---Thomas Jefferson “It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people---whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth---is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.” ---Franklin Delano Roosevelt “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” ---Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis “The poor man who takes property by force is called a thief, but the creditor who can by legislation make a debtor pay a dollar twice as large as he borrowed is lauded as the friend of a sound currency... The man who wants the people to destroy the Government is an anarchist, but the man who wants the Government to destroy the people is a patriot.” ---William Jennings Bryan Today’s word is “weltanschauung”. It is a German word that literally means “perception of the world” that has taken on a slightly broader definition. Today it is used by political pundits hoping to sound really intelligent as a way to sum up the current political philosophies and world-views that predominate in society. It’s similar to another German word, “zeitgeist”, which literally means “time spirit” and refers to the general trend in thought and belief at a particular time in history. Weltanschauung, as used by Robert McChesney and John Nichols in their book “People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy”, refers to the dangerous new political trend in this digital age to make a vast majority of average American citizens feel obsolete and unnecessary within the political sphere. According to McChesney/Nichols, this feeling of obsolescence is due to both accidental reasons as well as an intentional campaign by certain members of society. Completely by accident, or at least resulting from consequences that were mostly unintentional by the actors, humans have gradually become obsolete members of the workforce. This is due in very large part to technological advances, such as robotics, that have reduced the need for workers in almost any field. Other major technological advances regarding computers and the scientific field known as artificial intelligence are predicted to completely revolutionize the workforce, primarily by making virtually all human beings---with the exception of a select few with extremely specialized knowledge---unnecessary. In other words, according to M/N, the future may see unemployment rates double or even triple due to the fact that there will simply be no jobs to be had by human beings. Why hire a person when a faster, stronger robot that doesn’t sleep or eat or need to get paid can do the work of ten humans? This may seem like the realm of science fiction, but when one looks at the technological advances that are happening right now at an exponential rate, it doesn’t seem that far-fetched. In a 2013 study by Oxford University, it was predicted that 47% of existing jobs in the United States will be eliminated permanently, and the resulting unemployment rate would be somewhere north of 50%. (p.105) To be fair, according to M/N, many other factors would have to fall into place for this to be a reality, so this “gloom and doom” scenario is far from an accurate forecast. Still, in 2014, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, in a commission on the state of the U.S. economy, stated that, due to automation, “there is no reason to believe there will be jobs for all people at socially acceptable wages... The rapid pace in computer innovation of routine tasks has rightfully worried policymakers, as this scale of automation has little precedent in industrialized economies. (p.105)” Of course, the fact that no one is in dispute on the negative trend of job losses due to automation should send shivers up one’s spine. Everyone---from scientists to economists to politicians---agrees that it’s going to get worse and it’s probably never going to get better. Strangely enough, M/N aren’t advocating a Luddite revolution against the machines, a la “The Terminator”. (Well, not just yet, at least...) It’s not the machines’ fault, according to M/N. They were simply built to do a job, and the fact that they do it better than humans is actually a testament to human ingenuity. No, technology is not to blame here. Actually, the real culprit is capitalism, according to M/N. More specifically, it is a group of capitalists who control the politicians who are taking advantage of this trend toward joblessness and creating a political sphere in which the basic foundations of democracy upon which this country was built are being stripped away and destroyed. Topics of discussion and new ideas are constantly being taken off the table. Socialized medicine, efforts to ameliorate effects of global climate change, making the wealthy pay more in taxes, capital-gains taxes, reducing military spending, free public education: all of these, and more, are topics which many politicians won’t even listen to, or they pay lip service to the topics to make it look like they actually have an interest, when, in fact, they are in the back pockets of wealthy corporations and lobbyists who pay for votes on policies that serve the interests of corporations and the wealthy at the expense of average American citizens. M/N make it pretty clear, too, that both political parties are guilty of the same crimes. Neither parties have, at heart, the interests of the general public. Democrats suckle the corporate teat just as much as Republicans. Changes must be made, but it is becoming more and more evident that those changes will NOT be made by those at the top. Why should they, when the status quo works so well in their favor? Progress must be, and will be, made from the bottom up, not from the top down. Revolution is inevitable. The type of revolution that occurs will be determined by the level of peoples’ feelings of desperation and disenfranchisement. It will also depend on how willing the few powerful people at the top are willing to alter the weltanschauung and allow for radical social changes. “Indeed, most writers assume capitalism as it has come to be known is the basis for democracy and freedom, and that whatever happens in the future, the necessity of preserving current capitalism (or some sped-up version of it) all but trumps other concerns. Nothing should be done to alter the power of the digital giants or the unquestioned dominance and legitimacy of the profit motive when it comes to defining the future. Even the truest believers in capitalism, if they are honest with themselves, have to recognize that this is a political gambit, a means for taking the biggest issues off the table. When we cannot have a wide-ranging debate about economics, then concentrated economic power translates into general cultural power. This is the nature of the present weltanschauung. We live in a time when it is illegitimate to say that the emperor is wearing no clothes. (p. 249)” ---Robert McChesney and John Nichols ...more |
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May 15, 2016
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| 9780393351590
| 0393351599
| 4.14
| 85,706
| Mar 31, 2014
| Mar 23, 2015
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really liked it
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Is there such a thing as an honest man on Wall Street? Insofar as greed and self-interest is a part of human nature and something that we all succumb
Is there such a thing as an honest man on Wall Street? Insofar as greed and self-interest is a part of human nature and something that we all succumb to from time to time, Michael Lewis, in his book “Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt”, seems to think that the answer is “yes”. In his latest critique on Wall Street culture, Lewis highlights the almost-accidental heroism of a handful of Wall Street insiders who uncover an insidious new trend in Wall Street that makes it easier for banks to steal lots of money from everyday investors---namely, people like us, anyone who has pension plans or 401Ks or IRAs. I say “almost-accidental” because the heroes in “Flash Boys” never set out to be heroes, nor would they probably consider themselves heroes. They are just guys who noticed that the little guys were getting screwed by the big guys, and they decided to do something about it. If anything, “Flash Boys” is about refusing to stay silent in the face of bullying. In one way, “Flash Boys” can be viewed as a semi-sequel to “The Big Short”, Lewis’s detailed examination of the 2008 financial crisis, an examination that uncovered rampant unchecked greed and corruption at nearly every level of the United States financial system, from investors to brokers to bank presidents to CEOs to politicians. “Flash Boys” takes place several years after the events of the ’08 crisis. Things haven’t changed much. In fact, things are just as bad, if not worse, on Wall Street than they were prior to 2008; only now, technological advances have made it easier, and faster, to screw over people. The primary figure at the heart of this drama is Brad Katsuyama, a mild-mannered Japanese-Canadian who works for the Royal Bank of Canada, one of the oldest and most prestigious banks in Canada. Considered by his co-workers to be an upstanding, likable and honest worker, Brad wasn’t someone who liked to create or deal with conflict very much. He just liked his job and the fact that he could create a nest egg for his family, and he didn’t want to hurt anybody in the process. He wasn’t what one would call a boat-rocker, in the least. So, when RBC transferred him to New York City, to work on Wall Street, at the tender age of 24, Brad felt like a small fish in a very huge shark-infested pond. To say that he quickly got educated is an understatement. Brad learned the ins and outs, the good/bad/and ugly of Wall Street. Taking his knowledge back to Canada with him, Brad became a trader for RBC, brokering big money deals on a daily basis. On top of that, he also earned a reputation for being a straight shooter, partly due to decent upbringing but also partly due to a particular Canadian quirk of honesty: “The best way to manage people, he thought, was to convince them that you were good for their careers. He further believed that the only way to get people to believe that you were good for their careers was actually to be good for their careers. These thoughts came naturally to him: They just seemed obvious. (p. 27)” So, when Brad started noticing that whenever he tried to buy and sell shares, the market seemed to react in a way that invariably made him lose money, almost as if the market was anticipating his actions and quickly changing in a way that guaranteed a loss for him. At first, the IT guys were called in, thinking that it was a computer glitch or a problem with the software. They couldn’t figure it out. So, Brad started researching the problem himself, which was especially hard since he had no computer or technology training. What he eventually discovered was what is currently referred to as high-frequency trading (HFT), a new up-and-coming Wall Street technology that enabled a very select few who possessed it to gain an unfair advantage over those who didn’t have the technology. I won’t pretend to completely understand the technical stuff (Lewis does a decent enough job explaining it all in layman’s terms, although one probably needs a degree in computer science to fully understand it), although it essentially deals with the use of fiber-optic cables that give HFT traders a jump of mere milliseconds and nanoseconds on big-money trades. One wouldn’t think that milliseconds would matter much, but in the high-frequency trading world, they matter greatly. There’s also these things called “dark pools”, which---if I understand it correctly---are secret underground markets that may very well be ruling Wall Street. I’m not sure exactly, but they sound like the “shadow government” equivalent to Wall Street. Pretty creepy, scary stuff. No one really knows much because their very existence is well-guarded, and they are impenetrable. Anyway, Brad ran with this new knowledge and essentially formed an “A-Team” of mostly computer geeks and Wall Street outliers to figure out how to circumvent HFT and give investors an equal footing in the market. There result was called Thor, a tool that basically “slowed down” HFT long enough for normal traders to have a chance in the market. Brad eventually started a new company called IEX, which created a dark pool of his own. Of course, unlike other dark pools, which are evil, Brad’s dark pool was created only for good. Seriously, though, IEX’s selling point was that it was basically meant to create a level playing field for all traders so no traders would have an unfair advantage over others. Since its inception in 2012, IEX has become extremely successful, especially among the “old” banks like Goldman Sachs, who never really had a chance against the HFT. “Flash Boys” is, like “The Big Short”, riveting and intense. It reads like a techno-thriller, made all the more crazy by the fact that it is nonfiction. Lewis has already become one of my new favorite nonfiction authors. I literally can’t get enough of his stuff... ...more |
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May 02, 2016
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May 03, 2016
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May 02, 2016
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| 0393343448
| 9780393343441
| 0393343448
| 3.90
| 46,099
| Oct 03, 2011
| Sep 04, 2012
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it was amazing
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I puzzled over the title of Michael Lewis’s book “Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World”, as the word “boomerang” does not appear once throughout.
I puzzled over the title of Michael Lewis’s book “Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World”, as the word “boomerang” does not appear once throughout. It confused me until I began to piece together what exactly Lewis was trying to say between the lines. Lewis’s books are all about what’s between the lines. He is all about the subtle extrapolation of meanings and hidden meanings lurking beneath the subject matter. In his wonderful book, “Moneyball”, which was ostensibly about baseball and the economics of the game, Lewis was actually writing about innovative and revolutionary thinking, and how our culture discourages, demeans, and tries to destroy new ways of doing things, even when---and especially when---those new ways are more efficient and more productive. “Boomerang” is Lewis’s follow-up to his book, “The Big Short”, which was about the 2008 U.S. financial disaster, following the collapse of the housing market bubble that nearly wiped out several huge banks. The federal government stepped in with a huge bailout of taxpayer money, thinking that they stopped the hemorrhaging and saved the patient. For all intents and purposes, they did. Lewis, however, wonders if, maybe, it was a temporary fix and a harbinger of worse things to come. Because Lewis, who has a propensity for finding people with keener perceptions than most humans, actually listens to those people spouting gloom-and-doom prophecies, especially when nobody else is listening, and especially when those prophetic loners have a track record of being correct. One of those prophetic loners is Kyle Bass, a hedge fund manager from Texas. In 2006, he clearly saw what apparently no one else on Wall Street saw or, more likely, wanted to see. When he tried to warn everybody of the impending subprime mortgage crisis, he was laughed or thrown out of offices and buildings. So, he did what only a select few in the know (including the guys in “The Big Short”) could do in the situation: bet against the market. He literally made billions while hundreds of thousands of other investors and banks lost billions. After 2008, though, Bass did more research and began to realize that nothing was actually fixed after the crisis. Wall Streeters, politicians, and economists were still doing and encouraging the same stupid behaviors that got them into the mess in the first place. The subprime mortgage crisis was, according to Bass, not the cause of the ’08 debacle but merely a symptom of a much bigger problem. Bass predicted that the next financial crisis was going to be bigger and it was going to be global. Thus, “Boomerang” is Lewis’s attempt to investigate the root cause of these financial crises. Reading, at times, more like a humorous travelogue than an in-depth investigative report, “Boomerang” follows Lewis to Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany, and then the state of California---all locations that have, since 2008, suffered their own financial crises. What Lewis learns, in a nutshell, is that each unique culture---based on a combination of racial, national, and regional idiosyncrasies---contributed to their own unique problems as well as to how they dealt with it. This is why Greeks---most of whom, statistically, refuse to pay taxes because the government doesn’t enforce the law anyway---violently protested the government’s attempts to use taxpayer money to pay back debts, while most Germans willfully and graciously encouraged their government to use their money to pay debts. In most cases, Lewis discovers something that isn’t that shocking: a majority of human beings want their governments to offer basic services, but they don’t want to have to pay for them. It’s a paradox that each culture on Earth deals with in a myriad of weird, shocking ways. Weird in the fact that sometimes the attempts at cheating the system seems to actually work. Shocking in that, in most cases, people are mystified and outraged when those attempts eventually backfire. Essentially, Lewis is saying that people are stupid. In a nicer way, Lewis makes the point that almost all humans lack the ability to see the consequences of their own actions, even when those consequences are the only possible consequences to those actions. Like a boomerang, humanity’s capacity for enormous greed and self-interest will inevitably, and horribly, come back to kick us in the ass. ...more |
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Apr 25, 2016
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Apr 27, 2016
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Apr 25, 2016
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| 1934941484
| 9781934941485
| 1934941484
| 4.43
| 103
| Jan 02, 2009
| Jan 02, 2009
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liked it
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I am a union man. I support unions whole-heartedly and unashamedly. I have been, in my many years of bouncing from job to job (mostly out of the bored
I am a union man. I support unions whole-heartedly and unashamedly. I have been, in my many years of bouncing from job to job (mostly out of the boredom and confusion that comes from not knowing what the hell to do with my life), a member of several unions. I have not always been supportive of unions, but this was mostly due to ignorance and a tendency to accept the opinions and advice of people whom I trusted and admired without question. Over the years, having read more about the history of unions, seeing how important unions were, appreciating what unions have accomplished, and realizing that unions are as vital and necessary today as ever before, it has simply bolstered my belief in unions. Bernie Sanders, in his autobiography, “Outsider in the White House”, repeatedly quotes someone named Eugene V. Debs, an important figure, apparently, in the Socialist movement of the 1920s and a hero among workers’ unions. I’m ashamed that I had never known much about Debs prior to my interest in Sanders. The name was one of many that I recalled, briefly, from history textbooks about whom I had simply forgotten or never had much interest in to begin with. History textbooks, unfortunately, tend to do that with important and fascinating historical figures. Debs was born in 1855 in Terre Haute, Indiana, the son of French immigrants. A high school drop-out, Debs went to work at a rail-yard. He was paid fifty cents a day for back-breaking labor. It was while working on the rail-yard that Debs fell into firefighting. He worked as a firefighter for years, loving everything about the job, even the high pay---one dollar a day. Debs became heavily involved in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. He also became editor of the popular BLF newsletter, Firemen’s Magazine, which nearly tripled in circulation under his editorship. In 1884, Debs was elected to the Indiana General Assembly on the Democratic ticket, serving one term. At this point in his life and career, socialism was not a major part of his life. It wouldn’t be until after the major role he played in the famous Pullman Strike that Debs became a Socialist. The Pullman company, which made the train cars responsible for transporting important freight across the country, as well as the U.S. mail, feeling the economic crunch of the time, cut employee wages by 28%. The workers---against the initial advice of Debs, who knew that the company, along with the federal government, would strike back with force---went on strike. The American Railway Union, country-wide, shut down train transport with its strike. President Grover Cleveland ordered the U.S. Army to intervene in busting the strike. Thirty strikers lost their lives, and countless more were injured. Debs was sent to federal prison for violating the initial injunction by the U.S. government, which claimed that the strike was obstructing the delivery of mail---a federal crime. It was during his six-month stay in prison that Debs voraciously read and studied Socialism. When he was finally released, Debs was a full-fledged Socialist. Debs was a gifted orator who earned respect and admiration from workers across the country as well as hatred from the rich company owners and the federal government. He was imprisoned several times, most notably after giving an anti-war speech during the early years of World War I. Red and Black Publishers, in 2009, published a small book compiling some of Debs more famous speeches, essays, and articles. Reading his articles today, I am struck by how some of the language could just as easily apply to today’s situations, especially in regards to what Debs called “wage slavery”, the tendency of big companies to work their workers to death with little monetary compensation. He wrote about the importance of a living wage. He also frighteningly predicted the disastrous effects of policies like NAFTA, nearly sixty years before it existed, and the massive job losses and industry devastation due to globalization. Sadly, Socialism received a bad name after Germany and Russia usurped some basic (albeit extremely perverted) premises of socialism, twisted and molded to fit a dictatorial mold. Germany’s National Socialist Party (dubbed Naziism) and Russia’s Communist Party gave the American general public a distorted and, sadly, horrific view of socialism’s good-idea-turned-very-bad. Parts of Debs’s writings are, admittedly, cringe-worthy, given the history of the world shortly after his death in 1926. He writes about the “coming revolution” and the “death of capitalism”: strong rhetoric which, for him, simply meant an inevitable and optimistic shift toward more wealth equality and better working conditions. I doubt he could have ever foreseen the horrors of Europe in the 1940s, the McCarthy Era, and the disastrous anti-communist debacles in Korea, Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Still, there is much to admire and appreciate in the nearly-centuries old political writings of Debs. ...more |
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Apr 20, 2016
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Apr 25, 2016
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Apr 20, 2016
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Paperback
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| 0393324818
| 9780393324815
| 0393324818
| 4.26
| 135,112
| 2003
| Mar 17, 2004
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really liked it
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As a writer, Michael Lewis has that amazing ability to write about one thing but actually be writing about something else entirely. Sometimes it’s mea
As a writer, Michael Lewis has that amazing ability to write about one thing but actually be writing about something else entirely. Sometimes it’s meanings within meanings, and it often requires a deeper read between the lines. “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” is, ostensibly, about the economics of baseball, how baseball can be looked at as a financial microcosm of the real world: the wealth inequalities between major league teams and how rich teams tend to win many more games than poor teams and why that is. Insofar as any book ever written about baseball is never actually about baseball, one can still enjoy “Moneyball” as a basic underdog story, and it has the distinction of being that rare literary beast of an underdog story: a true one. But it’s even more than a metaphorical look at the unfairness of how our economic system works. Going deeper, it’s actually about our 21st-century disinterest in and---more worrisome---inexplicable discouragement of innovative “out-of-the-box” thinking, perhaps because true “out-of-the-box” thinking has the perception of being counterintuitive and diametrically opposed to everything we’ve been taught. In 2002, Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s, decided to do something so radical as to have the appearance of utter insanity. Rather than listen to his talent scouts---seasoned veterans of the sport and guys who could recognize real talent---in regards to picking players for the upcoming season roster, Beane chose to listen to his assistant Paul DePodesta, an economics graduate from Harvard with a laptop always at the ready. Beane’s theory was this: picking players based on an outdated and somewhat mystifying and undefined je ne sais quoi of inherent talent was too subjective to be reliable, and, not only that, it simply didn’t work. How did he know this? Beane was living proof that it didn’t work. By all rights, according to the talent scouts, Beane should have been one of the sport’s all-time best players ever. He hit all the markers: running, catching, hitting, throwing, looks. In 1980, fresh out of high school, he was signed by the New York Mets. Everyone knew, absolutely, that Beane was going to go places. Everyone, of course, except Beane. The truth was, Beane’s heart wasn’t in it. If any of the myriad of scouts had asked him what he really wanted to do---go to college, for one---his life may have been drastically different. Unfortunately, Beane’s baseball career was a series of trades to teams who didn’t know what to do with a decent player who didn’t really want to be there. As General Manager, Beane decided in 2002 that doing it the old-fashioned way just wasn’t cutting it. There had to be a better way. Enter DePodesta. Like Beane, DePodesta loved baseball but saw that the sport was growing stagnant and major changes needed to be made, even changes that might initially seem destructive but would, in the long term, be better overall for the sport. One of the changes was the way baseball statistics were being used. Basing their new philosophy on the writings of historian and statistician (and baseball lover) Bill James, Beane and DePodesta looked at the stats of the players in a way that most people didn’t. Most of the stats that scouts looked at were irrelevant, and scouts often overlooked more important stats. In a nutshell, Beane and DePodesta were looking for a player to do one thing: ensure a win. The team that Beane/DePodesta picked looked, on the face of it, like a nightmare of rookies, has-beens, and never-wases. At one point, someone referred to the 2002 Oakland A’s roster as “the island of misfit toys”, and to most people it was an appropriate moniker. As the season opened, the Oakland A’s lost every single game they played for the first two weeks. Then, something interesting started happening. They started winning games. It bumped their standing up from dead last in the league to, well, second to last. But it was something. Then, something even more interesting started to happen. They started winning more games, until, at one point, they had a 19 game winning streak that didn’t appear to let up. Sadly, the A’s lost in the postseason against the Minnesota Twins, and while their success to that point was something incredible, many of Beane’s naysayers pointed to the postseason loss as an “I told you so” moment, negating everything Beane was trying to do. Clearly, he was a failure, and his ideas were hokum. Except, he wasn’t, and they weren’t. Since 2002, more teams have begun adopting the same philosophy and methods that Beane used for his team, to great success. Indeed, the Boston Red Sox (a team that offered Beane a $12.5 million salary to be general manager, an offer that he turned down) won the 2004 World Series utilizing the same metrics and philosophies pioneered by Beane. Clearly, many people in baseball were changing their minds about Beane’s ideas: they weren’t hokum. While Lewis’s book may seem like it might be a dry look at numbers that won’t interest anyone other than people who are die-hard baseball fans, it is anything but dry. Besides being beautifully written, Lewis never forgets the human element---the “romantic” side---of baseball in his characterizations of an ensemble cast of fascinating, flawed, and idiosyncratic people. He also knows what makes for an exciting baseball underdog story, ending the book with the climactic tension-filled now-famous early-September game against the Kansas City Royals, where the A’s, starting off with an 11-0 lead, slowly began to lose the lead until the final inning, a score of 11-11. This was the game that would have either broken their 19-game winning streak or continued on to a 20-game streak. It was a nail-biter of a game, and Lewis captures it brilliantly on the page. Beneath all the baseball and the economic theory, though, Lewis is telling another story about the American people, one that isn’t very pretty. According to Lewis, people like Beane---idea people, outliers with highly innovative new ways of doing things---must fight their way past almost-unstoppable barriers of ignorance, anti-intellectalism, and traditionalism. Sometimes people like Beane never get heard. For every Beane, Steve Jobs, or Bernie Sanders, there are countless millions who may have had revolutionary ways of changing health care, education, the economy, the environment, etc. who simply gave up trying. There is the secret tragedy that hides behind the upbeat and optimistic pages of “Moneyball”. It is a tragedy, I think, that Lewis hopes to avert in the future by telling Beane’s amazing story. ...more |
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Mar 27, 2016
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Mar 23, 2016
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Paperback
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| 039335315X
| 9780393353150
| 039335315X
| 4.30
| 163,107
| Mar 15, 2010
| Nov 16, 2015
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really liked it
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“I think there is something fundamentally scary about our democracy. Because I think people have a sense that the system is rigged, and it’s hard to a
“I think there is something fundamentally scary about our democracy. Because I think people have a sense that the system is rigged, and it’s hard to argue that it isn’t.” ---Charlie Ledley Michael Lewis’s book “The Big Short” is intense, fascinating, disturbing, and hilarious, and I only understood about 45% of it. No, the book is not written in Aramaic or Pig Latin or Mandarin Chinese. It’s actually written in English, and while I actually understood all the words in the book, the order in which the words were placed confused me. For example, I know what “credit” and “default” and “swap” mean separately, but when placed together as the term “credit default swap”, also referred to as a “CDS”, my brain stopped working. Even when it was defined for me. Here’s the definition, by the way, according to Investopedia.com: “A credit default swap is a particular type of swap designed to transfer the credit exposure of fixed income products between two or more parties. In a credit default swap, the buyer of the swap makes payments to the swap’s seller up until the maturity date of a contract. In return, the seller agrees that, in the event that the debt issuer defaults or experiences another credit event, the seller will pay the buyer the security’s premium as well all interest payments that would have been paid between that time and the security’s maturity date. A credit default swap is the most common form of credit derivative and may involve municipal bonds, emerging market bonds, mortgage-backed securities or corporate bonds. A credit default swap is also often referred to as a credit derivative contract.” Huh? There’s shit like this all throughout the book. I swear to God, I’d think Lewis is just making stuff up, except that there’s a whole weird subculture of people who speak like this and actually understand what that shit means. They’re called Wall Streeters, and they are fucking insane. Not that my inability to decipher Wall Street jargon detracted from my enjoyment of the book. On the contrary, slogging through all that ridiculous garbage gave me a better understanding and a deeper appreciation of how completely fucked-up a system like Wall Street really is. Wall Street is beyond broken right now. It’s Too Big to Fix. That’s pretty much the conclusion of the nine men at the heart of the story: Steve Eisman, Michael Burry, Charlie Ledley, Jamie Mai, Vincent Daniel, Danny Moses, Porter Collins, Ben Hockett, and Greg Lippmann. Of the several hundreds of thousands of people working on Wall Street, these nine guys were the only guys who were smart enough to see the credit and housing bubble collapse coming long before it happened. They didn’t just predict it, either. Knowing full well that the actions of only nine guys couldn’t do squat to stop it, they did what any intelligent Wall Streeter would do: they capitalized on it. Okay, here’s my attempt to explain the 2008 collapse, in a nutshell: Before the housing bubble burst, which was the instigator for the collapse, there was a tremendous amount of gambling on Wall Street involving subprime mortgage loans. Also called “predatory loans”, these were mortgage loans given to people with low credit at higher-than-normal interest rates precisely because they were high-risk. This was happening a lot, mainly because the housing market was so ridiculously good. Everyone and their uncle was attempting to buy up property because everyone and their uncle was being told that it was a phenomenal investment. Because, hey, prices of houses could only keep going up, right? Essentially, this is pretty much what everyone on Wall Street actually thought. Due to this completely ridiculous belief, there was an explosion in popularity of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). I won’t even try to explain what these things were, because basically no one---including Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan---could adequately explain what they were, either. Whatever they were, they were literally making billions of dollars for investors, which is why they were so popular. No one, however, questioned what was behind these CDOs, which was essentially bad home loans for people who couldn’t afford them in a housing market that could implode at any second. And implode it did, marking the start of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s Great Depression. Anyone with any common sense or a keen eye should have seen what was coming, but Wall Street is not known for common sense, keenness of perception, or any sense of rationality whatsoever. That, or they put way too much faith in themselves, the system, and humanity. As Hockett began to realize, after pain-staking research into the matter, “These people believed that the collapse of the subprime mortgage market was unlikely precisely because it would be such a catastrophe. Nothing so terrible could ever actually happen. (p.148)” Eisman was one of the few that saw what was coming, mainly because he had, years before, figured out that the entire system was designed for one thing and one thing only: “Fuck the poor.” Wall Street didn’t care that thousands of Americans were being evicted, having houses foreclosed, going bankrupt, and losing jobs. That’s not an indictment, that’s a fact. “However corrupt you think this industry is, it’s worse (p.103),” said Moses. I’m not going to lie and say that “The Big Short” is an easy read. It’s not, for many reasons, not the least of which is that you basically need a glossary and an MBA to fully understand the technical stuff. It’s hard to read, also, for its depiction of rampant greed and lack of compassion. Lewis’s real focus isn’t on the technical stuff but on the fact that Wall Street is just like Las Vegas. Not today’s Vegas, with the shiny new buildings and attempts at family-friendly entertainment. No, Wall Street is the old Vegas: grimy, gritty, rotten, and run by horrible people obsessed by one thing: money. ...more |
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| 3.98
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it was amazing
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Apr 30, 2024
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| 4.23
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it was amazing
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Mar 11, 2024
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it was amazing
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Mar 18, 2024
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| 4.37
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really liked it
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Feb 22, 2024
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really liked it
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Feb 27, 2024
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Feb 19, 2024
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it was amazing
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Feb 18, 2024
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| 3.80
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it was amazing
|
Nov 27, 2023
|
Nov 24, 2023
|
|||||
|
| 3.83
|
it was amazing
|
Jul 12, 2023
|
May 07, 2023
|
|||||
|
| 4.27
|
it was amazing
|
Apr 25, 2023
|
Mar 29, 2023
|
|||||
|
| 4.08
|
it was amazing
|
Aug 12, 2019
|
Aug 06, 2019
|
|||||
|
| 4.11
|
it was amazing
|
Jul 21, 2019
|
Jul 18, 2019
|
|||||
|
| 4.47
|
really liked it
|
Apr 22, 2017
|
Apr 24, 2017
|
|||||
|
| 4.31
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 24, 2017
|
Jan 22, 2017
|
|||||
|
| 3.67
|
liked it
|
Jul 2016
|
Jul 03, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 4.00
|
really liked it
|
May 15, 2016
|
May 14, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 4.14
|
really liked it
|
May 03, 2016
|
May 02, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 3.90
|
it was amazing
|
Apr 27, 2016
|
Apr 25, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 4.43
|
liked it
|
Apr 25, 2016
|
Apr 20, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 4.26
|
really liked it
|
Mar 27, 2016
|
Mar 23, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 4.30
|
really liked it
|
Mar 17, 2016
|
Mar 14, 2016
|
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