Authors Mate

Absolutely not worth your time

Revisado: 04-09-25

Burnam is an interesting figure in the history of philosophy. He started out as a Trotskyite and near the end of his life became a co-contributor with William F Buckley. This book was recommended to me - unfortunately I cannot remember by who as a brilliant analysis. The premise is (when the book was written in 1941) we were going through a transition from the Capitalist system to a "managerial" system - where managers were going to set the agenda for all of us. And that part of that transition would set up an environment where we were indifferent between commitments to government and private sectors.

The book is so riddled with tautologies it is hard to know where to begin. As I read it it harkened back to what Pope John Paul II talked about when he argued that universities (an intellectuals) can engage in "endless meanderings of erudition" Here are a couple his arguments. He argues that as proof of the transition from Capitalism to the dominance of managers he comments that in the decade before no investment capital had been invested in the US except through government. Isn't that what FDR consistently tried to do over the New Deal and isn't there a ton of evidence that that shift from private to public investment prolonged the effects of the depression? He claims that bright young men were increasingly not choosing to join capitalist firms but wanted to go into government. For college graduates that may have been true at the depth of the depression but as we came out of it (first with WWII and then with the postwar growth where America became a key player in the world economy it was not true in the future. The book tries to use definitions of feudal, Capitalist and managerial systems - many are simply bunk.

But there is a second problem with this book. The narrator is one of the worst I've ever encountered in the books I have purchased on Audible. His number of mispronounced words is almost endless. His reading style had my wife wondering whether English was not his first language.

One other thing which he could not be held responsible for, but I will. Think back to the 80 years after the book was written, is there any evidence to support his bold suggestion of a paradigmatic shift? Indeed the way we organize economic activity has changed since the early 1940s, but not at all in the way Burnam speculated.

Charles Lindblom had a book called Politics and Markets which is a much better analysis of the forces which affect power centers in society.

As I said at the start this book was recommended to me as a text with brilliant analysis.

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Not worth the time

Revisado: 04-30-24

This book starts as an effort to proclaim that 1968 was a seminal election. Yet the narrative, which relies on heavy quotes from memoirs (which most observers believe are ways for retired politicians to establish their place in history and thus not substantially relied on a good history) has several minor and glaring errors (including a minor one like the author's claim that Nixon lived in Park Palisades - not Pacific Palisades.

Nichter seems to believe in the Burns theory of presidential power (Burns was an admired of FDR who ignored the separation of powers and claimed that the president is the center of government). He argues that LBJ could have won had he chosen to declare in spite of the six months where his poll numbers were dropping like a stone.

While I don't like arguments like this one could make a much more credible case that 1972 was the year that broke politics - when the progressives in the Democrat party realized that they could change the rules for selecting candidates and the primacy of the progressives began to assert itself. Or one could argue that 1980 was the time that broke politics where Reagan built a coalition that would dominate the GOP for a decade and then transform politics in the country.

I am sorry I spent the time necessary to listen to this. The narrator is one of the worst I have ever heard on Audible - his malapropos and halting narration was annoying.

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This is not a history but a screed

Revisado: 07-15-23

With such absurd notions to describe industrialization as a “process roto starve peasants into industrial jobs”this book would make Howard Zinn blush. The history of the region deserves better. The author confuses dates and is consistently negative on the role of entrepreneurs in the region and the state.

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A compelling story

Revisado: 07-03-22

Millard does it again - this is a stunning story well told by a superb writer.

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Brilliant work of satire

Revisado: 06-15-22

This book is updated from the original in some wonderful ways. The trip through various poseurs of faith is superb. The critical theory people, one group on the trip is worth the entire book. The narrator adds to the fun.

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An Important Book on a key issue

Revisado: 05-12-22

John Cogan has done a superb job of chronicling the history of entitlements beginning with pensions from the Revolutionary War. While there are some issues that I would disagree with, for example, his Romneyesque conclusion that Social Security is the same as other entitlements (explained below) his comprehensive study in a short period of time goes into the ins and outs of this concept.

Social Security is different in part because the underlying assumptions (were this treated as it was originally sold to Congress). The program for retirees in the last decade would be self funded, based on some reasonable investment assumptions. When I retired I summed all of the contributions made to my own SS account and then based on some conservative investment assumptions, estimated the lifetime monthly payment which would be due to me. The number was about double what I receive with Social Security.

That calculation not withstanding, why is it government seems incapable of making honest actuarial assumptions about the future value of various programs and then in the case of contributory programs holding the payments in trust or for non-contributory programs making an honest assessment of the net future value of the promised benefits? The answers are simple. Politicians constantly engage in rent seeking (getting voter's favor by increasing benefits in even numbered years and delaying the true estimates of long term costs) and in log rolling (trading votes where the real value of the trade is passed on to a third party - the voters). Politicians think in cycles that are concurrent with their election cycles while these programs all have longer term costs. So they get the credit and we are stuck with the costs.

There is one issue I have with this audible production. The narrator is the worst I have ever heard on an audible production. The narrator does things like confusing "exasperated" and "exacerbated", and in doing what sounds like a series of over-dubs. There are too many places in the book where the narrator mispronounces even simple words which make the production hard to listen to. As noted in the beginning this book is a substantive and comprehensive treatment of an important subject so it is a shame that the production qualities are so poor.

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Great book

Revisado: 07-26-20

This is one of two historical novels of Dickens. It is about the Anti-catholic riots in the time of King George III. The story is long but interesting.

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After the Berry Book on the Romanovs

Revisado: 03-11-17

Where does Caught in the Revolution rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

So what was it like being in the capitol of Russia in the early days of the 1917-18 revolution? Rappaport tells that story in a well researched but very readable book. I read this right after reading a novel about restoring the Romanov throne - good pair!

What other book might you compare Caught in the Revolution to and why?

Steve Berry's novel on the Romanovs

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Great book - well read

Revisado: 08-19-06

This is a great book, with great ideas. However, Rand tends to preach a bit at times. The perorations in this book become a bit tendentious. But the reader is excellent and portrays the characters in a dynamic manner.

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Precision is a bit much

Revisado: 02-05-06

Dent claims to be able to tell the future based on some long term trends. He claims a bit too much. The future is neither a linear reflection of the past nor as exact as he would like. However, if you ignore the hype - there are some very interesting speculations on a number of economic trends.

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