Some books are so far out of my personal ability to digest in detail that I very rapidly convert to my scanning mode with one big question that I ask on every page: does this book and its author pass the smell test with me, and would I, if President, want to trust this author to help implement his ideas without necessarily understanding them in detail?
Not only is the answer for this book and this author a resounding YES, but on pages 31-32 I have a note, “Holy Shit! Could DT be doing all this?” Those two pages outline ten great deals that Donald Trump could be pursuing: peace, jobs, sound-money, Glass-Steagall, federalist, regulatory, liberty, health-care, fiscal, and governance.
As someone who has watched senior government official for forty years, I had previously come to the conclusion that William Colby, whom I knew, and Robert McNamara, whom I did not know, grew the most after leaving office. I add David Stockman to that list now. He was a callow youth as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, today he is a statesman and easily worthy of advising Trump, Putin, and Xi together. I like everything about David Stockman.
Had I needed any reinforcement, I would have found it in his statement (on page 78) that the US unemployment rate is actually 43%, far more than the 23% that John Williams has been documenting at shadowstats.com. I read this section carefully and I agree – the US economy is broken beyond belief and until we get a grip on the truth, we will not be able to repair it.
Let me end by singling out the one person I would insist be at Stockman’s side in any presidential-level role: Catherine Austin Fitts. What she has done in documenting the missing $21 trillion is of the utmost importance in enabling the President to insist on a debt jubilee and the return of the bulk of the stolen funds. If Stockman is the making of a royal straight flush, Fitts is the Queen that fills the hand. Visit http://tinyurl.com/21-trillion-plus to grasp the enormity of her contribution to healing our Republic.
I would be so bold as to suggest that David Stockman has earned a sequel tour as D/OMB, but this time managing the totality of the federal government as it has never been managed before, with holistic analytics, true cost economics, and a commitment to ending the predatory Western model of capitalism that he among others makes clear is not capitalism at all, just legalized looting on a global scale.
This is not a good book for the average reader including myself, but it is more than sufficient to single out David Stockman as a mature, earnest voice replete with integrity, easily one a handful of people who could replace the nine Goldman Sachs bankers and one Goldman Sachs bimbo in the White House that are stabbing the President in the back every single day.
