This book is really a “comprehensive” (in the literal meaning of the word), clearly written, richly supported by concrete cases (mostly, federal agencies) guide about government bureaucracy mainly in the United States. From introduction to the end, Wilson clearly and convincingly demonstrates the reasons what the government agencies do and why they do that in the way they do.
The book is organized into six parts: Organizations, Operators, Managers, Executives, Context, and Change. In the first part, Wilson's thesis is simply that organization matters. Organization must be in accordance with the objectives of the agency. In the second part, the author examines the operators' behavior (say, street-level bureaucrats) and how their culture is shaped by the imperatives of the situation they encounter in a daily basis. The third part deals with the issues peculiar to managers of public agencies. In this part, attention is focused upon the constraints that put the mangers in a stalemate (see chapter 7, this chapter is completely insightful!!). The fourth part is devoted to the Executives. This part clearly illustrates why the executives of government agencies compete with other departments and which strategies are used in the process of competition and/or cooperation (especially see the 10th chapter about Turf, insightful!!). In the fifth part, Wilson focuses on the context in which public agencies do their business (Congress, Presidents and Courts). In the last part, Wilson summarizes the problems and examines alternative solutions (the market alternatives to the bureaucracy) and concludes with reasonable and “little” propositions.
Concise, Relevant, Documents New Knowledge, Respects Work of Others
July 6, 2010
George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton
This book is a solid five, and one of those instances when brevity adds value. While I was concerned to see no discussion of “true cost” economics and the book is overly fawning on Goldman Sachs (written before Goldman Sachs was exposed for its multiple fiscal crimes against both investors and governments), the superior References, Notes, and Acknowledgements balanced this out. This work began in 1995.
This is an engrossing book and it immediately overcame my general disdain for economists, most of whom have only recently discovered information asymmetries and most of whom refuse to recognize that corruption in the US government and cheating across the US economy is fully the equivalent of transnational organized crime in cost to society.
First off, I'm back. After three months integrating into a field position with a prominent international organization, with three days off the whole time, I am finally able to get back to reading, and have about fifteen books on water I was going to read for UNESCO but will now read and review for myself. Look for two reviews a week from this point on, absent another tri-fecta (volcano, storm, minor coup).
This book is not about the politics of happiness. It is more about the possibilities of public administration of happiness.
This will be a long review–apart from the author being one of a handful to truly top-notch minds with a historical memory, the topic is important–much more important than I realized until I starting following unconventional economics (ecological economics, true cost, bio-mimicry, sustainable design, human development and non-financial wealth).
The author opens with Bhutan and its Gross National Happiness (GNH) concept, with four pillars (good governance, stable-equitable social development, environmental protection, preservation of culture). Elsewhere (on the web) I learn that the 72 indicators are divided into nine domains (time use, living standards, good governance, psychological wellbeing, community vitality, culture, health, education, and ecology).
The author identifies and discusses six factors pertinent to happiness in the US context as he defines it: Marriage; Social Relationships; Employment (wherein trust in management is VASTLY more important than the paycheck); Perceived Health; Religion (in sense of community not dogma) and Quality of Government (as which point I am reminded of George Will's superb Statecraft as Soulcraft; Quality of government is further divided into Rule of Law, Efficient Government, Low Violence and Corruption; High Degree of Trust in Public Officials and Especially Police; and Responsive Encounters by Citizens with Government.
Note: 30 million in US population are “not too happy.”
Chapter and Verse But No Footnotes–a Cornerstone Read
June 17, 2010
Jeffrey St. Clair
I come late to this book, published in 2005 and consisting of well-organized Op-Eds published in CounterPunch from 2000-2005. My review is primarily for my own benefit (my notes) and those who follow my reviews of non-fiction at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, where you can browse categories in a way that Amazon refuses to implement (e.g. see all my reviews on Corruption or on Pathology of Military Power, or on Government Crime, etcetera).
The lack of footnotes troubles me, not because I doubt the details this extraordinary author brings forward (including many details NOT covered by the 1,600 books I have reviewed, many centered on this very topic), but because I believe the author's body of work would be enhanced if he included footnotes–I would go so far as to respectfully suggest that he write and publish on his personal blog the version with footnotes and links, and then publish the “clean” version at CounterPunch with a link to the notes version.
The best thing I can say about this specific book is that regardless of how many other books you might have read (I list ten suggestions with links at the end of this review), this book has details the other books do not have. It is a must read, and most especially so in the aftermath of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates meeting with Lockheed and other CEO's to assure them that the money will keep on coming–I was utterly stunned when I read that, and realize that for all of his intelligence, Robert Gates has zero interest in actually defending America–he's the Chief Thief. As he attempts to place Jim Clapper in the position as Director of National Intelligence, which oversees $75 billion a year in waste, I can only shake my head–Chief Thief and Mini-Me Thief. It is time the American people, led by Grover Norquist, leader of Americans for Tax Reform, to engaged in a massive tax revolt that redirects all tax revenue to local banks, in escrow for local needs. The Federal Government is OUT OF CONTROL.
As I look over the titles of the 33 Op Ed pieces, I have two thoughts: first, that this really is a spectacular collection of thoughful public interest criticism, very well organized; and second, that this same book could be written about every Cabinet Department, every State Governor, every Mayor across America. We have institutionalized looting in ways that even the most corrupt countries such as Guatemala have not even begun to exploit. The federal government is full of good, well-intentioned people, but it is also managed and manipulated by an elite that considers our tax dollars their privilege to spend, and that has to end.
Especially interesting to me were details on the Bush Family, including worthless relatives that helped companies climb to billions in revenue; details about George Bush Junior that were known before he ran for President but not properly presented to the public; details over the entire book on the treasonous displacement of uniformed personnel by contractors; technical exposes of specific mobility and weapons systems; and the over all DETAILED, balanced presentation of public intelligence in the public interest.
Here are ten other books I recommend to complement this one (if my reviews are buried at Amazon, they are easy to find at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, all with links there back to Amazon's page for the book, and to my review at Amazon as well so you can harvest comments if any, and/or vote.
I do not link to my own books, including ON INTELLIGENCE: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World, as they are easy to find and also available free online. The bottom line is that Obama sold out to play Bush in black-face, with zero change in the constant treason that has characterized the Executive and Legislative Branches since at least the 1990's when Newt Gingrich destroyed bi-partisan comity and Bill Clinton inhaled the vapors of Wall Street.
America needs both a tax revolt, and an honest Director of National Intelligence (DNI) able to create a Smart Nation in which we harness our collective intelligence and simultaneously ressurect national education and integrity; national research and integrity; and of course national decision-support (intelligence) and integrity. That alone will bury the current corruption because any DNI smart enough to do that will also be smart enough to tell Congress that intelligence and Whole of Government reform can be job and revenue neutral from state to state and district to district.
It seems like its the same negative reviews coming from the same people who have a seemingly blind support for Israel. Professor Naseer Aruri uses mainstream US, Israeli, and Palestinian sources to analyze whether in fact the United States government has been an honest broker in the Israel-Palestine conflict. According to the mounting evidence, US has in fact NOT been an honest broker, tilting more toward the side of Israel and placing any failure to the peace process on the Palestinians and their representatives. Also according to the documented history, Israel has enjoyed an immunity that is unprecedented in the international arena. For 40 years now, Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has been uncontested due to the fact that every meaningful international solution to the conflict has been vetoed by the US. US also continues to give over 3 billion dollars in military aid to the Israeli government to continue a very illegal occupation. According to the preambular paragraph of UN Security Council Resolution 242, “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” Therefore, Israel's occupation of West Bank and Gaza are illegal by international law. One also should look at Israeli scholars like Tanya Reinhart, Ilan Pape, Simha Flapan, Yosef Gorny, and others to corroborate such information. For human rights abuses that Israeli government commits on Palestinians go to the Israeli human rights organzation B'Tselem and other mainstream human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Once you compare the data to what the book presents and see that its dead on accurate, all the negative reviews on this site will seem ridiculous and show a blind following for Israel right or wrong rather than standing up for the truth regardless of who has it.
With Power Hungry, energy journalist and Austin apiarist Robert Bryce marshals lots of accurate numbers in context to make plain how modern culture exacts power from energy to save time, increase wealth, and raise standards of living. He also dispenses common sense to citizens and policy makers for an improved environment, a better, more productive economy, and more enlightened civil society. Inspired by the environmental economics of Rockefeller University's Jesse Ausubel and the University of Manitoba's prolific Vaclav Smil, he makes the case for continuing down the path of de-carbonizing our machine fuels–a process begun two hundred years ago when we turned from wood to fossil fuels and huge reservoirs of impounded water. As the world's population continues to urbanize, people will inevitably demand cleaner, healthier, environmentally sensitive energy choices.
Today, the world uses hydrocarbons for 90 percent of its energy, getting a lot of bang for its buck. Bryce offers convincing evidence that, over the next several generations, particularly since broad energy transformations require much time and financial investment, relatively cleaner burning natural gas will provide a bridge to pervasive use of nuclear power–” the only always-on, no-carbon source than can replace significant amounts of coal in our electricity generation portfolio.” And if nuclear ultimately becomes the centerpiece for the electricity sector, which constitutes about 40 percent of our total energy use, this development would accelerate the de-carbonization of the transportation and heating sectors as well.
His narrative transcends the current climate change debate. He thinks the evidence on either side is equivocal, at best provisional, and, even if it could be proven conclusively that humans were responsible for precipitously warming the earth by producing a surfeit of carbon dioxide, there is little that could be done about the situation now that would be consequential or practical, except embrace imaginative adaptation approaches.
Bryce organizes his ideas around four interrelated “Imperatives” that serve as a prime motif for human history and explain much contemporary circumstance: power density, energy density, scale and cost. He shows that, although energy is the ability to do work, what people really crave is the ability to control the rate at which work gets done–power. Performing work faster means more time to do something else. This begets an appetitive feedback loop, where more power unleashes more time to produce more power. As the scale of this process increases, costs are reduced, making what power creates more affordable.
“A Gusher of Lies” is a must-read for those wanting the cold, hard facts on the current state and future prospects of worldwide energy dynamics. Written by Robert Bryce, a fellow at the Institute for Energy Research and energy journalist and author for the past twenty years, “Gusher of Lies” is meticulously researched and footnoted (60+ pages of bibliography and references). It relies on numerical facts, realistic forecasts and opinions of key members of the scientific community to dispel any notion that the United States will ever achieve “energy independence” until another energy source/application, that does not currently exist, is invented. The alarming truth is the United States, along with every other developed country on the planet, are inexorably dependent on fossil fuels and will be for the foreseeable future.
While looking at the numbers, one should ask how “energy independence” has become such a dominant theme. Is it because the Middle East is evil and wants Westerners dead? Perhaps. Perhaps not. The oil behemoths of the Middle East need the West as much as, if not more than, we need them. Oil makes up ~7% of total U.S. imports but accounts for between 65 and 95 percent of Persian Gulf exports, depending on the nation. In the long term, economics tend to supplant all other factors. To claim energy independence will significantly reduce terrorism is a contrivance. While there is no denying that some Middle Eastern players have been linked to Islamic fundamentalists, most terrorist organizations are low-tech in nature and don't need oil dollars. Their financing has been found to come from drugs, human trafficking, weapons trading and other criminal activities. The cost to finance terrorist operations is a rounding error compared to the $5 trillion in annual energy revenues. Not to mention other, rapidly expanding economies will happily buy up much of what the U.S. doesn't in their laser-focused goal to enjoy what the U.S. has for many decades.
Why aren't politicians and special interests clamoring for semi-conductor independence? Semiconductors are also a vital commodity, yet the U.S. imports ~80% of its total semiconductor needs compared to ~60% for oil. The U.S. is also dependent on others for many other crucial commodities – manganese for making steel (100% imported), bauxite for making aluminum (100%), graphite (100%), platinum (91%), tin (88%), titanium (85%)… The list of dependencies goes on and on. So why have so many people latched on to “energy independence” when a brief examination of worldwide energy sources and demand would reveal the absurdity of such a goal in a globally interdependent world? The answer might be found in the term, “energy independence” itself. In the year 2000, a news data base, Factivia, that tracks the use of terms and phrases in major periodicals counted 449 total stories using the phrase. Since 9/11, the use of the term has risen exponentially. In 2006 the term was used in 8,069 stories. Power misers (no pun intended) and others seeking to influence behavior of the masses are always looking for issues that will appeal to, and even manipulate, people's emotions. It is worth mentioning that since “Gusher of Lies” was published in March 2008 the use of the phrase “Energy Independence” has dwindled and been altered. If one listens closely, phrases like “CLOSER to energy independence” and similar semantically adjusted phrases have become more common.
Concise, Relevant, Documents New Knowledge, Respects Work of Others
Absolutely Righteous, Mis-Leading Title
Nutrition Action for Energy Appetites,
