Brilliant Analysis of Federal Budget As Influence Device,
February 27, 2002
Herbert Stein
This absolute gem from 1989 should be updated and republished. I have resurrected it in relation to my reading on federal budgeting and the dangers of the deficit spending now in vogue in Washington (2002).This is the best book I have read on the strategic aspects of the federal budget–needed reforms, key issues in allocation policy, using the budget to stabilize the economy.
Where the book excels is in its analysis of how the federal budget should be used to steer private sector outlays–as Osborne and Gaebler suggested, we must steer rather than row–guide the private sector rather than use taxpayer dollars for direct products and services.
In his discussion of priorities, the author focuses heavily on the lack of investment in education and the resurrection of education both public and private. As we enter the 21st Century largely ignorant as a Nation (of external realities, not at individuals), I cannot help but think that the time has come for the public to take charge of “political economy,” and begin actively setting forth its priorities. Just this week, in The Washington Post of 27 February 2002, David Ignatius suggests that Washington has turned its back on the Nation. Seems to me that's pretty dangerous, but if the Nation allows itself to be ignored by Washington, then we have the government–and the federal spending priorities–we deserve.
I just realized this is the third book by a lawyer I have absorbed in this month's reading, and that is somehow a scary thought. If lawyers are starting to write popular reformist tracts against unfettered capitalism and the export of the flawed U.S. approach to capitalism, something very interesting must be happening in the dark recesses of our national mind.This is not an easy book to read but on balance it is a very important book and one that would appear to be essential to any discussion of how we might reform the relationship between the federal government with its 1950's concepts and regulations, corporations with their secularist and short-term profit and liquidation notions, and the people who ultimately are both the foundation and the beneficiaries (or losers) within the political economy of the nation and the world.
The author lays out, from a business law perspective, all the legal and financial reasons why our corporate practices today sacrifice the long-term perspective and the creation of aggregate value, in favor of short-term profit-taking. He makes a number of suggestions for improvement.
Toward the end of the book, citing Lipsett but adding his own observations, he digs deep and summarizes our corporate culture as one that threatens traditional forms of community and morality (Lipsett), while increasingly dominating–undermining–foreign governments and cultures. Elsewhere in the book the stunning failure of our form of capitalism in selected countries is explored.
Although there are adequate notes, there is no bibliography and the index is extraordinarily mediocre–not containing, for example, the references in the book to oversight, political, or regulation. One star is deducted for this failure by the publisher to treat the book's content seriously.
The level of detail in this book is extraordinary, as is the meticulous documentation of sources. Even the index is surprising in both its presence and its quality.A few little gems jump out at me from all the detail:
1) Corporate corruption appears to not only be routine, but massive among more industries and companies than we might believe.
2) The government does actually try to regulate and prosecute, but this is both very expensive, and appears to result in the public *not* becoming conscious of the mis-deeds–no massive boycott, for example, seems to result.
3) The executives that conspire to cheat the public are remarkably ignorant. I was stunned to read how one of the principals in this story fell victim to what I thought was a really well-known Nigerian scam for defrauding numerous Americans of tens of thousands of dollars each, claiming that it will “release” millions in hijacked funds from the national bank.
4) The government often mistreats its own people. I was especially troubled, having seen employee abuse at other national agencies, when the book related how a senior FBI agent was not allowed to transfer–and save his mental health–because of his boss's selfish interests.
5) Lastly, I was left with the impression that there is an elaborate dance that goes on between the very expensive top law firms that protect corporate criminals, and the government. While the government seems to have worked hard on this one, the general impression that is left is that the normal drill when the public has been defrauded of hundreds of millions of dollars, is for the culprits to plead “no contest” and agree not to do it again–in return for token fines and guaranteed immunity.
At the end of the book I was left feeling dismayed at the depth and breadth of corporate corruption, at the general inadequacy of government in keeping the private sector economy honest, and at the lack of alternative public advocacy devices for truly focusing public spotlights such that fair pricing and fair practices are widely understood and enforced by customers, not just under-funded over-worked oversight bodies.
Although the book is very very long at 629 pages, I would have liked to see an author's epilogue titled “What Is To Be Done?” The author of this book can rightly claim to be among a select few intimately familiar with this problem in a manner no book by itself could communicate, and so a public policy analysis, some sort of prescription, would have been a valuable postscript to this excellent, really superior, investigative report.
Available at stores that sell everything for a dollar or less, this book is a hard-copy bargain. Even for those who have read other campaign trail books, this book offers a combination of unvarnished sad truths (Presidential candidates speaking to empty rooms, waving to empty runways, all to create the “virtual reality” of having something to say and someone to listen to it) together with a sense of lost opportunities.As campaign reform looms on the horizon, I found this book especially appealing for its detailed look at “the people's candidate,” Morry Taylor, the “Grizz”–a person I never heard of during the actual campaign. The book really drives home how flawed our existing electoral system is today, as well as all the campaign contributions, “rented strangers,” and other anomalies that make good Presidents an accident rather than a choice.
I read the book shortly after reading Ted Halstead and Michael Lind, “The Radical Center”, on citizen-centered politics of choice, and there could be no better book for appreciating just how radical Halstead and Michael are, than this book.
Seriously Under-Marketed and Under-Appreciated, A Real Value,
February 13, 2002
J. F. Holden-Rhodes
EDIT of 22 Sep 08: The publisher has sucumbed to insane greed. This book should not be selling for more than $45.95. It cost a penny a page to produce and they have not spend a dime on marketing, so go figure….
It is always a shame when a really great book is badly marketed and consequently does not reach as many professionals and citizens as it should. This is such a book.
What the blurbs don't tell you, such as they are, is that the author was one of the true pioneers in the world of open source intelligence (creating useful actionable intelligence using only legal and ethical sources and methods). His brilliant efforts in the early 1990's were easily a decade ahead of where the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) is today–using a wide variety of Latin American newspapers and lots of brainpower, he was able to create tactical intelligence that contributed significantly to the success of operational missions by the U.S. Southern Command and the Drug Enforcement Administration, leading the destruction of cocaine laboratories, the interdiction of aircraft, and the arrest of key people in the transnational criminal structure.
This book is an essential reference for any agency or command library concerned with asymmetric warfare, unconventional threats, and non-traditional methods of providing intelligence support to those responsible for dealing with anything other than traditional war. The sources and methods that the author discusses are especially pertinent to the study of terrorism, proliferation, transnational crime, cross-national toxic dumping, and other sub-state and non-state threats.
Balanced Deep Trustworthy View of Policy-Intelligence Gaps,
February 8, 2002
George W. Allen
This book is destined to be a classic. There is no other person who spent over 17 years focused on intelligence about Viet-Nam, and very rare is the person who can say they have spent over 50 years in continuous intelligence appointments, 20 of them after retirement. It is a personal story that I consider to be balanced, deep, and trustworthy. While it has gaps, these are easily addressed by reading, at least on the intelligence side, such books at Bruce Jones' “War Without Windows”, Orrin DeForest's “SLOW BURN”, Douglas Valentine's “The Phoenix Program”, Jim Witz's “The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War”, Tom Mangold & John Penycate's “The Tunnels of Chu Chi”, and the Viet-Nam portions of Jim Bamford's “Body of Secrets.”I mention these books in part to emphasize that George Allen has produced a book that will stand the test of time and should be regarded as an exceptional historical, policy, intelligence, and public administration case study. It is truly humbling and sobering to read such a calm, complete, and broad treatment of the history of both American intelligence in relation to Viet-Nam, and the consistent manner in which policy-makers refused to listen to accurate intelligence estimates, while their Generals and Ambassadors steadfastly “cooked the books.” The manipulation of truth from the Saigon end, and the refusal to listen to truth on the Washington end, resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, Vietnamese, Loatian, Cambodian, and American, as well as allied nationalities.
This book is gripping. I could not put it down. It is one of the most serious personal accounts I have ever read where the vivid realities of intelligence, ignorance, and policy come together. The author excells at painting the details in context, and his many specific portraits of key individuals and situations are superior.
This book is relevant to today's war on terrorism. Many of the same issues prevail–rather than enumerate them, I will give this book my very highest mark, and simply say that you cannot understand intelligence, or the intelligence-policy relationship, without having absorbed all this author has to say.
He's hit it out of the park. Every voter who wonders what it will take to hold politicians accountable for “due diligence” in decision-making, needs to read this book.
Everything You Need to Know About the Next Attack–And Fun,
February 6, 2002
Winn Schwartau
This book is a based on a *non-fiction* manuscript about U.S. vulnerabilities to electronic that was so hot that the author's lawyers insisted he turn it into a novel to avoid liability.It is absolutely superb and written by one of the most authoritative persons around. Unlike most academic and industry security specialists, the author has from the very beginning understood, respected, and been in touch with the elite hackers who worked very hard in the 1980's to expose the outrageously vulnerable electronic systems used by our financial, transportation, power, and communications industries.
In my view, books like this as well as the non-fiction books such as “Information Warfare: Chaos on the Electronic Superhighway” have been vital elements in educating consumers, stockholders, and voters. If you want to know just how vulnerable your bank account is, read this book.
I won't reveal the surprise ending, but will say that it is absolutely a shocker, and totally credible.
