Books

Several new books have caught my eye recently.

The first book that caught my eye was by James Frey, whose memoir, A Million Little Pieces, was exposed as a work of fiction now has a fiction novel out called Bright Shiny Morning. The brief review in the May 26, 2008, edition of the New Yorker dismissed it as "banal." The Publisher's Weekly review by Sarah Nelson described it as "un-put-downable." The user comments on Amazon.com were also favorable. I did pick it up, but was able to put it down. There, I just saved you $26.95. If you go to Amazon.com you could get it for $17.96. If you go to the library you can check it out for free. If you do, I urge you to complain lustily regarding wasting taxpayers $$$$ on this guy's book. Or don't check it out at all, life's too short.

Moving from banal fiction to horrifying reality, books about the financial crisis are coming out fast and furious now. I have good and bad news. You want the bad? We're screwed. The good news is you don't know how screwed you are.

If you want to find out, read High Wire by Peter Gosselin. Hire wire documents how the social safety net that came out of the Great Depression has been eroded by so-called reforms that freed corporations to do whatever they want and left average Americans one job-loss, one pay check, one major illness, or one natural disaster away from poverty and despair. Think you have health insurance, you pay the premiums right? Don't get sick, because your insurance company will probably be able to find a way not to pay. Think you have home owners or earthquake insurance? Your insurance company can find away to wiggle out of that as well. AIG has demonstrated, you can make a lot of money collecting premiums by underwriting insurance if you don't intend to pay off the policy holders if they file a claim. We live in a YOYO world. YOYO stands for You're On Your Own.

This can't be you say, we live in America! USA #1!!!. Well, right now, maybe. But probably not for much longer. Bad Money by former Republican operative and historian Kevin Phillips describes how America's economic shift from manufacturing to finance and from major Superpower to Global Empire has failed. In the process it has destroyed the country's economy and damaged its global economic power. We have the greatest military but thanks our dependence on foreign investors to fund our national debts, we'll have to hold a garage sale before we invade the next country who's dictator tried to kill George W. Bush's dad. We are one of those countries that had an empire on which the sun never set, but in the words of historian S.T. Bindoff, "it was also an empire on which the sun never set for too long." That may not be so bad, the world is full of ex-empires. Most of them seem to be doing okay.

Third scary book is one I haven't read yet. It's Roger Lowenstein's While America Aged: How Pension Debt Ruined General Motors, Stopped the Subways, Bankrupted San Diego, and Loom as the Next Financial Crisis. I read the introduction and decided I didn't want to have a nervous breakdown. So I will probably give that one a pass. But I did link to the NY Times review.

So now it's time as comedian W. C. Fields once said, to "Grab the bull by the tail and face the situation." Ciao.

Capitano Tedeschi

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