Rating: 
Summary: He should have written a book rather then a collection
Review: Krugman, eminent columnist and economist, has compiled many of his great essays and many lesser works into this single volume that he says chronicles the 'unraveling' of America under the Bush administration. The sad part here is not that his points are well made or that his essays are not good writing, the tragedy is he should have written a book and combined the ideas from his essays to form chapter outlines. As a collection this is a weak read where much fat is included with the meat. Not impressive, its almost as if he wanted to get it published before the election so he choose not to edit or expand on his central ideas. Badly presented material which otherwise is interesting, not the correct format.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-written, but a bit liberal for my blood.
Review: This book is a collection of the author's editorials previously published in none other than The New York Times. While the book is well-written, the author's ideas are a bit too liberal for my blood.
Rating:
Summary: Prescient!!!
Review: I stumbled onto Krugman's column in the NY Times after several years of closely following this country's politics and economy on or about 1993. After reading this book I am seriously considering moving out of USA to perhaps Canada or somewhere else until America's love story with the Republican right and the Christian coalition comes to an end. Krugman has been right in the past and I think he is on the dot concerning the future. I am skeptical about any optimistic numbers that come out of this White House given their propensity to simply lie and prevaricate about anything. Remember, these are the people of God who maintain that lying in a good cause is not a sin. Its a good thing that we have people like Krugman and Kevin Phillips around who constantly keep talking and keeping the facts of the politics and economy in this country out there in the public eye. Oh, by the way, I am an evangelical Christian.
Rating: 
Summary: Some Great Columns Add Up to Less-Than-Great Book
Review: Of course a book like this is going to polarize people whose feet are already firmly planted on the "left" or the "right." But since most of the political pundits have stopped listening to each other, who cares? The pundits have their quotes ready (i.e., both in praise and in opposition) before the book even goes to print. The ammo flying back and forth is what makes me cynical about American politics, because it is so blatantly obvious that many in the political process don't give a hoot about the truth or making the country better, they just want to win at any cost. Krugman's book should be judged by its ability to persuade open-minded, independent-thinking people. Against this standard, the book is thought provoking and important but flawed. The flaw arises because this is simply a collection of columns over a three-year period, organized thematically rather than chronologically. As such, Krugman's tendency is to repeat serious accusations rather than build a solid, fact-based and logically progressive argument. Let me be specific. Krugman is a serious economist with a serious concern about Bush's fiscal policy, and-if he is right-there is potentially a serious consequence. To boil it down and oversimplify, his argument on fiscal policy: 1. The Bush team cooked up its tax cut plan (which favors the wealthy) as a political maneuver largely to fend off Steve Forbes ahead of the 2000 election. 2. Then the Bush team remained inflexibly attached to the plan and it became the centerpiece of Bush's economic policy. 3. The tax cut was flawed especially on two counts: it could have better spurred consumer spending by giving more relief to ordinary Americans and it turned a surplus into a permanent deficit. 4. Bush then blamed the ensuing deficit on the war, but that was a scapegoat, because the tax cut had a much larger effect than the war (in any case, Krugman says that many of the war dollars are misdirected toward conventional weapons). 5. The ensuing fiscal squeeze will especially hurt Medicare (in particular, its extension to prescription drugs) and Social Security, which will have serious funding problems in the future as the ratio of workers-to-retirees decreases. So, these are indeed serious charges. (And there are lots of related charges along the way. For example, the most serious may be that cronyism runs rampant in the Bush administration. In particular, he blames cronyism on inappropriate defense contracts, favoritism and permissiveness in dealing with the energy companies, and loose corporate governance oversight. He could surely benefit from some balance along the way, even if for rhetorical purposes. In matters of corporate governance, he forgets to put some of the blame on shareholders and pension funds, you know, the people with fiduciary responsibilities.) But returning to the fiscal argument. The flaw is that, given this is a collection of newspaper columns, the accusations tend to get repeated rather than carefully constructed in a fact-based progression. So, I know he says that the tax cut idea was created to fend off Steve Forbes because it shows up in three or four (or more?) columns, but I don't know how to evaluate the veracity of this assertion. I read the book carefully and I still don't understand the basic mechanics of the Bush tax cut. Surely, in book format, Krugman missed a chance to first explain the basic mechanics of the plan before condemning it. But in this format instead, you are driven right to the accusations and you have to sort of piece together the underlying facts. Further, in book format, he could have better explained the Medicare issue (almost all coverage of Medicare is contained in a single column) and he could have better elaborated on the consequences of a structural deficit. As standalone pieces, however, some of the columns are definitely helpful. In particular, in "Slicing the Salami," he does a good job of explaining why you need to look at the total tax picture including payroll taxes. Another slight weakness is, I suppose, the price of academic detachment. You sometimes get the feeling his ideas are not weathered by real-world experience. For example, he does a good job illustrating why executive stock options can be dangerous. But his solution-to simply use options indexed to a benchmark-is typically academic. A little boardroom exposure would make him (a) realize these vehicles are notoriously difficult to implement and (b) they are likely to promote, even amplify, the same short-sided, stock-price-obsessed behavior as regular stock options. But all in, I tend to find the benefit of his detachment more valuable than the cost of his academic perspective. So, does the book make you think about terribly important issues? Absolutely. Does it conclusively persuade? Not really. For me, I couldn't put it down. He is a fantastic conversational writer, even as he's getting really mad and making you mad along with him, at times. So I was left thinking "Ohmygosh, if he's right, this is truly distressing, but is he right...?" Like I've suggested, I think a little balance would actually make him more persuasive and it wouldn't detract for the seriousness of the matter. How about throwing in a single good thing to say about Bush, are we beyond that? Nevertheless, there are some real gems in here (in particular, "7 Habits of Highly Defective Investors" explains exactly why you need to be careful with your investment dollars better than anywhere I have seen; his ice cream store analogy cleverly summarizes various accounting gimmicks, the "flavors of fraud" without ever using numbers!) and he is very handy with metaphors (e.g., "the US government is a big insurance company that also happens to have an army.").
Rating:
Summary: Time to get Mad
Review: As Molly Ivins said on the back cover its time to get mad AND fight back. Paul Krugman gives you plenty of ammo do it with too. This book is a devastating critique of the Bush administration and all of the shenanigans that they have foisted upon this great country of ours. Because his op-ed peices deal primarily with economic issues he is on especially firm ground as this is his field of expertise. Where it really gets frightening is how he ably ties in current events like the Iraq war with the economic policies that are rapidly strangling the life out of this country.
For anyone who wonders how its possible to manipulate events to suit a flawed and destructive policy, the section on the
California energy crisis is a must read. Bush, Cheny and thier cronies really pulled the wool over everyones eyes with this one. It was a sign of things to come. Wrapping themselves and thier intents in the Flag, they intimidated and cowed those who would object to what they were and still are going to do.
As Krugman points out it doesn't have to be this way, we CAN take this country back and restore sanity and reason to our policies both within and outside our Country.
For those like myself who are opposed to what is happening and want to see a change next year via the ballot, you must prepare and fortify youself with the facts. This book is a good place to start.
Rating: 
Summary: If you want to understand what happened . . . .
Review: If you haven't read Krugman's columns in the Times, buy this book. And then buy Bull! A History of the Boom, 1982-1999 (Maggie Mahar). Together, they explain how Washington and WAll Street shaped our economy in the 90s--and why we're headed for trouble. Krugman gives you the numbers, Mahar fleshes out the characters.
Like other readers, I wish Krugman had added more new material, and expanded on many of his columns. Nevertheless, they are well worth reading.
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Summary: The Enron Presidency
Review: Krugman's own evolution over the pages of this book -- a collection of his Times pieces with a wrap-around of his recent conclusions -- is a fascinating reflection on the country's own changes since George Bush was made president. He begins as a simple critic of economic policy. Nothing unusual in this: we need solid critics to help us focus our decisions and Krugman's work is thoughtful. Before long though, Krugman's understanding unfolds until, like a great whodunit, he grasps that the nation is being defrauded by 1990s-style corporate management: the Enron Presidency. The magnitude of the theft is astonishing -- not millions or billions, but trillions. He, and we, are left with a dark conclusion. The Cons are running the prison. The Enron Presidency has moved the government and all its policing agencies to redirect trillions of our national treasure into the hands of a few through an interlocking set of well-designed frauds. Having been in the fraud detection business myself, I am in awe.
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Summary: An answer to "Why the negative reviews?"
Review: To the reader whose plaint, "Why the negative reviews?" reveals a trusting soul who assumes the honesty of others, let me answer you: the negative reviews, on the whole, are from people who haven't even read this book. As another reader pointed out in discussing the all-too-typical "critique" by "a reader from Alaska," (whose review is rife with misspellings and utterly lacking in any substantive discussion of the book), these people are, largely, members of the "Freepers" or the "Limbaugh lunatic league," to sum them up: they spread the word among themselves to flood sites such as this with negative reviews of books--which they haven't read--which are critical of persons or ideas which champion their crabbed, hateful worldview. As with the reader from Alaska, misspellings are exceedingly common in the brute-minded screeds typed out by these people, making their almost-as-common insults about the intelligence, literacy or college educations of their targets all the more hysterical. Helpful hint: before you insult Al Franken, say, for his "poor schooling," (Harvard, by the way), make sure you've at least spelled your four-letter words correctly. William Butler Yeats wrote, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." This sums up the situation all too sadly: the more stupid you are, the more likely you are to hold to a simplistic, dogmatic point of view, and to be hostile to any suggestion of a difference of opinion, while the smarter you are, the more nuanced will be your worldview, with a commensurately greater tendency to see all sides and to allow for differences of opinion, but with, perhaps, a concomitant lesser tendency to fight passionately against those who represent the forces of mendacity, violence, and intolerance.
Rating:
Summary: If "they" could only accept the truth
Review: To be honest, I was a bit disappointed in the book. Would have liked more recent commentary mixed in with the articles, some of which are from 1999. There may be new info for readers who dont follow the economy however. It is most amusing (or sad)to read the negative reviews here. Our "elected" officials have basically sold the country to corporations, and anyone who is still a dedicated right or left winger is delusional or uninformed. Those in office are filling their pockets and pitting us against one another. Wake up (if you can)!
Rating:
Summary: Long-awaited critique
Review: Great book about the economic catastrophe awaiting us. Apart from that, I was stunned by the review given by the Anchorage person. Reading that review, it is clearly evident that the Anchorage school system needs to be reviewed.
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