<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: nothing new here
Review: Exploiting class envy is as old as civilization itself,and this book is another exercise in just that.I don't question the validity of Mr. Phillips arguments or stasistics.Sure the wealthier get wealthier or at least maintain their wealth from generation to generation(barring catastrophe)but that is because when you are talking in terms of millions of dollars money automatically makes itself grow.Someone worth $5,000,000 this year will with safe,predictable,long-term investments see an increase in their wealth till the day they die.Poor to middle class people on the other hand won't see a great buildup of wealth simply due to the fact that they don't have enough wealth to exponentially grow year after year.Even an idiot can stick $5,000,000 in the bank,leave it alone,and in five or six years have $6,000,000.Of course if you only have $20,000 in the bank it won't ever be much more than $20,000.All societies have an unequal concentration of wealth and always will.Most so-called economic booms do benefit mainly the upper classes while recessions hit the poorest the hardest.Phillips does a thorough job of exposing the boom of the 80's for the myth that it was, but all in all he has written nothing we didn't already know.
Rating: 
Summary: A Example of Academics Overshadowing Message
Review: I was excited to find this book based on the tittle and book description, mainly because I felt I was going to get a book of facts to bolster my already formed opinions. Well the book did provide facts, lots of facts sometimes not in the best order, but facts none the less. What the author and publisher failed to realize is that in the method the book was written the average reader would find it almost impossible to plod through the text. I had a college statistics professor that was Asian with a very strong accent, and the ability to stand at the front of the room and drone on and on without every moving his body or using the black board (an interesting feat in a math class) that was more lively then this book. I am assuming that even economics professors aged 65 and over would think this book to be dry and dull. The net effect of the bone dry text and the overwhelming amount of facts, charts and lists of numbers is that a book I was excited to read turned out to be a downright pain to get through. It turned into a labor of love or some sick need to finish the book that finally got me through to the end. I feel like I deserved some medal for completing this thing. Overall the facts are interesting (in small doses) but the written was one that would bore the dead.
Rating:
Summary: A Example of Academics Overshadowing Message
Review: I was excited to find this book based on the tittle and book description, mainly because I felt I was going to get a book of facts to bolster my already formed opinions. Well the book did provide facts, lots of facts sometimes not in the best order, but facts none the less. What the author and publisher failed to realize is that in the method the book was written the average reader would find it almost impossible to plod through the text. I had a college statistics professor that was Asian with a very strong accent, and the ability to stand at the front of the room and drone on and on without every moving his body or using the black board (an interesting feat in a math class) that was more lively then this book. I am assuming that even economics professors aged 65 and over would think this book to be dry and dull. The net effect of the bone dry text and the overwhelming amount of facts, charts and lists of numbers is that a book I was excited to read turned out to be a downright pain to get through. It turned into a labor of love or some sick need to finish the book that finally got me through to the end. I feel like I deserved some medal for completing this thing. Overall the facts are interesting (in small doses) but the written was one that would bore the dead.
Rating: 
Summary: An accurate and detailed account of a socio-economic tragedy
Review: Kevin Phillips has all the credentials necessary to speak on this subject and for those who seem unaware of it; happens to be a republican. His detailed coherent account of what is, in the hands of most authors, a murky story - how the rich really got richer at the expense of the majority during the 80's - is fact filled, copiously notated, and hard to fault without resorting to a willfull ignorance to believe ideology over evidence. A must read book for anybody who got taken at that Three Card Monty table that was the american economy of the 80's
Rating:
Summary: An accurate and detailed account of a socio-economic tragedy
Review: Kevin Phillips has all the credentials necessary to speak on this subject and for those who seem unaware of it; happens to be a republican. His detailed coherent account of what is, in the hands of most authors, a murky story - how the rich really got richer at the expense of the majority during the 80's - is fact filled, copiously notated, and hard to fault without resorting to a willfull ignorance to believe ideology over evidence. A must read book for anybody who got taken at that Three Card Monty table that was the american economy of the 80's
Rating:
Summary: Indispensible guide to the 1980's and beyond
Review: Phillips has documented in some detail the massive income shift of the Reagan years. In almost all categories the upper 10% of American families soared, while the remaining 90% either stagnated, or at the lower end, actually declined. The author's exhaustive charts demonstrate statistically what popular opinion could only entertain: the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. An interesting question to pose is why a Republican strategist like Phillips would document this adverse result in such unsparing fashion. Perhaps like some far-seeing conservatives he views a growing income gap as destabilizing to the country, and hopes to bring forth moderating influences. In any event, the book stands as an excellent reference for understanding the impact of those years. That Phillips does not delve beyond surface movements for deeper explanation is not an objection to the work as a whole. For what he succeeds in doing with considerable authority and as "one of their own", is to revive class bias as the focal point of American politics. Being a conservative, he is not about the business of endorsing class-struggle as a premise of human history or American politics. Nevertheless, his linking of the Reagan era to previous eras of capitalist overreach helps to revive the long submerged story of class-struggle in America. This is an indispensible book for understanding the 1980's and years beyond.
Rating:
Summary: Indispensible guide to the 1980's and beyond
Review: Phillips has documented in some detail the massive income shift of the Reagan years. In almost all categories the upper 10% of American families soared, while the remaining 90% either stagnated, or at the lower end, actually declined. The author's exhaustive charts demonstrate statistically what popular opinion could only entertain: the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. An interesting question to pose is why a Republican strategist like Phillips would document this adverse result in such unsparing fashion. Perhaps like some far-seeing conservatives he views a growing income gap as destabilizing to the country, and hopes to bring forth moderating influences. In any event, the book stands as an excellent reference for understanding the impact of those years. That Phillips does not delve beyond surface movements for deeper explanation is not an objection to the work as a whole. For what he succeeds in doing with considerable authority and as "one of their own", is to revive class bias as the focal point of American politics. Being a conservative, he is not about the business of endorsing class-struggle as a premise of human history or American politics. Nevertheless, his linking of the Reagan era to previous eras of capitalist overreach helps to revive the long submerged story of class-struggle in America. This is an indispensible book for understanding the 1980's and years beyond.
Rating:
Summary: A very bashing book of the Reagan addministration
Review: Seems that all the book does is Talk bad about the reagan years and the Republicans. I think that the author needs to come back and look at other years under different presidents.
Rating: 
Summary: The conservatives exposed
Review: The myths (or many of them)of the right are given full exposure in this fine book. Well researched and well written, it is a good primer on the delusions of the privledged class (just read some of the other reviews on this page).
Over all a significant contribution to the new analysis of conservative revisionism.
Rating: 
Summary: Flawed Keynesian Logic Utilized to Indict 'Reaganomics'
Review: This book is down right distortive of economic history and the 1980's... Overall, the poor did not get poorer in the 1980's, but quite the opposite. This book is essentially more tired and disproven Keynesian-Socialist views on economics, for people who want to go back to the policies of the 1970's-the era of double-digit inflation and 21% interest rates. If you want to narrow any imbalance of wealth- do away with the Federal Reserve system, which robs the poor and middle class of their purchasing power through the hidden tax of inflation. The rich are largely able to avoid the inflation crush, because they typically have the bulk of their assets in more 'inflation-proof' liquid assets like stocks, bonds, mutual funds and real estate. If you're not a bleeding heart, get something else like 'A Nation of Millionaires.'
<< 1 >>
|
