Rating: 
Summary: Clear thinking and an Important Voice...
Review: Stossel, who I've loved for years and years on 20/20 and for his specials, gives us: John Stossel the extended Remix. Parts of the book read like a recap from his specials--the chapter on Greed is almost verbatim from his special "Greed." Nevertheless, he is a fascinating and entertaining read. Some of his ideas are a bit too simplisitic. Others are dead on. He smashes the left--as they had done to him. I was disappointed that he did not take on the right more often. He disagreed with them on many points--particularly social policy--but does not slam the Bennetts, the Limbaughs, etc. That is probably because he needs some allies (and Ralph Nader is not his friend any longer, but it was a bit disengenous. Nevertheless, the book is thought provoking. I, for one, am glad he is on my TV every week. We need his voice, even if it it too often is a lone one in the wilderness.
Rating:
Summary: An Entertaining, Informed and Opinionated Book
Review: If you watch 20/20, you know who John Stossel is and probably tune in to the program in large part because of him. Stossel has been a reporter for 30 years, going after big corporations, exposing rip-offs and chasing down con-artists in order to hoist them on their own petards. His crusade has continued, but his targets are a bit different now. Instead of big business, he goes after big government, which, forming an unholy trinity with lawyers and --- oh, the humanity! --- reporters, hamstrings the free market that makes our lives better.GIVE ME A BREAK is, in part, the story of how the scales fell from Stossel's eyes. That account alone makes for fascinating reading. After 30 years of investigative reporting, one would expect Stossel to have a ton of interesting stories to tell. He does, and while he doesn't relate all of them here, readers undoubtedly get their money's worth. There's the one about the doctor who specialized in diagnosing environmental illness (all of her patients, of course, were so afflicted), the abortion doctors who would provide that service whether the patient felt she needed it or not (Stossel's urine was supplied for the pregnancy test) and the exploding BIC pens...remember how panicked everyone was over that? Stossel demonstrates that, statistically, your odds of a BIC pen exploding were smaller than drowning in your bathtub (or in anyone else's), being killed by a baseball or even being electrocuted by a lightning strike! There is a fabulous chapter entitled "Junk Science and Junk Reporting" that, with Stossel's passion for careful research and penchant for irreverence, dissembles popularly held myths regarding crack babies, Vitamin C and a bunch of other "scientific" myths that we generally accept as gospel without thinking about them. That's the entire point of Stossel's reporting: to think. This agenda, not surprisingly, has made a number of people angry. What is surprising, at least to Stossel, is that a number of his colleagues in the liberal media are now shunning him. When he was a bright, energetic young corporation slayer, Stossel was regarded as a good guy, a hero by his colleagues. This has changed; socialists don't believe in free markets. Stossel does, however, and GIVE ME A BREAK, in addition to being a fascinating and entertaining read, is also a ringing, vibrant defense of free markets and free people. Stossel is not a conservative by any thoughtful definition, but he is a capitalist and this book unabashedly enumerates the benefits that flow from such a system, benefits that inure even to the least fortunate of us and that are all too often simply accepted as a natural consequence of right. Whether you've been inviting Stossel into your living room every week on 20/20 or have only a passing familiarity with his work, you'll find reading GIVE ME A BREAK as entertaining as a conversation with an informed, opinionated friend with whom you may find yourself disagreeing, but who you'll never find boring. Highly recommended. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Rating: 
Summary: Start Questioning Stop Being A Sheep
Review: I have always found John's TV reports (and now his book) to be engaging and enlightening. His approach is simple - ask questions and don't agree with the surface answers even if they match your current thinking.
It is time for all of us to start educating ourselves instead of depending on the media and politicians to determine our thinking. Being a self-employed business owner and a business coach to numerous businesses, I have personally seen how eager government is in imposing itself on our lives. John endorses my viewpoint that 'Nobody is looking out for You' and you must be ready and willing to take that responsibility upon yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Good read for people who can think for themselves
Review: I wish more people would do what John Stossel has done. I'm neither a left winger or a right winger. I'm an open minder and this book does a good job of pointing out "holes" in our current "lives". I hope more people read this book, it encourages action and hard work as opposed to systems and government "over-regulation". If you want to make a difference is this world, educate yourselves about some of the problems in America and make a difference. However YOU can.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing, a real life clear thinking journalist!
Review: No doubt that the liberals and socialists in this country will name call and rant and rave over this book. Mr. Stossel attacks large government programs for the waste that they are, and the liberals depend upon these programs to control the lives of people. I'm sure he'll be called a racist, right-wing nut, but let's not forget who's calling him these things. Stossel takes an objective look at not only big government programs, but the limiting of free speech, the drug war, lawyers, and some hypocritical filty rich. How anybody can say Stossel is a neo-con after reading this book is either a moron or a liar in saying they've read this. Stossel advocates stopping the drug war, decriminalizing prostitution, and legalizing assisted suicide, hardly a Republican agenda. He rightly recognizes that you own your body, not the government, therefore they should not have the power to control what you do to it. Certainly a libertarian position. However, that same intrusive government that shouldn't tell you what to do with your own body shouldn't be telling companies how to run their business. He demonstrates how government programs, rules and regulations on a whole kill more people than they save. Poverty kills, and rules and regulations cause companies to move offshore and fire workers where jobs are needed most. Is it any wonder that, as he showed, the more free the country, the better off it's population is?
Rating: 
Summary: If a Turkey & read how good Xmas was would it vote for it?
Review: This is a book that hides its rabid Right Wing Neo Conservatism under the umbrella of "Libertarianism". This is a book that will fool those who go to Disney Land to meet Mickey mouse & forget that it's really only a guy in a suit. Regreatably in today's America this seems to represent an astonishingly high proportion of the public. The sheer amount of Government bashing in this book is amazing. However Stossel lacks the ability to perform with anything that approaches joined up thinking. The incredible naivte of the US readership means they won't ask the many questions raised by his philosophy, they will simply absorb the rantings like a sponge. In a nation that once so heartily championed the cult of individualism people are now meekly accepting having their minds made up for them. Sure Government has grown to 40% of US GDP. This is because when it was only 5% we had THE MAFIA, a group of crooks who ran huge aras of this country without fear of interuption. We had drugs & cures that were as effective as water, most doing nothing at all, but some would kill you (i.e. "cures" laced with cocaine or radium. How soon people forget!). Now we have the FDA. We had enromous private monopolies that held the country to ransom, whether by control of steel, railways or oil. We were also largely isolantionist, so if something happened around the world we didn't have a defense industry or armed forces to impose the ultimate expression of national will (whether you agree with that will or not). Stossel's big lie is to berate the position we are in (Big Government = Bad) but not cover the way we got here, a journey that contains perfectly good reasons for the changes he so dislikes. He also goes on & on about "Liberals". So? Well he claims that Liberals control the media.... yeah, like Fox "News" & the huge monolith of Right Wing vitriol that is AM Talk Radio. Few truly Liberal outlets exist in the traditional broadcast arena. CNN is one left leaning organisation, but it is largely a pussycat with journalists & presenters that back away from the opportunity to sink their teeth in to the exposed flank of the Neo-Con spearhead. Chris Mathews of MSNBC is another who sometimes gets to grips with Right Wing issues & their inconsistencies but his "Hardball" tactics seem to be very soft these days. Perhaps Stossel & his Right Wing cronies are simply frothing at the mouth about the New York Times? Is this "Liberal Domination of the media" when compared to the rest? Maybe they won't be satisfied until every media outlet is part of the Fox Empire. After reading this book I saw Stossel on TV taking questions from some obviously toadying members of the audience at his book launch. His manner was that of a smooth, confident intelectual, but I was amazed to hear the inconsistencies he voiced & to which the crowd simply failed to react. The best example of this was with regard to gun control (that touch stone of Neo-Cons everywhere). He quoted an exchange with Rev Al Sharpton, saying something like; Stossel; "What if everyone over 21 carried a gun?"
Sharpton; "There would be chaos!"
Stossel; "But in 31 states we already have the right to carry guns & there isn't chaos" (applause from the audience) The smug smile of Stossel did not impress me. For a start in 31 states we have the right to carry guns, but does everyone over 21 have a gun & if so do they carry them? Also note that Stossel doesn't mention that lunatics & unstable people would be denied guns, something that, no doubt, was on Al Sharpton's mind when he was asked. Instead Stossel clearly says "everyone over 21". I know who I believe when thinking of what would happen & it isn't Stossel. (BTW for all you NRA memebrs out there, I was a good shot until my eyesight started to falter, so no febrile accusations of being "anti gun" or "unpatriotic" & so on, PLEASE!) His ability to jump from a question to justification, by way of an enormous & unfounded assumption, clearly shows his political outlook & hence his clear lack of impartiality or inability to think clearly. Quite why no one else pressed him on this statement I'll never know. Stossel is the smiling face of Neo-Con thinking, a Goering rather than a Goebells (read your history to see what I'm refering to). None the less he's still from that same streak of Neo-Con thinking, despite what he says. Admittedly he's not like G Gordon Liddy with his book "When I was a kid this was great" (obviously refering to a different country, the USA I grew up in wasn't great for women (who got paid less than men for the same job) & for blacks (ditto & you could be hung from a tree & set on fire in some states), although it WAS great for the Mafia, who could operate with impunity). However he's still a Neo-Con. These people are happy as long as they earn big money & hence are able to look after themselves. They want the rules to favour them & them alone, everyone else can go hang. They want a return to the "halcyon days" when taxes were tiny, so they can keep their money, while leaving everyone else to pick up the bill for the benefits they enjoy, safe in theri like minded littel communties sheltering behind palisade fences, patrolled by private security guards & driving bullet proof SUVs. Yes, life is good....unless you live in a place where there's no money any more to repair the drains & raw sewage runs down the sidewalk. A revolution was once started on the basis of "No taxation without representation". Accordingly we have a new protest "No representation without taxation". These people want to control the agenda, yet pay no taxes. Stossel is one of that breed & it continues to amaze me that he sells his ideology to the very people (the working & middle classes) who have the most to loose from the changes he proposes. Read this book & ask yourself. If you were a Turkey & had just read a book about how wonderful Christmas was, would you vote for it?
Rating:
Summary: He's not Geraldo... and that's a very, very good thing.
Review: Overall a wonderful book, that was a very engaging and inviting read for me. John is very adept at exposing the everyday hypocricy and shennanigans that are going on around us. I appreciate the fact that he was self-depricating enough to admit in more than one instance where he made mistakes, where he had gotten caught up in the moment, or just made bad decisions.
The only thing that bothers me about the book is that only 1 1/2 pages were dedicated to any sort of actual solution John discusses and points out so well in throughout the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Stossel's investigative reports on dog biscuits are vital
Review: I remember seeing a story that Stossel did on Primetime, or Dateline, or 20/20 or whatever show he's on, about the type of food that's served in public school cafeterias - about how unhealthy it was. He got the cafteria workers to admit on camera that they did not have a clue about the nutritional content of the salsbury steak they were serving to the unsuspecting, innocent kids. And you know, he did that great reporting that he does, with the exaggerated inflections.."so next time you send little Cindy off to school with her lunch money, just remember that the public school systems may not neces-SAR-ily share YOUR concept of what comprises a nutritious MEAL...." and then he'd schrunch up his face and twist his mouth around, to let you know that he really meant it. You know, he was just going all out with the up and down and up and down with his voice, like some overzealous pre-school teacher reading Goldilocks to a 3 year old. And I remember thinking, wow, this is really explosive, what Stossel is doing here. He's blowing the lid off the public school cafeterias in this country. Those sloppy joes contain like 20 % saturated fat, and they're feeding it to our kids, and Stossel is there! I thought, Stossel will surely become one of the great heroes of America. And wouldn't you know it? I was right. All the great investigative journalists like Stone Phillips and John Stossel and that scary white haired guy with the really freaky-voice who looks likes like a dead man, from the great news shows like Primetime and 20/20 and Dateline that are exposing the corruption and evil that exists in the dry-cleaning, photo-processing, roof-shingling, and home appliance repair industries - they are the real heroes of America. And the liberals in America can't stand it for some reason or other. Quite frankly, I don't completely understand the part about the liberals. I didn't quite follow why the liberals were so upset by the stories about the pin-reset mechanical failures in the bowling alleys or about the undercooked noodles at the Chinese buffet in Santa Monica. But anyway, Stossel makes it clear that the liberals are out to put a stop to his important work, and he's not going to sit still for it. You go, Stossel. No one should be able to stop you from telling the American people about the dangerously low levels of protein in dog biscuits.
Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: Out of all of the books by present day journalists, this one is the best. John discusses his stuttering, career, and revelation of the totalitarian left. This book has strengthened my libertarian leanings. It is a must read for all those who hate big business and those who hate big government.
Rating:
Summary: How could you not like this book?
Review: Stossel is the typical American - brainwashed by media and traditional educational systems - until he opens his eyes and starts to learn through actual empirical evidence. This book should be required reading by all high school students in some "life experience" course.
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