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Rating: 
Summary: An urgent wake-up call to America
Review: A brilliant look at the looming economic crisis facing America, "Unsustainable" is an important wake-up call for Americans. Fingleton has done a fantastic job of explaining why America's titanic, soaring trade deficits cannot be sustained
forever and how this country is increasingly dependent on oceans of foreign capital.
It's difficult for me to fathom how any clear-minded thinking adult can read this masterpiece and not be deepy worried about the future of America.
Rating:
Summary: An urgent wake-up call to America
Review: A brilliant look at the looming economic crisis facing America, "Unsustainable" is an important wake-up call for Americans. Fingleton has done a fantastic job of explaining why America's titanic, soaring trade deficits cannot be sustained
forever and how this country is increasingly dependent on oceans of foreign capital.
It's difficult for me to fathom how any clear-minded thinking adult can read this masterpiece and not be deepy worried about the future of America.
Rating: 
Summary: Is it OK to do this?
Review: Fingleton knows what he's talking about.His detractors have an agenda. However, there is a serious problem with this book- it's the same as his previous book right down to chapter titles!!
The title has been changed and so has the cover but the content is a total reprint of his previous works in exactly the same words! I know, I've read them. Is it possible to plagiarize yourself?
There may be some minimal updating, ie, dates, small data, etc. but it's essentially the same book, repackaged. As i read it, i recognized everything, verbatim, from his stuff i read before. God knows why they'd try this rather than simply do a reprint or new edition of his previous volumes. I searched for new updated analyses but couldnt find anything totally new. I gave it 2 stars simply on the strengths of the previous books it represents but as a new release, this is useless.
For fingleton enthusiasts, it would be better to check his other stuff.
Hey, Eamonn, we know you read these reviews- how about an explanation?
Rating: 
Summary: Finngleton has the Facts Right, but...
Review: For over a decade now, Mr. Fingleton has been challenging the conventional wisdom on trade and the economy. While his fellow iconoclasts moved on to other things in the triumphalist atmosphere of the late 90s, Fingleton continues to question the dominant 'Globalist' consensus; i.e. That free trade,
de-regulation and the new economy are the keys to American prosperity, and by extension to world prosperity. Globalist dogma, especially as propagated in simplified form by Tom Friedman (The Lexus and the Olive Tree) has won widespread acceptance by nearly all political parties and media outlets in America and Britain. This is rather alarming, for as Fingleton notes, there is substatial evidence that the New-Economy-fueled prosperity of the late 90s was a fluke, never to be repeated. Yet while our balance of trade deteriorates, our manufacturing base shrinks, high-wage employment plummets and our foreign creditors get scared, the false prophets of globlization continue to preach the same old gospel. The fundamental problem-and I am sure Mr. Fingleton understands this-is that reform will only become possible once the mainstream media and both the Republican and Democratic parties stop accepting faulty dogma. I mention this because Fingleton brings up Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan towards the end of his book, noting that they too have challenged the conventional wisdom on trade policy and manufacturing.
I think that this is a very serious mistake. Nader and Buchanan may be right about certain issues-corporate compensation and trade policy, for instance...But there few people in the world who are more widely reviled by the Democratic and Republican party establishments, for obvious reasons. They are also unpopular in the mainstream press, which considers both of them as dangerous, wild-eyed radicals. And, last but not least, Naderites tend to hate Buchananites-and vice versa! So bringing up Nader (prominently on the cover) and Buchanan may boost sales, but it is also the surest way of alienating the wider public and the 'power elite' of the press and politics. Still, issues of presentation and public relations aside,
Mr. Fingleton deserves immense credit for his well-reasoned and convincing arguments, no less than for being the first to sound the alarm bells. There is recent evidence that influential people as starting to pay attention to the disastrous effects of US trade policy (Warren Buffett writes an article in the Nov. 10th issue of Fortune magazine, calling for trade restrictions to limit the growing US trade deficit). Hopefully, a wider range of influential figures will be ready to listen to Mr. Fingelton's recommendations, and act on them, before it is too late.
Rating:
Summary: Finngleton has the Facts Right, but...
Review: For over a decade now, Mr. Fingleton has been challenging the conventional wisdom on trade and the economy. While his fellow iconoclasts moved on to other things in the triumphalist atmosphere of the late 90s, Fingleton continues to question the dominant 'Globalist' consensus; i.e. That free trade,
de-regulation and the new economy are the keys to American prosperity, and by extension to world prosperity. Globalist dogma, especially as propagated in simplified form by Tom Friedman (The Lexus and the Olive Tree) has won widespread acceptance by nearly all political parties and media outlets in America and Britain. This is rather alarming, for as Fingleton notes, there is substatial evidence that the New-Economy-fueled prosperity of the late 90s was a fluke, never to be repeated. Yet while our balance of trade deteriorates, our manufacturing base shrinks, high-wage employment plummets and our foreign creditors get scared, the false prophets of globlization continue to preach the same old gospel. The fundamental problem-and I am sure Mr. Fingleton understands this-is that reform will only become possible once the mainstream media and both the Republican and Democratic parties stop accepting faulty dogma. I mention this because Fingleton brings up Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan towards the end of his book, noting that they too have challenged the conventional wisdom on trade policy and manufacturing.
I think that this is a very serious mistake. Nader and Buchanan may be right about certain issues-corporate compensation and trade policy, for instance...But there few people in the world who are more widely reviled by the Democratic and Republican party establishments, for obvious reasons. They are also unpopular in the mainstream press, which considers both of them as dangerous, wild-eyed radicals. And, last but not least, Naderites tend to hate Buchananites-and vice versa! So bringing up Nader (prominently on the cover) and Buchanan may boost sales, but it is also the surest way of alienating the wider public and the 'power elite' of the press and politics. Still, issues of presentation and public relations aside,
Mr. Fingleton deserves immense credit for his well-reasoned and convincing arguments, no less than for being the first to sound the alarm bells. There is recent evidence that influential people as starting to pay attention to the disastrous effects of US trade policy (Warren Buffett writes an article in the Nov. 10th issue of Fortune magazine, calling for trade restrictions to limit the growing US trade deficit). Hopefully, a wider range of influential figures will be ready to listen to Mr. Fingelton's recommendations, and act on them, before it is too late.
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