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Rating: 
Summary: Smash the Golden Calf -
Review: America suffers from amnesia. The spokespersons of corporate media (Hannity, O'Reilly, Rush "Hillbilly Heroin" Limbaugh, Coulter, Quinn, etc.) airbrush history by pretending that the class struggle and even populism itself is "anti-American". Offering an historical context from the past 200+ years, Kevin Philips offers a much needed (and timely) antidote to this disturbing trend, showing the trickle down golden calf of corporate welfare for what it is. For indeed, the individual does better when everyone else is doing better -At the time of this writing, July 2004, it is better now than when it was published - Conservatives ought to read it, and take heart - for soon their self-serving minions shall be out of power, banished to the nether regions of the Bermuda triangle.
Rating:
Summary: Smash the Golden Calf -
Review: America suffers from amnesia. The spokespersons of corporate media (Hannity, O'Reilly, Rush "Hillbilly Heroin" Limbaugh, Coulter, Quinn, etc.) airbrush history by pretending that the class struggle and even populism itself is "anti-American". Offering an historical context from the past 200+ years, Kevin Philips offers a much needed (and timely) antidote to this disturbing trend, showing the trickle down golden calf of corporate welfare for what it is. For indeed, the individual does better when everyone else is doing better - At the time of this writing, July 2004, it is better now than when it was published - Conservatives ought to read it, and take heart - for soon their self-serving minions shall be out of power, banished to the nether regions of the Bermuda triangle.
Rating: 
Summary: Reader from Washington is absolutely correct....
Review: Funny, this book is listed as nonfiction. In fact, it should be classified as fiction. The fact that I fond a copy in the fiction dept indicates to me that somebody is trying to get a message out. Will anybody ever tell the truth?
Rating: 
Summary: Oh no....not Kevin Phillips again!
Review: I made the mistake of reading Phillips "The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath a decade ago (interestingly when the economy was in the same mess it's in now)Phillips is one of those authors that loves to breed on negativity and jealousy. Isn't it amazing how people will applaud (sometimes) when somebody wins the lottery (although green with jealousy) but look with ambivelence when someone becomes successful in a business."The rich get richer" they lament. "Rich people should pay more in taxes" Oh really? Who provides the jobs, surely not the poor! If you want to increase layoffs, tax the rich so the money that was headed for payroll and business expansion now goes to taxes.Phillips message is old and tired. If the past is any indication, look for this book to come running out of the gate only to stop dead and fall fast just like The Politics of Rich and Poor did. I saw one man with this book under his arm while he was buying a lottery ticket. Does that tell you something?If in fact all of the wealth were redistributed, it would be back in the same hands within 2-5 years. All those with self earned wealthhave achieved success irregardless of the government. Americans have become financial wimps by depending on government intervention. True success depends on you, not the government. If you really want this book, wait for a used copy here at Amazon or on the discount racks of a used book store. I suspect you'll find many copies lying around.
Rating:
Summary: Anybody can partner with the government
Review: I'm giving this book by Kevin Phillips 2 stars because he is partially correct; the government is helping the rich get richer by offering tax breaks, the lowest income people are paying the most in taxes..BUT...Phillips conveniently forgets to mention that anyone, even minimum wage street cleaners, housekeepers, telemarketers etc can start a small home based business, consulting, child care center, even network marketing and enjoy the same tax breaks as the wealthy. Employees always pay the absolute most in taxes. So Phillips is correct in his analysis but deserves jeers for not mentioning how the average income earner can reduce by 50%-100% his taxes. The other thing that ticked me off is that Phillips again conveniently forgets to mention that the Asians have achieved great wealth in terms of net worth by saving 30% of their income while Americans save less than 5% even though their incomes are higher than the Asians. Could this be part of the problem why so many Americans are falling behind? The wealthy also save or invest a major portion of their income. I know some broke people who always say; "Well if I was rich, I would save or invest too!" I don't know about that! What I see is more and more people spending money on their extravagant lifestyles, living beyond their means. If they made more, they would spend more. Why 2 stars? Phillips did I believe an above average job of researching historical data for this tome and is a good writer. However, he sends out the wrong message and leaves out way too much fact. He even takes a poke at the still best selling book "The Millionaire Next Door." Interesting is that the people covered in that book became millionaires in the same country and under the same conditions that Phillips insists only benefits the ultra wealthy. Well, once again, these people, just like the ultra wealthy, became rich by taking advantage of the opportunities available in America. Also interesting is that one of the top producers of millionaires in the late 80's and early 90's was dry cleaning! I couldn't think of a more dull business to start but now wish I had! People should walk away from Wealth & Democracy (and any other book by Phillips) and read quality, fact filled books on building wealth like The Millionaire Next Door, The Automatic Millionaire, The Millionaire Mind and Rich Dad Poor Dad. I also found it interesting that while Kevin Phillips was promoting this book, he was on late nite tv talk shows that were aired right beside the "get rich quick" informercials. The only difference between Phillips and those get rich quick informercial guru's is that occasionally somebody makes money on one of those get rich quick schemes. I have yet to hear of anyone who has made any money (save book distributors) following Kevin Phillips. Democrats will probably like this book, but then again, look at their track record. Sen John Kerry says he has a plan to help social security but refuses to contribute to it himself. Instead he gets one of these super retirement plans that will pay him a million dollars even though he doesn't have to contribute a dime to it. No senators or congressman do. Meanwhile average people like you and I have to contribute to social security, will get a small smidget of a return (if it is still around) while these guys get a million dollar gift and pay nothing! Now there is an issue about inequality that Phillips should address.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting opinion - but not based on any facts
Review: Phillips does know something about marketing. Write a book attacking the rich and appeal to the 95% who are in the low to middle and class and don't re alize that what little they do have is because of the rich who provide them with J-O-B's. These poor souls will spend grocery money to buy this junk and they encourage their broke friends to do the same.
Remember Phillips was closely associated with Nixon. If this is who you want to take your advice from....then God help you!
Rating:
Summary: How Kevin Phillips learned to Relax and Love the Depression
Review: Somewhere in the middle of this book, I realized Kevin Phillips must be putting his readers on. In what is mainly a history of how wealth and politics have coexisted in the U.S., often for the benefit of both the wealthy and political classes, Phillips stops searching for any intellectual coherency to his argument and just goes on the attack. His opponents are the wealthy, of course, and he stops at almost nothing to smear them.
Which is too bad. Phillips? subject -- wealth inequality and its effect on the democratic process -- is a serious one, and he does start off promisingly. Unfortunately, he suffers from the problem of too many advocates -- an inability to simply make a good case and let it stand, when exaggerated overkill feels so much better. It's not enough to argue, for example, that the rich ought to pay somewhat higher taxes and that globalization has gone a little too far, when you can insinuate that the wealthy are selling the country down the river, America is in serious decline, and that much of the modern economics profession is providing intellectual cover for the rich.
Phillips' exaggerated approach naturally leads to some contradictions. On the one hand, he wants to argue that the stock market-driven wealth of the 1920s and the 1990s, were ephemeral and unreal. On the other hand, he wants to argue that this ephemeral and unreal wealth went only to the rich and not to the middle class and poor, and that it exacerbated wealth inequality. But if the gains in the stock market were unreal (paper gains), then surely the wealth inequality those gains bolstered were also unreal.
Phillips' obsession with how well the wealthy are doing leads him into even stranger positions. He actually seems to enjoy the leveling effect of the Great Depression. After he misleadingly shows how much incomes went up between 1933 and 1949 (misleading, because almost all the rise in that period occurred after America's entrance into WW2), he writes, "[t]he relative (short-term) loser of the 1930s and 1940s was wealth..." To which I think the proper response is: yes, the wealthy lost, and so did almost all other Americans. It's hard to be romantic about an economy with steady double-digit unemployment rates in the first half which take a world war in the second half to fix, but Phillips seems to long for that period.
He also belongs to the declinist school of American politics, seeing parallels between the present-day U.S. and other leading economic powers as they faltered. He mentions only briefly that neither late-seventeenth-century Netherlands nor early-twentieth-century Britain had anywhere near the technological advantages in so many areas that present-day America has. Instead, Phillips? catalogue of America?s current problems is so large the reader can begin to understand, even if not agree, with why he seems to long for another depression. He makes the 1990s sound worse in some ways than a depression.
The only problem for Phillips is that many readers of his book have lived through the most recent decade, and not many of them would probably be willing to agree that the solution to whatever problems existed in that decade requires something as drastic as what happened during the 1930s. Phillips?s pessimism about the U.S. runs deep, and his understanding and judgment of what the U.S. needs is faulty as a result. His great concern for America's problems of inequality, some of which are real, allows him to manufacture many which are not. In the end, I found the book?s primary redeeming feature was largely trivial: its wealth of charts and information identifying the wealthy at any one period in American history.
Rating:
Summary: Reader from Washington is absolutely correct....
Review: While I do agree with some of the things that Phillips presents here, I think that if Phillips is truly concerned about inequality of wealth here in America, he should go after these senators, congressmen and other government employees who want to "fix social security" but refuse to contribute to it yet have their own super retirement programs that will provide a million dollar retirement income and they (the senators, congressmen etc) never have to pay a dime into it and never contribute to social security (or is that social insecurity?) I think it's time to shake up America and history has shown that Kevin Phillips is the man who can do that. So c'mon Mr. Phillips. Why not write a book and expose the great social security scandal that is going on in this great country. Expose these politicians who talk out of both sides of their mouths. Expose these Senators and Congressmen who claim they are working for the common good but could care less about anybody but themselves. Do a book on social security before it truly does become social insecurity and leaves millions of Americans, our elderly pennyless and possibly homeless as well. Great job on Wealth & Democracy. I have read it several times.
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