Scurlock & Spurlock
One benefit of having a huge backlog of books to read is that I can group my selections by theme. My first two books of June are companions to documentary films by rhyming author-directors James Scurlock and Morgan Spurlock. I also rented the movies from Netflix for a multimedia experience. I have included Amazon links to the books and DVDs below.

Maxed Out: Hard Times in the Age of Easy Credit by James Scurlock - This book was a steal at the Borders outlet in Gurnee Mills last year -- only $1.98 -- which I finally got around to reading. The book and movie are a good pair for anyone interested in abusive financial practices and the roots of the current economic malaise. My wife was fascinated by Maxed Out -- she had no idea of how banks target consumers -- and she's probably the ideal reader/viewer. As someone more familiar with devious bank tactics, I found the book and movie interesting but not shocking. The greatest shortcoming of both, especially the movie, is that they are largely anecdotal. As such, they do a better job of illustrating the problems than offering solutions or explaining how we got here (though the book provides a bit of credit card history). There are other problems. The national debt is covered so briefly that it might as well have been excluded. Also, almost everyone is portrayed as an innocent victim, as if there is no personal responsibility in the act of acquiring and using a credit card. Scurlock's effort to draw attention to the credit card problem is commendable, but clearly not enough people got the message before the financial meltdown of late 2008.

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? by Morgan Spurlock - In contrast to Maxed Out, Spurlock uses a humorous perspective on an even more serious subject. Under the guise of looking for the Al Qaeda leader, Spurlock travels the world and examines terrorism, Islam, the Israeli-Palistinean conflict, and U.S. involvement in all of the above. I suppose it's no secret that Bin Laden remains unfound, but Spurlock discovers much about the cultures and religions of the Middle East. He talks to people in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East including a former IRA terrorist, Muslims in the slums outside Paris, Egyptian radicals, a Moroccan publisher, Palestinian refugees, Saudi women, U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and Shimon Peres, former prime minister and current president of Israel (the movie omits the European portion of Spurlock's journey except in the bonus material). This book exceeded my expectations; I thought it would be merely entertaining, but it is also thoughtful and informative. One of our country's greatest failures in the "Global War On Terror" is in misunderstanding or not knowing anything about the people, religion, and conflicts of the Middle East. For that reason, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? should be required viewing/reading for all Americans.

Current tally: 46 books finished, 40 books acquired

Labels: books, economics, int'l politics, religion

- posted by David Johnsen @ 2:14 PM 0 comments

 
Economic Hit Men, Hard Gainers, and Dead Celebrities
The Secret History of the American Empire by John Perkins -- I thought Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit Man was a pretty interesting book, so I looked forward to reading this one. It promised to provide more specifics, and it delivers. Perkins moves from continent to continent describing how the American corporatocracy has enslaved and manipulated so-called Third World countries since World War II. Actually, A Secret History would be a more appropriate title because the book is far from thorough. It is based on Perkins' own experiences (lapsing occasionally into memoir) and those of other economic hit men and jackals (his word) that he has met over the years. The examples he gives are just the tip of the iceberg, but this book could really shock a less jaded reader. Perkins ends on a hopeful note with a rousing call to action, comparing our times to the days of the American Revolution with corporate tyranny in place of King George III. As always, I remain pessimistic.

Beyond Brawn by Stuart McRobert -- This is one of the most thorough books about weight training that I have ever seen. Beyond Brawn is aimed at "hard gainers." At first, this was a turn-off to me because I don't consider myself to be one -- I've always been able to build muscle reasonably quickly when I bothered to lift regularly. But McRobert's broader definition of hard gainer includes the 85% of us who aren't genetically gifted or chemically enhanced. The book describes in painstaking detail how most people should train. Throw away the muscle magazines with their "12 sets per isolated body part" workouts that will only exhaust and frustrate most people. McRobert advocates "abbreviated training," which means fewer sets of fewer exercises with less frequency, focusing on multi-joint exercises that stimulate muscle growth throughout the body. He likes squats, bench press, overhead press, etc., and he loves deadlifts. Unlike many books in the genre, Beyond Brawn doesn't prescribe specific workouts. McRobert instead gives readers the tools (and freedom) to create their own routines. The book also excludes instructions regarding exercise form; for that, get McRobert's forthcoming Insider's Tell-All Handbook on Weight-Training Technique. The author is intent on imparting information rather than providing entertainment for the reader. My wife doesn't like his serious, somewhat dry, often repetitive style, which I also find tedious at times. She prefers the lighter (but still informative) tone of The New Rules of Lifting, which similarly concentrates on multi-joint exercises. Note: I read the Revised Edition from 2001, not the 2007 Second Edition available from Amazon.com below.

The Last Days of Dead Celebrities by Mitchell Fink -- I wasn't going to buy this, but after reading the chapter about Warren Zevon in the store, I decided to give it a shot. Covering 15 celebrities who have died since 1980, Fink sets the scene and then describes their final months or days. It's a thoughtful survey of death in general: sometimes it comes suddenly, other times naturally or mercifully. The tragic tales of the Johns (Lennon, Belushi, Denver, Ritter) are the most painful to read, even after many years have passed. Perhaps the saddest passage in the book comes from Dan Aykroyd. After his efforts to save Belushi from himself, he recounts having "the talk" with River Phoenix, Chris Farley, and James Taylor's brother Alex-- yet all three died of drug overdoses. Several of the deaths in the book are surrounded by controversy, such as Margaux Hemingway, who did not seem suicidal; Ted Williams, who allegedly did not want to be frozen; and Tupac Shakur, whose Las Vegas murder remains unsolved. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book, even the chapters about people who never interested me before.


Just when I felt confident that I was getting ahead in the game, I answered the siren song of a Half Price Books e-mail full of coupons and bought seven books. Now I'm behind by one book for the year. I'm still struggling to keep this New Year's resolution.

Current tally: 24 books finished, 25 books acquired

Labels: books, celebrities, economics, int'l politics, life and death, weight training

- posted by David Johnsen @ 1:38 PM 2 comments

 
Economically Stimulated
This morning: Received economic stimulus rebate via direct deposit.

Tonight: Hookers and booze!

Labels: alcohol, economics

- posted by David Johnsen @ 8:09 PM 0 comments

 
The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford
As introductory economics books go, The Undercover Economist isn't a bad choice. Unlike the wildly popular Freakonomics, which is about surprising or unusual applications of economics, The Undercover Economist explores more traditional topics: prices, scarcity, markets, taxes, government influence, and globalization, to name a few. The book covers those concepts more clearly than the typical economics textbook, making it fairly accessible to the layperson (note: my experience with economics textbooks was in 1989, but I have the impression that they haven't changed for the better since). My favorite chapter is the final chapter about China. It describes the disastrous economic policies of Mao Tse-Tung and how Deng Xiaoping reversed them.

Less convincing is the chapter enumerating the glorious benefits of globalization. Although Harford's perspective as an economist made me consider that globalization isn't quite as evil as progressives like me are inclined to believe, his environmental arguments fall flat. For example, Harford naively trusts multinational corporations to install the same pollution controls everywhere regardless of whether the law requires them.

Harford's writing style is okay, but sometimes he belabors points (you could say his writing could be more economical, heh-heh). There are times when the book drags, but considering the subject it usually moves along at an acceptable pace. Another fault of the book is that the "undercover economist" persona employed by Harford is alternately forced and poorly developed. I got the feeling it was a gimmick grafted onto the manuscript late in its development.

All in all, The Undercover Economist is a better place to start than Freakonomics for someone interested in learning about economics. However, I don't think either is the best choice. For that, stay tuned (note: the answer is not Freedomnomics -- John R. Lott, Jr. is a tool)...

Labels: books, economics

- posted by David Johnsen @ 7:35 PM 6 comments

 
Buying Ourselves Into a Corner
A lengthy article by Michael Klare discusses the Bush administration's plans to contain China -- to keep it from becoming a superpower on our level. This isn't exactly news to those who follow foreign policy, but most Americans don't pay much attention.

While the story is worth reading, Klare does not address the 800-pound gorilla in the room. If we wanted to prevent China from rising to the level of economic and military superpower, why did we shift so much of our production to their factories? We are funding the rise of China! Whenever you buy a computer, a stereo, a lawn chair, or anything else made in China, you are giving China the means with which to develop or procure the advanced weaponry they need to challenge us. Of course, greedy corporations in search of cheap labor have made it difficult not to give money to China. If China does indeed challenge U.S. hegemony, future historians will point to the first decade of the millennium as the time when our consumer urges trumped common sense. Whatever we save buying Chinese goods and whatever corporations save in labor costs, we will spend far more in taxes to support the military build-up necessary to contain an ascendant China. Should a real conflict arise between the two nations, we may discover that it wasn't such a good idea to close all of our domestic factories in a race to cheap labor after all.

Not only are we funneling cash to this potential threat, but as our national debt grows to outrageous levels (thanks to the Bush administration's shortsighted policies), the Chinese are buying an ever-greater ownership stake in our country. This is what economists call "grabbing us by the short and curlies" (you can look it up). China has gained quite a bit of negotiating power by taking on our debt. If we threaten them with military action, they don't even need to mobilize their armed forces. They could more effectively mobilize their bankers to disrupt our economy. Can you imagine how people would have reacted upon learning that the U.S.S.R. held so much financial control over America during the Cold War? Why doesn't anyone care that China has maneuvered itself into such a powerful position?

The China containment policy detailed in Klare's article is understandable, but clearly this is a problem of our own making. This has become a recurring theme in U.S. foreign policy. We trained Osama Bin Laden, we armed Saddam Hussein, and now we're creating a monster in China. Why are we signing trade agreements and enacting fiscal policies that help them toward the goal we wish to discourage? With the U.S. and China competing for the same dwindling natural resources, a collision is virtually unavoidable. And when it happens, China will not be easily subdued.

Labels: China, economics, int'l politics

- posted by David Johnsen @ 10:29 AM 0 comments

 
Now Reading... The Sixteen-Trillion Dollar Mistake
Lately I've been reading The Sixteen-Trillion Dollar Mistake by Bruce S. Jansson. The book discusses U.S. fiscal policy from FDR to Clinton, contending that bad decisions have cost us $16 trillion over the last 70 years. It was difficult reading at first. The back-and-forth between the President and Congress on budget matters buried me beneath a bewildering pile of numbers, and it was particularly hard to keep track while tiredly riding the El home from work. I kept asking myself why I ever bought the book. At one point, the fact that I paid $20 for it was the only thing that kept me reading. Things began to pick up with the Cold War, however, and I sense that it will get progressively more interesting approaching the present. After all I wasn't born until the Nixon years, so New Deal budget battles are pretty esoteric to me.

One consistent theme that I have found is that Republicans have a tradition of pressing for tax cuts regardless of what's in the country's best interests. At least now I know it's nothing new. Another surprise was that JFK was such a hawk throughout his political career (FYI, a "hawk" is a pro-war person, as opposed to a "dove"--when I told my wife about JFK being a hawk, she thought I was talking about his womanizing!). I guess I was surprised because it didn't fit the romantic vision of Camelot that my mother gave me about the JFK years. Then again, she was thirteen years old when JFK died, so maybe she wasn't fully immersed in politics.

On the other hand, when I was thirteen and Reagan was in office, I was too into politics. I read the Chicago Tribune daily, and I was sure we were all going to die in a nuclear war (Sting's "Russians" gave me chills). Maybe that's why I was so disgusted by people deifying Reagan when he died--his macho posturing with the Soviets scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. Just the same, I can't wait to get to the Reagan years in this book. Isn't that where G.W. learned how to cut taxes and increase spending?

Labels: books, economics, US politics

- posted by David Johnsen @ 6:45 PM 0 comments