Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right by Thomas Frank

Jul 09, 2012 Donna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: essays-ideas

In the financial meltdown that punctuated the end of the G. W. Bush administration, "sixteen trillion dollars in household wealth was incinerated on the pyre Wall Street had kindled." Some of that was my wealth and—unless you happen to be a member of the now-infamous 1%—some of it was undoubtedly yours. And we are still feeling the effects of those losses.

That's $16,000,000,000,000 in household wealth, middle-class wealth—the homes and jobs and hard-earned savings of ordinary folks. We're not ta...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a fun, fast yet depressing read - it just reminds the reader of the ridiculously upside down logic (or lack thereof) that has lead countless Americans to somehow vote against common sense and against their own best interests in the aftermath of the global financial meltdown. Frank is snarky, fierce and funny and I enjoyed his writing; it's not his fault that a large portion of the American people have allowed themselves to be manipulated by master showmen like Glenn Beck (I don't know h...more This was a fun, fast yet depressing read - it just reminds the reader of the ridiculously upside down logic (or lack thereof) that has lead countless Americans to somehow vote against common sense and against their own best interests in the aftermath of the global financial meltdown. Frank is snarky, fierce and funny and I enjoyed his writing; it's not his fault that a large portion of the American people have allowed themselves to be manipulated by master showmen like Glenn Beck (I don't know how anyone could have watched Beck for more than a few minutes let alone a steady, daily diet of his maniacal, illogical ranting, but I guess each his own). I can't help but be reminded of the famous adage about never going broke by underestimating the stupidity of the American people. . . I recall that the reviewer in the New York Times book review felt Frank went overboard in his persecution of Glenn Beck but I think the level of contempt must rise to the level of the cynical manipulation being practiced, so I had no problem with the author using examples from Beck's own shows and books to illustrate the level of chicanery Beck routinely sunk to!

I would recommend this book, as well as "Boomerang" by Michael Lewis, to anyone who watches the nightly news and wonders how in heaven's name did we get here? Since I don't have the stomach to watch Fox News or listen to right-wing radio personalities, these two books help explain how some of our fellow Americans have come to believe so firmly in the efficacy of voting against their own best interests and have fallen hook, line and sinker for the cult of the sacred free market at all costs. My husband is a financial services professional and he sees the value in regulation, for God's sake! He was telling me for years that people were overextended, using their homes as a personal bank and getting houses they couldn't afford; he knew the crash was coming, it was only a matter of when. That our political and business leaders couldn't see that and so badly mismanaged the aftermath for their own political and personal gain is the most galling reality of all - and not much to laugh about there! (less)

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Mar 12, 2012 Angela rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, library-thing-early-reviewers, advance-readers-edition

When I read What's the Matter With Kansas? several years ago, I finished the book determined to conduct any future political discussions with a focus on how economic/social justice issues are inseparable from personal morality: that is, if one claims to be a "Christian", one cannot ignore one's responsibility to care for the needy and the oppressed, and said responsibility includes approving and encouraging government assistance such as food stamps, disaster relief, and jobs programs.

It's been a...more When I read What's the Matter With Kansas? several years ago, I finished the book determined to conduct any future political discussions with a focus on how economic/social justice issues are inseparable from personal morality: that is, if one claims to be a "Christian", one cannot ignore one's responsibility to care for the needy and the oppressed, and said responsibility includes approving and encouraging government assistance such as food stamps, disaster relief, and jobs programs.

It's been a very frustrating several years.

Thomas Frank's new book helps explain WHY it's been so frustrating. In this new America, The Free Market is God, and any attempt to regulate and control The Free Market is seen as socialism, communism, fascism, choose-your-ism, both by people who ought to know better AND by people who don't know better because they've never bothered to educate themselves in matters of economic policy as it has played out in US history.

As Frank points out, however, it has been ever thus. In one of the few passages that actually made me laugh, Frank briefly discusses how labor unions were seen as a threat to capitalism in the 1840s, and "...sure enough, the form of capitalism they had in those days died, to be replaced by 'capitalism modified by the right of collective bargaining.'" A few decades later, regulation of railroads signaled the End Times and "...the end of the world came to pass. Capitalism died, to be replaced this time by 'capitalism modified by the right of collective bargaining and Federal regulation.'"

The main thrust of Frank's thesis here, though, is the surprising "Hard Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right", to quote his subtitle. Based on previous economic history as it played out in the 1930s, the Right's new fascination with Ayn Rand's doctrine of Objectivism and the anti-government, anti-regulation rhetoric should never have taken hold in the general population. Conventional wisdom dictated the rank and file "common man" should have been screaming in the streets for Washington to come down hard on the bankers, investors, and corporate entities who created the crisis. Instead, the Tea Party was screaming in the streets for government to take its dirty little fingers out of the pockets of the "job creators", to cut back on current and proposed regulations that "crippled the economy", and decrying any government attempt to alleviate social ills as treacherous steps on the road to the evils of a socialist society.

How the Right managed this shift in public perception makes for fascinating reading. Unfortunately, said reading had the side effect of leaving me feeling (a) helpless and demoralized in the face of so much misinformation, misunderstanding, and sheer right-wing obstinacy, and (b) supremely angry at liberal leaders and politicians who cowered in the face of such obstinacy, who did not articulate their positions in language that would be understood by the rank and file Right, who essentially shrugged their shoulders and abdicated their responsibility. (Yes, you, President Obama, I'm looking at you.)

I'll get over the demoralization in a few days, and re-enter the fray with renewed vigor and determination. I hope our elected liberal officials -- who are few and far between these days -- find their courage and their voice and join me.(less)

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Mar 28, 2013 Jude rated it 5 of 5 stars

Thomas Frank has written an informative and interesting book with keen insight into the unlikely and unexpected comeback of the Right after the election of Barack Obama. I wanted to share some of my thoughts with you about the book, "Pity the Billionaire: The Hard Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right." In many ways, the book has helped me, after asking myself again and again, "How could this have happened to us?", to understand exactly how this could have happened (and did happe...more Thomas Frank has written an informative and interesting book with keen insight into the unlikely and unexpected comeback of the Right after the election of Barack Obama. I wanted to share some of my thoughts with you about the book, "Pity the Billionaire: The Hard Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right." In many ways, the book has helped me, after asking myself again and again, "How could this have happened to us?", to understand exactly how this could have happened (and did happen) to us.

Our promised bridge to the 21st century was detoured by eight years of George W. Bush who, with his rubber-stamping GOP, brought our country to its economic knees. 2008 brought us a new Democratic president and here came the Right to block our bridge yet again. This time the old forces of the Right worked together diligently to bring us the Tea Party - their next stage of evolution. (Don’t tell them I 've mentioned the word "evolution” !)

As I look back on the days following the 2008 Presidential election, I thought I was paying pretty close attention - and in many ways, I was paying attention. The question I ask myself is: Should I have been paying closer attention to those who have likely never seen eye-to-eye with me - and should I have been more vigilant about the information being fed to them by the usual Right-wing suspects? I've been a participant in public political forums for well over a decade, mostly internet-based. In the beginning, I debated citizens from across the political spectrum. Eventually, I realized I was talking to a major brick wall that they'd built for self-defense against any plea for common sense. This time, the Tea Party hasn't shown me that they are any different. They've only drawn around themselves more narrow borders with their insistence upon a purity in politics that could only exist in a fantasy world. I have faith that most citizens today, even those who associate themselves with Conservatism, are beginning to realize that sticking out a fantasy will never be productive for the good of our country and maybe that's why we see such a major decline of the party's influence today with Republican primary voters flocking to a moderate candidate.

A quote I recently read by 20th century liberal activist Dudley Field Malone, who'd joined with Clarence Darrow to defend John T. Scopes in the famous "Monkey Trial" in 1925, goes like this: “ I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me.” Mr. Malone surely learned about human nature from those who failed to agree with him in his time! Once more, as in Malone’s day, we seem to be dealing with powerful forces of no reason; all bloviation; all reaction. We haven't related to one another in a culture where only ideological purity is acceptable and minds are closed to anyone who'd wish to inject individual conscience into public discussion. Going off-script is verboten. I'm afraid, as historians look back upon the current period of time in America, that they will clearly see that we'd learned nothing from one another and that a larger group of citizens who cared about their country's direction were ignored; silenced by an extremely loud echo-chamber amplified by moneyed voices championing empty values and one-sided, narrow-minded utopian goals. The internet has been a blessing, but it's had its dark side, too. Today's internet, Thomas Frank says, "provides a huge playground for self-segregation" where "those who don't follow the rules are 'trolls'. He calls the condition where these separate worlds, each with only like-minded people meeting and discussing the issues of the day "the culture of closure ". This culture has given rise to non-factual conventional wisdom such as the notion of "the Liberal media", creating a space in the market for a Conservative media that is almost able to get away with boldly boasting about their "fairness and balance" (with Media Matters and other fact-checkers keeping it real for those who still care about journalistic integrity).

We see our Congress failing to work and their public poll ratings lower than ever due to traditional expectations (that they actually might work together) colliding with new realities (that they likely never will unless "the culture of closure" is changed somehow). We don't listen to one another anymore, from the average citizen to the screaming, dueling pundits to the leaders in Congress. Worse, since January of 2010 with the U.S. Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision, the People suddenly are not all actually people, but by law are also corporations, whose shadow-funders can afford a lot more money (otherwise known as "speech") to influence politics - and cynically so - than any one human being ever could. For the future of the health and integrity of democracy, I can only think of two words: "Epic fail."

Despite the vision of a nation and government that President Abraham Lincoln told us was of the People and for the People and by the People, it seemed that an altogether new and rather twisted principle and process for finding public consensus about our common democratic values was taking root in 2009. It was under such a misguiding star that Fox News, Glenn Beck, the Koch brothers, Richard A. Viguerie (sometimes referred to as "the funding father of Conservative strategy), Dick Armey, and others gave birth to what I see as one of the most nonsensical (while incredibly successful) political movements in U.S. history. I remember watching the news while on vacation in Florida in March of 2009 and seeing my first news story about a Tea Party rally held in Orlando, Florida. I have to admit that I rolled my eyes when I heard their bullhorn protests and saw their sea of older white faces, their silly signs and I thought to myself, "Nah. This won't be taken seriously." (Note: Mr. Frank focuses on economic arguments in his book, but the element of race is something that I keep revisiting in my mind when I remember the first days of the Tea Party.) Swiftly crafting a hard-times populist theme based, amazingly, on many examples Mr. Frank gives in one chapter of ideas and tactics used by purveyors of Communist thought in past decades, the Right was able to beat the Occupy Wall Street movement to the populist punch by many months; perhaps too many months for the damage done by the newest Right to be mitigated.

I've often felt that the only reason the movement was able to catch on and find success is due to the fact that the Right was bruised by years of Bush-bashing (deserved or not). I believe that the public had become so opinion-segregated by media culture, both mainstream and alternative media, and leaders so swayed by dirty money in politics, that there was no room left for any differences in ideas and little chance that the differences, if presented, would ever have a chance to live themselves out and be developed in a media culture that only seems to acknowledge the all-too-convenient simplicity of Left and Right. There are fewer people today who honestly believe there are more than two sides to a political argument. Why would they think otherwise, when all they see and hear is made partisan, not for their benefit, but for the purpose of controversy that is attention-grabbing enough to generate some really great corporate profits?

Thomas Frank points out that, while people like me undoubtedly believed that the Crash of '08 should naturally have kick-started the hard-times scenario of Depression-era populism and that President Obama should surely have been seen as the ideal leader for the moment, forces out there like oil baron Charles Koch were working hard (and paying plenty) to ensure there would be a public voice against making "the same mistakes" that were made our ancestors (“mistakes” such as installing new regulations, creating public works programs and new government agencies). Thomas Frank said, in a recent interview, that he believes what he calls "'the AIG moment' (when the bailed-out insurance behemoth used taxpayer relief to dole out huge bonuses to its executives) was in some ways the high point of the crisis, when (the politics) could have gone either way." Angry with Obama’s style of bail-outs, citizens who had the tendency to lean right were convinced by clever political manipulators, to rail against what many of us would see as reason. They believed that Capitalism was under siege; Liberty was disappearing; Prosperity was shrinking. The new Tea Party's stubborn world/nation views and purist politics were anything but new. They only found a new twist at an opportune time. It didn't help the cause of those who associated themselves with Progressives that the message promoted by those on the Right who sought to fan the flames of discontent after the big bailouts was that the lords of Wall Street owned the government. The news of post-bailout bonuses by Wall Street to their employees only added fuel to the Tea Party fire and disappointed and stymied the Left. The perception of President Obama's acceptance of cronyism a la Hoover in the bailout process was not helpful to raising any voice of support from the left, either. Yet, in a political atmosphere where citizens are not given a lot of credit for their attention span, some Democratic leaders may have bet wrong when they thought "this, too, shall pass." For most citizens, the ire over all of this had died down after a while, but not so with the Tea Party and their leaders. They held on to this anti-government sentiment and took a direction that, when considered by a rational human being considering traditional common American values, made little sense. How on earth did they become a movement that, in Mr. Frank's words, "was an uprising against government and taxes and federal directives - in others words it was now a movement in favor of the very conditions that has allowed Wall Street to loot the world. In fact, nearly every aspect of the culture responsible for the collapse -- from deregulation to Ayn Rand's novels -- quickly became the subject of roaring enthusiasm."

In a chapter devoted to the surrounding the unlikely resurgence in popularity of Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged", Mr. Frank asks, "What kind of misapprehension permits the newest Right to brush off truths that everyone else can see so plainly? What backfiring form of cognition convinces them that Ayn Rand is the hero rather than the villain of the present disaster?" A great question. It's been downright strange for me to have heard the Tea Party leaders decrying national laws and protections that historically had supported our civic virtues and universally-held human values. Here we were, our nation experiencing a legitimacy crisis with markets disintegrating, layoffs mounting, and foreclosures destabilizing Main Street. We expected, based on all we've come to know as traditionally American based on the calling of good conscience, to see wrongdoers punished, the weak to be rescued, and measures put in place to try to avoid a repeat of the economic breakdown. So what happened?

Read Thomas Frank's book and you'll find out. From his history of the 1930s economic catastrophe contrasted with the very different citizen-backlash of the Tea Party to the source of the philosophical guidance from Conservative leaders who claimed to speak for a recession-battered people while the Obama administration was slow to put themselves at the forefront of populist anger against Wall Street, I think you'll better understand how this could have happened to us.

~ Jude Nagurney Camwell, (review written January 22, 2012)
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Feb 14, 2013 Ob-jonny rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book makes an observation that few liberals, Democrats, or progressives really understand or say out loud. That is that despite the mess caused by the Republicans that led to the financial crisis, there is not going to be an FDR that comes in to fix the problem. The financial lobbies have taken over the political system to such a degree that no president or politician that is taken seriously can mount a serious challenge. Or at least they feel that they cannot because they need the campaign...more

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Feb 12, 2013 JD Newick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2013

An account of the rise of the Tea Party, and the strange emergence of populist demands for further neoliberal free market policies in the USA; the title is a reference to the Tea Party and Republican Party's recent trend to portray the rich as victims of Big Government and the supposed "Socialist" policies which Barack Obama is accused of pursuing. Frank puts the Tea Party in the context of left-wing populist movements of the past, such as the New Left of the 1960s and, more specifically, the ri...more An account of the rise of the Tea Party, and the strange emergence of populist demands for further neoliberal free market policies in the USA; the title is a reference to the Tea Party and Republican Party's recent trend to portray the rich as victims of Big Government and the supposed "Socialist" policies which Barack Obama is accused of pursuing. Frank puts the Tea Party in the context of left-wing populist movements of the past, such as the New Left of the 1960s and, more specifically, the rise of FDR and the organised labour (or should I say "organized labor") movement of the 1930s, and tries to explain why this time, the populist cry has been for less government and less regulation of the economy, rather than the other way round. Frank points out that, although the Tea Party are clearly acting in favour of the status quo of big business and crony capitalism, their rhetoric and tactics is actually strongly based off those used by previous leftist movements, and sees itself as a highly anti-establishment organisation; a movement of small business vs. special interests.

Frank's answer to why the Tea Party's pro-free market message has been so successful, in the wake of the 2008 crash which should have been a damning discrediting of 30 years of Reaganomics, is that the Democrat Party have been unable or unwilling to put forward an alternate narrative, and are instead too willing themselves to work with the financial industry rather than challenge them, and are obsessed with compromise and bipartisanship, rather than vocally defining and defending the liberal ideology which the party had in the days of FDR and JFK. Frank also points out how the modern right (the "newest Right", as he calls it) have, like the CPUSA members of yore, sealed themself into a bubble in which facts are derived from ridig ideology - eg. Hayek warned that a Socialist Britain would be an unfree Britain, therefore Britain after WW2 became unfree (it didn't); the New Deal was a violation of free market principles, therefore it must have caused/worsened the Great Depression (again, it didn't).

I found this book to be a highly interesting take on the modern American Right, as well as a sad statement on the current state of the American Left. I certainly agree that the modern Democrats under Obama (one might also say under Clinton in the 90s) have been far too conserned with "compromise", and that they've become completely unwilling to determing their own principles and ideology, to the point that they have allowed words like "regulation", "union", "progressive", and "liberal" to become dirty words in the discourse of the nation's politics, and allowed themselves to be dragged so far to the right that Eisenhower, Nixon, and even Reagan would be considered "liberal" by today's extremist Republican party.

Though written from a liberal standpoint, it's fairly balanced in its sympathetic treatment of the Tea Party. I liked all the parallels of modern America with that of the 1930s, as well as his demonstations of how the actual history of that era has been thoroughly distorted by right wingers. It's clear that Frank has an awful lot of admiration for FDR- an admiration that I'll admit that I share, his horrible internment of Japanese Americans aside. I also enjoyed his examination of Atlas Shrugged, a book I haven't read but intend to in the future.

The book ends on a glum note, pessimistic about the state of the American left in the wake of the disappointment of the Occupy movement, and predicting tragic disaster for all but the superrich, should free market ideas and institutionalised crony capitalism continue to strengthen its grip on the nation's politics.

As a Brit who follows American politics fairly closely, I found this a good read. I was also reminded that I need to get around to reading The Shock Doctrine and Conscience Of A Liberal at some point. Oh, and that I need to read some decent books about the Great Depression and the New Deal, and maybe a couple good biographies on FDR. How come every book I read just puts several more books on my "to read" list...(less)

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Oct 28, 2012 Diane Kistner rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a book that Americans of all political persuasions should read, especially as we move into what promises to be a crazier-than-usual election period. Although his focus is more on the "newest Right" and its paradoxical ascendency, Frank is not out to convert anyone to "the other side"; both liberals and conservatives will find plenty to affirm their particular leanings. What they might find in these pages, however, is more common ground than they thought they had, and both will be equally...more This is a book that Americans of all political persuasions should read, especially as we move into what promises to be a crazier-than-usual election period. Although his focus is more on the "newest Right" and its paradoxical ascendency, Frank is not out to convert anyone to "the other side"; both liberals and conservatives will find plenty to affirm their particular leanings. What they might find in these pages, however, is more common ground than they thought they had, and both will be equally chilled by the book's conclusions.

In the Introduction, "A Time of Signs and Wonders," Frank presents the book as "a chronicle of a confused time, a period when Americans rose up against imaginary threats and rallied to economic theories they understood only in the gauziest terms. It is about a country where fears of a radical takeover became epidemic even though radicals themselves had long since ceased to play any role in the national life; a land where ideological nightmares conjured by TV entertainers seemed more vivid and compelling than the contents of the news pages. Seen from another perspective, this is a chronicle of a miraculous time, of another 'Great Awakening'..." (p. 1)*, which Frank proceeds to explore in the rest of the book. Without partisan rancor, and with no small amount of irony and humor, he puts his finger on why it feels so crazy in the U.S. now. It's all a deliberate sleight of hand, Frank tells us, a game of three-card monte perpetrated on the American people that none of us will win.

In these pages, Frank gives us a lot to think about, but I want to highlight one thing that struck me as quite profound and important. I remember listening to then-president George W. Bush talking about the opposing political party and thinking, "Am I nuts, or is he talking about himself and his own party?" At the time, I told myself it had to be psychological projection (google it); but after reading Frank's book, I'm beginning to wonder. Chapter 7, entitled "Mimesis," begins with this striking clue as to why today's conservative movement has managed to hang on despite its jaw-dropping destructiveness:

"Mimicry is a familiar phenomenon in the animal kingdom, where certain moths have developed spots on their wings that look like the eyes of an owl, inoffensive bugs fly about in black and yellow stripes, and harmless snakes have learned, over the millennia, to frighten predators by shaking their tails in dead leaves.... And in human affairs, we have a conservative movement that has learned, over the decades, to mimic many of the characteristics of its enemies" (p. 113)!

In what Frank refers to as the "I'm-rubber-you're-glue school of disputation," the purpose is to "sow confusion." (I don't know about you, but I've been confused as all get-out by the happenings of 21st century America, where what we seem to be seeing is "a deliberate cognitive withdrawal from the shared world" [p. 155].) Why anyone would do this is fascinating to consider. Frank explores the motivation in a way that makes it all make sense. Now I think maybe George W. Bush and the leaders of his party are a whole lot smarter than liberals and progressives have given them credit for.

I hope to see some good bipartisan discussions of "Pity the Billionaire" on Google+. No matter which party you affiliate with, you dismiss this one at your peril.

*Note: Citations are taken from an advanced readers copy/proof and should be checked against the final published book.(less)

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Sep 03, 2012 Jim Braly rated it 3 of 5 stars

For any American who hasn’t noticed that the economy has tanked, “Pity the Billionaire” will get you caught up on the details … oh, wait, the people who haven’t noticed that the economy has tanked are the billionaires.

If you liked the way George W. Bush cut taxes for the rich, ran up the budget deficit with two wars he refused to pay for, and deregulated Wall Street so it could give us the back of its invisible hand, then you have the chance to go through that again.

Through the miracle of disho...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed "What's the Matter With Kansas"--and "Billionaire" extends Frank's theses about what people with few resources and even fewer prospects in these United States persist in believing that the free market will save democracy.

The book spends too much time deconstructing Glenn Beck (who left the stage shortly before the book was published) and Ayn Rand's turgid potboiler, "Atlas Shrugged." And it gets off to a slow start, as Frank meticulously traces what seems to be incomprehensible...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Jonny99 rated it 2 of 5 stars

"My opponent is a known raging heterosexual..." The easiest means of getting yourself elected is to draw the voter's focus to how bad the other guy is. Of course, the problem that develops over time, as we see from modern American politics, is that eventually voters lose trust in the system as a whole because everyone in it is covered in slung mud. Frank's book takes this tactic and applies it to the current phase of Fox News-driven conservatism. Essentially, his argument boils down to if "they"...more "My opponent is a known raging heterosexual..." The easiest means of getting yourself elected is to draw the voter's focus to how bad the other guy is. Of course, the problem that develops over time, as we see from modern American politics, is that eventually voters lose trust in the system as a whole because everyone in it is covered in slung mud. Frank's book takes this tactic and applies it to the current phase of Fox News-driven conservatism. Essentially, his argument boils down to if "they" are this bad, we must be better (and thus I don't need to spend time explaining why our views are better). It's the intellectual equivalent of a rigged carnival game.

Frank focuses his attacks on the biggest, easiest target the latest incarnation of "the new right" offers - Glenn Beck. While Frank slandering of Beck often finds his mark, picking on the often confused, frequently teary Beck who made a short-lived career of demonstrating how both sides of any argument somehow support his essential "right-ness" does not a marksman make. And say what you will about Beck, although most have moved on, no one traversed the arch from D-list radio personality to America's mostly politically influential commentator to D-list radio personality faster than the roughly 30 months it took Beck to pull off the feat. Add the handicap of his shaky mental state and Beck must be applauded for sheer cultural velocity.

Beyond Beck, Frank pads the book with an extensive review of 1951's Atlas Shrugged. Yes, Ayn Rand's 1100 page downer is a fundamentally odd book (Frank rightly points out that steel and railroads are presented as the leading industries in the book's unspecified future despite the fact that they were well in decline even when as the book was being written). Yes, in a Rand-ian world Reed college dropout and unemployed part-time Hari Krishna Steve Jobs would have been permanently relegated to the sub-human underclass Rand rails against. And yes, Rand's view of romantic relationships leans far more Fifty Shades of Grey than Wuthering Heights. However, these criticisms find better expression in dozens of other books.

Frank does raise some valid points although he offers no better path. Socialist-style large business bailouts started under conservative icon George Bush and only continued under once liberal hero Barack Obama. These bailouts meant that free-market conservatives must lionize small businesses and demonize the large despite both being the same animal just differing in scale. A cornerstone of the movement is immigration control to help unemployment yet 50% of U.S. patents are held by recent immigrants. However, other hits in the book are not bulls-eye.

The best sections of the book discuss the commercialization of the movement. Frank talks about all manner of tchotchkes available for sale bearing the likeness of conservative darlings such as Sarah Palin, Chuck Norris and the always effervescent Joe the Plumber. Had Frank turned down the rhetoric (say from 11 to like 6) and spent more time covering this commercial aspect of the movement, in much the same way Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America covered the commercialization and affinity networking of cancer it would make for a far more valuable commentary on the late post-millennial naughts.

In short, liberals and conservatives alike should insist their echo-chamber tomes explain why their ideology surpasses and not just why the other one sucks.

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May 24, 2012 Jordan McPeek rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, economics, politics

A de-regulated market caused the 2008 financial meltdown, and the solution proposed by the Tea Party and conservatives in general is to loosen up even more. The idea makes no sense yet it has captured the imagination and devotion of a large vocal segment of Americans who wield a disproportionate amount of political power. Frank does a fine job of exploring how this came to pass. He's waded into the conservative world - attending rallies, reading books and magazines, listening to radio shows - an...more

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May 05, 2012 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars

A worthy follow up to "What's the Matter With Kansas," and like that book, "Pity the Billionaire" helps the reader get a better handle on questions that otherwise boggle the mind. Especially, *why* the Right has managed to gain such a firm support from the very people who are hurt worst by current economic policies.

A good portion of what Frank has to say won't be news to the type of person most likely to read it, but his account of the past few years is far better than most. The real value of t...more A worthy follow up to "What's the Matter With Kansas," and like that book, "Pity the Billionaire" helps the reader get a better handle on questions that otherwise boggle the mind. Especially, *why* the Right has managed to gain such a firm support from the very people who are hurt worst by current economic policies.

A good portion of what Frank has to say won't be news to the type of person most likely to read it, but his account of the past few years is far better than most. The real value of the book starts coming through in chapter six, where he builds a strong argument that the way to understand the Tea Party is as a movement of small-business owners.

The small business mindset best describes their desires and grievances. (Think how a small-business owner might look at universal health care.) With that viewpoint to start with, all the operatives on the Right had to do after that was muddle any distinction the Tea Partiers might have been able to make between regulation as *they* deal with it and the kind of regulation that once kept Wall Street and the banks reined in from irresponsible ventures. So long as the Tea Partiers fail to comprehend that crucial difference--so long as they are made to think local health inspections and the Glass-Steagall Act amount to exactly the same thing--they will remain shoulder-to-shoulder with the bond traders with whom they really don't have a single thing in common.

It's as good an explanation as anyone is likely to give for a movement that (as Frank himself argues) embraces an astonishing number of logical fallacies, self-contradictions, and willful blindnesses.

Where the book falls short is its failure to address the very real limitations and failings of the Occupy movement as a response to the Tea Party (or much of anything else). Frank could have written a far more useful book by pointing out more comprehensively how the Left is failing to stand up for those worst hit since 2008, but he opts instead for telling his most likely readers what they want to hear, offering a critique in the tenth chapter that leaves the failure of the Left conveniently at the feet of politicians and Beltway activists, and not the very people probably reading the book. Frank is taking a safe way out here, and it makes me think a bit less of him for it. I could have done with fifty fewer pages regurgitating Glenn Beck--in 2012!--and fifty more addressing matters actually relevant to where we are now.

(Also a side note: it's always rich to read a journalist decrying the internet for 'epistemic closure,' as Frank does here (pp. 155-57). As if the pre-internet mass media had ever given readers and listeners more than selected excerpts of contrary opinions, assuming they were acknowledged at all.)

But still, a valuable book. If you rarely read books about politics and policy, this is one worth making an exception.(less)

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Apr 21, 2012 Lucas rated it 2 of 5 stars

I expected more of a middle of the road historical assessment of the economic collapse here, along with an analysis of how American society, especially our middle and lower classes, has responded to its aftermath. The beginning chapters of the book, including one that related the American popular response to the Great Depression and those responsible for causing it, were a great way to start this analysis. However, this book quickly degrades into "it's all their fault" language, and I found that...more I expected more of a middle of the road historical assessment of the economic collapse here, along with an analysis of how American society, especially our middle and lower classes, has responded to its aftermath. The beginning chapters of the book, including one that related the American popular response to the Great Depression and those responsible for causing it, were a great way to start this analysis. However, this book quickly degrades into "it's all their fault" language, and I found that disappointing.

It is remarkable that the American conservative movement has managed to transfer outrage at the speculators who caused the mess into intraclass rage at those who are the victims of the collapse, and who have lost jobs, homes, and life savings. With that I am with the author. However, where I disagree is in the idea that the mess is all the fault of one group of people. Sure, speculators and economic tightrope walkers who invented dangerous financial products in an effort to squeeze every penny out of mortgage holders and and the property they occupied are sure to blame, but so are homebuyers who signed mortgages they would not be able to afford.

Frank's attempt to place it all in the lap of the political Right and the financial giants who supported them (and still do) seems disingenuous. It is not the whole truth, but I believe his aim is somehow to score political points and write for an audience that is pre-established and who will agree with his main premise: that, instead of casting blame for the recession on those who caused it, we turned that blame inside out and cast it upon our neighbors. This is a book for an audience who can read it an then say, "Yeah, that IS how it is!" It's not an easy conclusion to make, and in the end, somehow its not completely convincing.

I wanted to understand how the outrage at Wall Street's crimes has evaporated, because I believe it has, but I expect that the answer to that is much simpler than this analysis. I believe that, in the end, America just lost interest in casting blame. We wanted the whole thing to disappear, and its seemed at the time that the best way to do that was to pass TARP and bail out the banks with extreme urgency and force. Seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but who knows now? The Tea Party is not about assigning blame for the recession where it does not belong, as Frank asserts. Honestly, I don't have the insider information about the movement that Frank seems to have gathered in order to make any reasonable judgments about the purpose of the Tea Party. However, I do suspect that, in the end, America just lost interest in casting blame for the recession on anybody. It would have been justified for the American public to demand the heads of the speculators and those who were just in it to squeeze every cent out of the mortgage system before bailing out. However, two things happened: most importantly, our attention wandered, as it often does. After that, the powers that be (Wall Street) decided that their employees (the federal government) would first bail them out and then ensure that the story went away. Simple as that, in my opinion.(less)

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Apr 09, 2012 Aektare rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an enjoyable read full of snark but it's a book set firmly in the Liberal Hand-Wringing genre and therefore unlikely to convince anyone on the Right of anything. I've read enough of these that after a while the thrill starts to wear off. How many times can one pat oneself on the back with smug satisfaction for being smarter than a gaggle of noisy obese halfwits in teabag adorned tri-cornered hats before starting to feel as if one is booing at The Special Olympics?

When Thomas Frank wrote...more This is an enjoyable read full of snark but it's a book set firmly in the Liberal Hand-Wringing genre and therefore unlikely to convince anyone on the Right of anything. I've read enough of these that after a while the thrill starts to wear off. How many times can one pat oneself on the back with smug satisfaction for being smarter than a gaggle of noisy obese halfwits in teabag adorned tri-cornered hats before starting to feel as if one is booing at The Special Olympics?

When Thomas Frank wrote "What's the matter with Kansas?" back in 2004, I was in the front pew with my eyes closed and arms raised skyward, swaying gently to the sweet music along with the rest of the choir. Now I'm in the back row checking my watch. There's nothing new here. According to Frank, the New Right leadership has pulled a switch-a-roo on the American people by appropriating the rhetoric and propaganda methods of the 1930s labor movement to aim their rancor at the one entity which,despite its faults,still has to listen and cater to them because it needs their votes. The ringleaders of this new virulent conservative movement have convinced people to gather en masse at corporate-sponsored rallies, waive their McFillet grease-stained pocket Constitutions and demand a Darwinian winner-takes-all form of pure Capitalism which will finally crush them for good. Egged on by the super-wealthy and fairly wealthy small business owners, the populist fervor in the Tea Party is fueled by the belief that the evil government and its rules are all that stand in the way of the average Joe and his 250K/year plumbing operation.

The fact that hordes of self-styled 'freedom loving patriots' and 'entrepreneurs' spend their weekends demanding raises for their bosses attests to the absolute failure of the Left to provide any context, explanation or philosophical alternative to the reasons behind the economic crisis. Frank is quite lucid when he states that we got Clinton The Sequel, when Obama should have been The Return of FDR: He's Back And This Time He's Pissed!! As a result, our President and his gang of technocrats failed miserably to connect with those most hurt by the recession, who in their bewilderment ran off into the embrace of the likes of Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck/Roger Ailes and are now nestling in the warmth of their puffy man tits for comfort and validation.
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Apr 04, 2012 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: library

I don't often read current-affairs books, even when I already know I'll agree with them, because what I see in the daily headlines makes me mad enough. I picked up this one because an article in our local paper pointed out that Thomas Frank wrote much of it in the very Port Townsend Public Library where I checked it out. Now, I've followed Frank since Baffler #6 way back in '95 (and by the way, it's pretty amazing that they kept my subscription live through fires, multi-year hiatuses in publishi...more I don't often read current-affairs books, even when I already know I'll agree with them, because what I see in the daily headlines makes me mad enough. I picked up this one because an article in our local paper pointed out that Thomas Frank wrote much of it in the very Port Townsend Public Library where I checked it out. Now, I've followed Frank since Baffler #6 way back in '95 (and by the way, it's pretty amazing that they kept my subscription live through fires, multi-year hiatuses in publishing, changes of editors, and changes of publishers), so it was a surprise to learn he'd been doing his thing right down the street. We do get a couple name-checks, but that's about it; he doesn't weigh in on our local controversies about parks and paper mills.

It's a short book and it covers a pretty specific territory: how in 2008-2011 the GOP and the Tea Party, having learned from the Great Depression, hijacked the left's appeal to the "common man" and redirected it to support their own obscenely rich funders, the very financiers and corporations who caused the financial crisis in the first place. The book's not going to convince anyone new that this happened, not least because if they don't believe it already they won't touch this book with a ten-foot pole, let alone read it and change their minds. But it does show, step by step, the strategic and rhetorical moves that the right-wing ravers used to turn things their way, and at least a few of the myriad opportunities that progressives missed to stop them.

It's far from over, but the worst of the damage is already done: the Tea Party took over the House in 2010, even Obama's watered-down health-insurance reform is on the ropes, and financial-industry regulation is off the table. Obama will be re-elected this year only because the Republicans are so fractured and pathetic, but four more years will not be enough for him to claw actual progressive policies back from the libertarian capitalist ideologies which have taken over American politics. Assuming he would want to, anyway.

It's a good book; Frank displays his usual wit and thorough research. But the kind of people likely to read it are liable to end up depressed and apprehensive about the future.(less)

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Mar 21, 2012 Stewart rated it 5 of 5 stars

The most important book I’ve read explaining what has happened politically in this country since the early 1970s is "What’s the Matter With Kansas?" by Thomas Frank. I’ve recommended the book to family and friends and mailed or given it in person as gifts. Frank is back this year (2012) with a short book updating that seminal work. He tries to explain how the Far Right used the economic crisis of 2008-09 to win the House of Representatives and many governorships in November 2010.
"Pity the Bill...more

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Feb 11, 2012 Stephen rated it 5 of 5 stars

In absolute horror and frustration to the political gyrations of mid-century America, I read with fascination Frank's book - "What's the Matter With Kansas;" watched the documentary as well. I had read his "Commodify Your Dissent" in graduate school and loved his use of language and irreverence. This new book does for the economic collapse/depression/great recession what "Kansas" provided to political discourse linked with a dose of financial pablum. The resurgence of the right in 2010 is comple...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Kate Woods Walker rated it 5 of 5 stars

Thomas Frank once again takes a measured look at the seemingly irrational forces that keep U.S. social, economic and political forces going ever-rightward, despite the stunning failures of every single solitary tenet of the Supply Side-Fundamentalist-Randian faith, and just as he did in What's the Matter with Kansas? comes up with plausible reasons for the collective insanity that threatens our gasping, frail republic.

Along the way, Pity the Billionaire prompts more than a few laughs (mostly of...more

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Jan 25, 2012 Michael rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is a difficult book to write about, and I’m not quite sure where to start. I read Thomas Frank’s book What’s the Matter With Kansas a few years back and really enjoyed it. Mr. Frank, at the time, had assumed the mantle of a modern day prairie populist, like a 21st century William Jennings Bryan, who set out to understand how the people of Kansas (or anywhere in Red State America) could be so foolish to vote for the likes of George W. Bush over John Forbes Kerry. Frank was amazed that the pe...more This is a difficult book to write about, and I’m not quite sure where to start. I read Thomas Frank’s book What’s the Matter With Kansas a few years back and really enjoyed it. Mr. Frank, at the time, had assumed the mantle of a modern day prairie populist, like a 21st century William Jennings Bryan, who set out to understand how the people of Kansas (or anywhere in Red State America) could be so foolish to vote for the likes of George W. Bush over John Forbes Kerry. Frank was amazed that the people of Kansas, his home state and—at one time, a hotbed of lefty political radicalism—could time and time again vote against their economic interests and put a greedy Republican warmonger in the Oval Office instead of the Democrat du jour. Mr. Frank was utterly baffled that the good people of the Plains did not view themselves primarily as homo economicus and vote appropriately, and instead let pointless, non-economic issues like God and family values interrupt their thinking. (Two digressions. First, Mr. Frank published a magazine titled The Baffler, which is perfect for him. Second, the documentary What’s the Matter With Kansas was utterly boring. Back to business):

I remember What’s the Matter With Kansas well because I found the author’s bewilderment to be so…bewildering. Former New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said that culture trumps politics, and in this he was correct. People do not view themselves through the Marxist lens that Mr. Frank employs throughout all of his writing. That is to say, there are things that are more important to the desperate Bible and gun clingers Mr. Frank puzzles over than class solidarity, a point that is lost on the author in both his former book, and this his latest. (Explanatory note: I don’t use the term “Marxist” as a pejorative. It is a simple statement of fact that, throughout Mr. Frank’s books, the spirit of class war, class envy, class solidarity, and class-consciousness is omnipresent. Frank even quotes Marx’s famous maxim about all history being the story of class struggle, although he uses the phrase as an insult instead of a rallying cry. Still: Thomas Frank and Marx are well acquainted).

In his latest work, Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right, Mr. Frank employs a smarmy, superior, condescending tone that readers of Maureen Dowd and Gail Collins will find quite familiar. He begins by re-telling the story of the Great Recession: trillions of dollars lost, millions of jobs evaporated, houses foreclosed, retirements ruined, businesses shuttered, etc. He—quite correctly, in my view—lays the blame for the Great Recession at the door of Wall Street malfeasance, corporate greed, and a paucity of government regulation and oversight. What Frank finds utterly beyond comprehension, however, is the response of We the People to this damn near unraveling of our nation’s economy: we did not rise up in a mass tide of social unity, bearing pitchforks and torches, demanding a worker’s utopia to take the place of the mean and brutish free market capitalism that had driven our nation to its knees. No, instead…we had a Tea Party.

And it is the Tea Party—along with Glenn Beck, Ayn Rand, the Koch brothers, Ludwig von Mises, Freedomworks, Paul Ryan, Friedrich Hayek, and conservative bloggers—that Frank trains most of his ire upon. How dare Americans respond to an economic crisis with Gadsden flags, town hall meetings, and the largest electoral bitch-slapping the Democrats had received since the last economic meltdown! Here was the opportunity to make it all right at last, and what did the unwashed, Bible thumping, gun totting, non-kale eating bastards do? They decried the economic stimulus! They called for less taxes! They railed against health care reform! Oh, the horror, the horror.

This isn’t to say that Frank doesn’t score some very legitimate points. He does. He also makes some wise observations about the role of small business owners and Tea Party membership, a connection I had not heard made before. Likewise, Frank points out many of the…let’s say interesting inconsistencies of men like Rep. Paul Ryan, who shrieks about government collusion with corporations while accepting very generous financial favors from these same proto-fascist entities.

Did you know that Amity Shales, in her widely read conservative history of the Great Depression, The Forgotten Man, didn’t use GDP as a measure of the economy during the 1930s ? (I didn’t). Did you know that Ludwig von Mises’s prediction about socialism turning into totalitarianism was directed, not toward the USSR, but post-WWII England? (I didn’t). Did you know that Glenn Beck cries a lot, and is smarter than he dresses? (I actually did know that).

Ultimately, this book was annoying and sad. It’s not that the author doesn’t score some solid hits on the hypocrisies of small government conservatives with big business connections. Likewise, Frank points out that an unhealthy adoration of ‘free markets’ can lead people to some fairly stupid conclusions about the nature of reality. What annoyed me is that he is so damn self-satisfied about everything; it’s as though he can’t imagine how anyone could look at our economy, our culture, and our government and reach different conclusions than he does about how best they should be organized. There is a story told by the journalist Bill Moyers about the day after George McGovern’s electoral loss in 1972. Moyers was walking in downtown Manhattan when he met a woman, sobbing, and saying, “How could he have lost? Everyone I know voted for him!” The same principle is applicable here: not everyone in America views themselves as, first, a worker being exploited by the Man, nor does every thinking person believe that the answer to each question of the 21st century should end with “…and more government programs, regulations, and power.”

I will not read anymore of Mr. Frank’s books. I pity him, in a sense. Like many people of the far Left, has no idea what country he lives in.
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Feb 09, 2013 Paul Frandano rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: political-science-govt-politics, progressive-politics, economy

A book that almost certainly went to the publisher a month or two too soon. Released in January 2012, just in time for the onset of the national political debate in a Presidential-election year, author Thomas Frank missed the Occupy (Wall Street) Movement, which would have resulted in a useful chapter or two of counterpoint to his wry, gloomy polemic against the GOP's capture of the "economic hardship" flag following the Wall-Street-induced near-collapse of the US and global economies. The title...more A book that almost certainly went to the publisher a month or two too soon. Released in January 2012, just in time for the onset of the national political debate in a Presidential-election year, author Thomas Frank missed the Occupy (Wall Street) Movement, which would have resulted in a useful chapter or two of counterpoint to his wry, gloomy polemic against the GOP's capture of the "economic hardship" flag following the Wall-Street-induced near-collapse of the US and global economies. The title, and the phrase, "Pity the Billionaire" is Frank's summation of the torrent - and widespread endorsement - of pro-"Free Market Utopianism" and its critique of "losers" and "moochers" in a queer inversion of values, in which those at the lower-to-middle precincts of the socioeconomic pyramid insist loudly and vehemently on free-market purism (or free-market justice) as the panacea for every economic and social woe, thereby pleading for a system of finance capitalism from which they will scarcely benefit and from which the Kochs and Blankfeins of the world will benefit disproportionately, if not exclusively.

The book works best as a political history of the period between the elections of 2008 and 2010 and thus as a dissection of the rise of the Tea Party, which, along with its aiders, abettors, and beneficiaries in the mainstream GOP - the Vigueries and Gingrichs and Ryans - pilfered the rhetoric and structure of left-wing populism to mount its antithesis. If a Tea Party chronicle already sounds like ancient history, it is nevertheless told with verve, wit, and insight. Front and center of this story is, of course, the rise of Glenn Beck as the band leader and, pity the movement, intellectual light of the Tea Party, who is thoroughly exposed as a bungler and distorter of facts but is fairly credited as a man of demonstrable ability (and who, as this generation's Father Coughlin, has earned a paragraph in the history of the 21st century). A year after this book's publication, this nevertheless reads as seriously OBE (okay: "overtaken by events"), as Frank was writing just as Beck was signing off Fox (the end came on 30 June 2011). Beck's decline is never factored into the story because this is history on the fly, which waits for no person, and the Beck denouement, like the Occupy Movement, is for Frank a misfortune of deadlines and timing.

Frank's concluding lamentations concern the Democrats' failure to rise to the ideological challenge posed by the resurgent unfettered-free-market narrative and the Ayn Rand World promised by its most ardent DeMint-Ryan advocates. Instead, the Affordable Health Care Act becomes for Frank the symbol of the Obama administration's inability to make a credible populist stand, opting instead for the Clintonesque road to big-finance favor. (all, who wrote the big campaign-contribution checks for both parties?) Consequently, Obama swung hard toward the insurance companies and the AMA, ensuring their support and continued hypertrophied prosperity. Frank essentially joins Matt Taibbi, Simon Johnson, their intellectual godfather C. Wright Mills, and others who have come to view American democracy as an oligarchy jointly administered from Wall Street and the axis running up Pennsylvania Avenue, from 1600 to Capital Hill.(less)

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Mar 17, 2012 James rated it 4 of 5 stars

A coherent and interesting analysis of the upside-down bizarro world we live in, where a centrist, pro-finance Democrat can be painted a socialist, where people who have been defrauded by the corruption and greed of the banks turn their anger against those who were defrauded and those who would seek to ensure future fraud could not be committed - and not against the perpetrators of the fraud. Though he has thankfully disappeared from TV, the crying cheap imitation of Father Coughlin, Glenn Beck...more

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Jan 20, 2012 Al rated it 4 of 5 stars

An attempt to explain the post-crash turn rightward, when all previous history suggested that a turn to the left was inevitable, this book is pretty boilerplate Thomas Frank. If you're a super-fan, like me, that's fine, even if many of the themes - market dogma, the right's attempt to dismantle government, the boondoggling of the middle class into voting against their apparent best interests - are familiar from his other work (One Market Under God, The Wrecking Crew, and What's The Matter With K...more

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Nov 15, 2012 Steven rated it 4 of 5 stars

A quick, entertaining read from the author whose What's the Matter With Kansas? did so much to advance the political conversation, and give Americans a chance to get the number of the truck that hit them. In the earlier book, Frank likened the modern conservative movement to a French Revolution in which the sans culottes took to the streets to demand more privileges for the aristocracy. Pity the Billionaire takes on ideological grifters like Glenn Beck, the Potemkin populism of the Tea Party, an...more

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May 11, 2013 Quincy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a 4.5 stars out of 5 review. The book does an excellent job of drawing parallels between the Great Depression and the 2008 Financial Crisis. It shows where the answers to each respective crisis diverged. A great short history of the rights response. Frank reveals the deep and stifling hypocrisy of the Tea Party and their populist leaders. It's maddening to read about the banksters before and after the crisis. Is even more maddening to hear the rights response. A call for all the policies...more

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Nov 04, 2012 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, journalism, political-world

American Horror Story. A real one that shows how a major political party was taken over by brainless zombies wearing tri corner hats, waving flags with chopped up snakes, while driving $40,000 SUVs. Frank delivers up a useful primer on the Tea Party, and salts it with just the right amount of snark. As a special bonus, he guts Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, and with genuine literary flair. The book, by design, is not meant to be balanced, but late in the book he does serve up some shots for the Obam...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Susan Paxton rated it 4 of 5 stars

More concise and pointed than his "What's the Matter with Kansas?", Frank's new book is a scathing indictment of the United States we are currently existing in. Mysteriously - but in fact thanks to the right wing money and propaganda machine so well characterized by people like the brothers Koch, Dick Armey, and Fox "News" -, after a catastrophic financial crash brought on by untrammelled greed and deregulation, altogether too many Americans have been convinced to blame the victims rather than t...more

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Jun 04, 2012 Steve Johnson rated it 3 of 5 stars

The basic premise of Pity the Billionaire is that all historical evidence suggests that the economic crash of 2008-2009 should have led to a huge populist backlash against Wall Street, but for some reason, it didn't. In fact, the initial populist reaction held the criminals who had caused the crash up as heroes and laid the blame on the middle class. While Frank brings up a lot of good points and comes close to offering a solution to this insanity, he never quite hits the target, in part because...more

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Mar 15, 2012 Clif Hostetler rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: current-events

Outrage apparently doesn't lead to reason. At least according to this author there was no reasoned response to the outrage that followed the 2008 economic meltdown. This book reviews the political reactions to the sub-prime mortgage crisis from a liberal's point of view and finds plenty to criticize on both sides of the political spectrum.

Everyone agrees that there's plenty cause for outrage at the way a small number of investment bankers nearly brought the world economy to its knees. A respons...more Outrage apparently doesn't lead to reason. At least according to this author there was no reasoned response to the outrage that followed the 2008 economic meltdown. This book reviews the political reactions to the sub-prime mortgage crisis from a liberal's point of view and finds plenty to criticize on both sides of the political spectrum.

Everyone agrees that there's plenty cause for outrage at the way a small number of investment bankers nearly brought the world economy to its knees. A response based on reason would conclude that the three decade long shift toward removal of regulations over the financial industry was what led to a situation where mortgage derivatives could be manufactured with reckless abandon free of government regulations. It rationally follows that the prudent response to this would be to enact new government regulations to make sure that never happened again.

Instead, both the political right and left responded with irrational actions and positions. The radical right insisted that the solution was to remove the federal government from all regulations and let the markets be free. And basically, that is what has happened. Democrats under Obama's leadership, instead of riding the wave of outrage in the spirit of FDR, decided to bail out the financial industry and allowed their corporate officers to continue doling out their usual bonuses.

The author spends most of the book making snarky quips about the Tea Party, Glenn Beck (way too much Glenn Beck), Ayn Rand (Chapter 8 is a review of Atlas Shrugged from a liberal perspective), the Koch brothers, Ludwig von Mises, Freedomworks, Friedrich Hayed, and conservative bloggers. Reading the book is an experience similar to listening to seven straight hours of Jon Steward's "The Daily Show." It's entertaining for the politically liberal, but it probably doesn't deserved to be considered objective analysis. I don't appreciate snarky comments when they come from the right, and I feel a bit hypocritical when I enjoy hearing snarky comments from the left.

The last chapter of the book is dedicated to the topic of listing everything that Obama and the Democrats did wrong.

My main excuse for reading this book is that it has a catchy title, and the author is from Johnson County, Kansas (originally) but now lives in Washington D.C. He also put Kansas on the map by writing the book, What's the Matter with Kansas?" So I wish him well, and I recommend this to book those looking for political analysis from the political left.(less)

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Mar 01, 2013 josh rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Lots o' peeps

Recommended to josh by: Jill D

Shelves: economics, non-fiction, politics, public_administration

Frank has definitely improved his writing style since "One Market Under God". He still relies on end notes (which is still annoying) - but they're not as bad as One Market. Again, I agree with most of what Frank says and his analysis. However, as I continued through the book, I sensed an increase in the rhetoric and openly sneering at the other side ~ something non-conducive to opening a dialogue, but rather, further polarizing the two sides. As I said in my review of One Market: he's preaching...more

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Feb 14, 2012 Omar Leal rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's always worthwhile to read Thomas Frank, as I believe he is one of the more astute thinkers on the left, however this effort isn't quite as complete as I would have hoped. It does a magnificent job of detailing the methods through which the Right's absurdities have come to dominate public discourse, when a mere 4 years ago they had been so thoroughly discredited. Despite this detailed examination and commentary, what is hoped for, a solution to or way to counter balance this narrative, is ne...more

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