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How Capitalism Will Save Us: Why Free People and Free Markets Are the Best Answer in Today's Economy
Has capitalism failed?
Is it fundamentally greedy and immoral, enabling the rich to get richer? Are free markets Darwinian places where the most ruthless crush smaller competitors, where vital products and services are priced beyond the ability of many people to afford them?
Capitalism is the world's greatest economic success story. It is the most effective way to provide fo...more
Is it fundamentally greedy and immoral, enabling the rich to get richer? Are free markets Darwinian places where the most ruthless crush smaller competitors, where vital products and services are priced beyond the ability of many people to afford them?
Capitalism is the world's greatest economic success story. It is the most effective way to provide fo...more
Hardcover, 357 pages
Published
November 3rd 2009
by Crown Business
(first published 2009)
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Overall I thought that How Capitalism Will Save Us by Steve Forbes and Elisabeth Ames was a very interesting book. I liked this book because it contained a lot of good and interesting information. I did not like how the book would get boring at some points. But other than that it was good. This book is obviously about how Capitalism will save us, but it is also about how free people and free markets are the answer in today society. Some of the main ideas in this book consist of: how capitalism ...more
This book is selective in its coverage and poorly written. Instead of providing actual arguments and evidence, the authors dole out unsupported statements as if they were facts. Here's a paragraph from page 187-188 of the hardcover book to illustrate my point:
"Increased fuel-efficiency standards actually encourage consumption. Believing their vehicles are energy efficient, people have fewer qualms about driving more and having bigger cars. The number of miles driven and the numb...more
"Increased fuel-efficiency standards actually encourage consumption. Believing their vehicles are energy efficient, people have fewer qualms about driving more and having bigger cars. The number of miles driven and the numb...more
This surprised me by how well done it was; I've seen so many "rushed into print" books dealing with current issues that I half expected this to be shoddy. It was not. Forbes takes a topical approach rather than a theoretical one; at first I wasn't sure if I liked this but ended up deciding it would possibly make it easier for someone who knows little about economics or finance to understand. The chapter on health care was excellent; so was the one on finance and the stock market. P...more
ow Capitalism Will Save Us is closely aligned with Steve Forbes’s public persona. Here the take-no-prisoners defender of capitalism – a stance that built his family’s media empire – romps in full battledress across the book’s pages. Published last November, Forbes and Ames run briskly through a long list of media comments bandied about during this terrible recession before vigorously countering, with “real-world lessons”, each critique suggesting America’s brand of capitalism desperately needs t...more
I have watched Steve Forbes on the Fox Business segment and I thought he was just another conservative ideolog, but this book was a refreshing take on economics, socio-economics, politics and business.
The connections he draws between profits and capitalism were profound and gave me a better understanding to the working of an economy and the state of an economies in various other countries.
If you want a better but simpler understanding of the current affairs (sub-prime bu...more
The connections he draws between profits and capitalism were profound and gave me a better understanding to the working of an economy and the state of an economies in various other countries.
If you want a better but simpler understanding of the current affairs (sub-prime bu...more
For someone who is trying to have a better understanding of economic principles, I found this book to be very straight forward. It's a common sense explanation of how the "rich" people fuel the economy by investing in companies which creates jobs and puts cash flow into the economy. "Rich" people are always portrayed as the bad guy, but without them, our economy would completely collapse. And we have a choice about which "rich" guy gets our money. If they provid...more
How Capitalism Will Save Us: Why Free People and Free Markets Are the Best Answer in Today's Economy by Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames blames the Great Recession on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan's low-interest-rate, weak-dollar policies. Capitalism's bad “Rap” is nothing new, as Forbes points out. Still, the fiscal crisis has prompted many to ask for more government regulation, so Forbes's argument on how the “invisible hand” of the market will rest...more
Jon-david
rated it
Recommends it for:
anyone curious about how to solve the US current financial and economic situation
Shelves:
economics
I thought it was pretty straight forward. It is set up where a question is posed then it has a one sentence answer, folowed by a more lengthy answer. It has a lot of research put into it and answers a lot of questions people right now have about our economy and the merits of capitalism. I learned some new things and ideas. I felt there were a couple of times that they missed some things or didn't explain the background on different situations enough, but it was designed to have relatively short...more
This is a really good book on free-market capitalism. I especially like the format of the book, it takes many of the societal stereotypes about capitalism and answers them in 3-10 page answers. My only criticism of the book is some statistics are not sourced when they should be. There are 17 pages of end notes, and much is accounted for, it's just every once in a while there are is some statistic given that really needs to be sourced. Critics of the text will use this to try and tear it down, bu...more
I lost my patience with this book about a third of the way through when he just kept touting how government interventions were detrimental to economies, and then just suddenly accepting bailouts as necessary. To simplify an issue so much as to bash all economic problems as caused by government and then accept government bailouts as necessary is just a hypocrisy of distasteful magnitude. Furthermore, he sounds like an out of touch grandpa, complaining about the revering of Marx on college campuse...more
I like the approach that Forbes uses in this book: he takes a common misconception about capitalism, forms it as a question, then provides a well-thought out answer. He doesn't talk down to or bash those who have these misconceptions; he just explains how real-world economics works.
Feel good, basic primer on capitalism. I like Forbes, I like capitalism. This book is as basic as it gets. Better primers can be found in Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, Friedman's Free To Choose, or Sowell's Basic Economics.
Excellent explanation of how capitalism works. Obama and the current administration should read and study THIS book instead of Marxist theory.
Great book even just to read pertinent topics or to pick up & read some between other books.
Sally
marked it as to-read-library-has
The economy has always flummoxed me....
view all 3 comments
I enjoyed this book more for the varied questions that it brought up than for the content. While skimming some details and containing an obvious bias, the authors were able to clarify the ideological divide facing our nation. I look forward to fact checking and exploring different arguments that arose in my head while reading the book.
A must read for kids in high school
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