The best Economic Policy & Development books: Reddit reviews

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I suggest reading A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America.

It goes over a lot of detail on this subject. How they took plurality power of the government in 1982, majority in 1992, and even now, still hold 2/3s of all government positions such as federal senate/house members, governors, and state house/senators (that number may have been lowered in the 2018 election, but they still hold the majority).

That we find it horrifying that the rich have too much control with the money in this country, yet, if you look at it, the Baby Boomer generation controls 70% of the disposable income & wealth in this country.

They're a generation which changed laws to help the young when they were young at the expense of their parents. They changed the laws to help the middle aged when they were middle aged at the expense of their children and parents (e.g. wanting to get rid of the estate tax when their parents generation started dying, and no way to declare bankruptcy for student loans anymore). And now that they're old, laws are being changed to help the old at the expense of the young (not so surprisingly, a lot of state government problems are due to pension issues, which just so happen to grandfather their generation into the huge pension payouts causing all the issues).

Baby boomers also didn't have to compete with women or people of color when it came to jobs or forging a prominent place in society. My boomer father talks often about how at the age of 18 they could get good, family supporting jobs by just walking into places off the street. I'm Gen-X with a millennial son and luckily I have parents that understand how different their reality was from the one kids are facing today.

A few years back a book was written about boomers called A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America. I heard the author interviewed and it was hard to argue some of his points.

I recently read Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty - In the book Piketty suggests that the return on capital is now so much higher than the return on labor that traditional income taxes would not be very effective for increasing the tax contributions of the extremely wealthy. Let me know if I'm off-base here, but wouldn't a 90% top income tax bracket just hit a small number of very high earning professionals like doctors, lawyers, etc.?

It's partly a human thing, but I think it's gotten especially bad with the Boomers.

If you haven't already, I highly suggest you check out A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

Try to get past the title, since the author tries quite hard to build an objective, data-driven case for how Baby Boomers have stood out in a fairly bad way compared to both their parents and children.

As depressing as it is, I think we should already be something of a case study in what not to do. In particular, how to prevent another generation like the Baby Boomers from forming.

I know the generational shouting is tiring, but I highly suggest y'all check out <em>A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America</em>. Try to get past the title, since the author does their best to make objective statements and observations. They use piles of historical data to work through the medical diagnosis of Sociopathy, and it lines up depressingly well with the Boomer generation. All of that is wrapped up in the context of presenting an evidence of diagnosis to satisfy a trial's 'beyond a reasonable doubt' requirements.

If nothing else, it lays out a great, data-backed road-map for how we've gotten to where we are as a nation, and everything that's gone wrong on the way here. Tax policy shifts, infrastructure neglect, education failings, political party shifts, climate denial, and on and on and on. All within the context of why a large group of people more likely to be sociopaths than any other generation might make those decisions.

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say this but Andrew Yang's message clicked with me almost immediately. It's no coincidence when a politician posts 100+ policies and a majority of them matches with your view.

I remember very early on Andrews bid for presidency was front page of /r/futurology. I think it is very important to maintain the effort to be inclusive and convert new voters. But I'm sure there are still a huge number of people that didn't need any convincing but just haven't heard of Andrew's campaign.

One thing that really struck me when hearing Andrew speak on Freakonomics was that this guy actually respects the academia aspect of Economics. Instead of the average politician that panders by regurgitating highschool level macroecon concepts, this guy seemed to actually understand what he's talking about. So I bought his book: https://www.amazon.com/War-Normal-People-Disappearing-Universal/dp/0316414247

And that was really what put me on 100% for Yang. If you guys haven't read this already, I highly recommend it. If Andrew was writing stuff like this when I was in school, it would've influenced all my research.

The strategy of pushing tiny snippets of Yang to the mainstream like his interviews or listing his top 10 views is great. But Yang is more than that. He has actual substance that most other candidates lack. So for the "research" phase of this post, one of the first steps should be to read this book!

I'm not sure how we can get this book into more hands? Are there political book clubs? Can we get this on more must read lists?

Correct. Read Piketty's book Capital in the 21st century.

The market if left to its own devices, will over time, bring us all back to feudalism. As ever larger shares of wealth travel in ever fewer amount of hands. Someone eventually wins the Monopoly game.

I don't disagree that Piketey has probably got it right, that if we don't make it our business as regular people to transition into interest bearing stuff, by way of the market, we have trouble.

The real concern is that Boomers, most definitely did "break" America by way of acceding to the notion that they could have "everything" without having to work for it, the notion of "pay it later" or "leave it for the kids" is EXACTLY what became respectable during the 1980's.

It turned the United States from an aspirant republic capable or generating wealth by way of fostering upward mobility, and through decades of disinvestment in schools, healthcare and infrastructure, to say nothing of militarizing the civic services, we ended up in short order, in an Ayn Rand inspired dystopia, where the engineers and "smart people" all were told to work 80 hours a week and do well, the "moochers" did FAR worse, and at the end of the day the "best and brightest" got the shaft, at some raw outsourcing deal.

So while there are winners in our society, the Mark Z's, and Eric Princes of our society, they were going to do just fine whether fortune smiled heavily or lightly upon them, that they just make it clear, that in fact we've become a casino / winner take all type economy.

It's a massive regression, so instead of public services and intentionally socializing major industrial/economic benefit projects, we wait on the hopeful benevolent patronage of some hyperwealthy person who can personally fund moon-launches, mars colonies. One wonders if they don't name the first colony Galt's Gulch.

What's screwed up is to see the boomers vigorously fuck over their own children and grandchildren so they don't have to think too much about any sort of responsibility or cost to themselves.

The 'me' generation all the way.

I seriously don't have much hope that will happen. After reading Andrew Yang's War on Normal people. I believe that automation and it's cascading effects will devastate the workforce in America, in turn causing massive social upheaval. That is not taking into account problems beyond automation. Ultimately a systemic collapse will likely happen in my opinion at some point in the future.

Also, good book on subject:

A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

>In A Generation of Sociopaths, Gibney examines the disastrous policies of the most powerful generation in modern history, showing how the Boomers ruthlessly enriched themselves at the expense of future generations.

>Acting without empathy, prudence, or respect for facts--acting, in other words, as sociopaths--the Boomers turned American dynamism into stagnation, inequality, and bipartisan fiasco. The Boomers have set a time bomb for the 2030s, when damage to Social Security, public finances, and the environment will become catastrophic and possibly irreversible--and when, not coincidentally, Boomers will be dying off.

The scam of the federal reserve system is explained most clearly in the book from G Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island. This is an amazing book: if you don't believe me, look at the rating on amazon with 1400+ reviews.

This book explains the history and thinking super concisely. But broadly, GOP needed a voter base that wouldn't question power of the state being handed over to private industry -- thus they won over the devoutly religious who wouldn't question anything beyond simple morality. Then beginning with Carter, and going full steam with Reagan, to escape 70's stagflation (rising inflation causing a stagnant economy) America rejected the economic theories of the preceding 40 years under Keynes and embraced slow but steady deregulation of all markets and public services, or at least everything they could, under the guise of "small government" and an ideal of the individual. Around the time of Clinton's presidency, Democrats could do nothing but sustain the cycle as Reagan had butchered much of what was previously under government ownership -- to turn the tide back would be far too costly and lose the election, as it would be a total U-turn of the country.

Indeed; that is partially the reason why I'm such a fan of Teddy Roosevelt's bull-moose party- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_(United_States,_1912).

The platform was, centrally, rooted in a drive to break up the partisan duopoly (which was being exploited, then as happens now, by corporate interests to undermine the Republic).

That Teddy Roosevelt created that party partially in response to JP Morgan's actions related to the panic of 1908 (where Morgan cornered the Knickerbocker Trust into a bad bet on the steel market in New York, which resulted in a bank run, only for Morgan to come in with his private capitol and "save" the banking system) is quite telling.

That such a system, akin to the 3 previous attempted at installing a central bank (the last one having been abolished by Andrew Jackson during the "Bank Wars" of the 1860s) was formally adopted by Wilson's Secretary of the Treasury (Nelson Aldrich) in 1912 following a secretive meeting at Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia, is perhaps a further testament as to why Teddy was doing everything in his power to prevent Woodrow Wilson (or Williams Jennings-Bryan) from coming to power in that election.

That someone tried to shoot Teddy Roosevelt on the campaign trial that year, only for him to deliver a speech that same day (with the bullet lodged within him) while proclaiming himself "fit as a bull-moose" is also a nice touch of cosmic irony.

For anyone interested, this book ("The Creature from Jekyll Island") is a great resource on the topic of what Morgan and Aldrich created after Wilson defeated Roosevelt in 1912- https://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/091298645X

*Edit- fixed broken link

I am reading through this

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

Right now, and it would disagree fully. There a number of trends associated with the boomers and how they lived their lives, things such as drug use, premartial sex, teenage pregancy, etc that spike up with the boomer gen when compared to generation before and after. Is it really hard to say that they are a bloc with coherent political positions when as soon as they came into power they elected the first true neoliberal president, Reagan, and haven't looked back for the last 40 years?

"Neoliberals" aren't some kind of "new liberal," exactly. It's a defined set of political and economic beliefs, based on property-relations and a fetishization of "free market politics" as a system of ethics. Please take the time to read up on it, it's real and horrible.

For example, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, and Hillary Clinton can all be accurately described as neoliberal, due to the economic policy decisions they pursue.

https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Neoliberalism-David-Harvey/dp/0199283273

Honestly, HK was the moment it became clear that Maxwell was the John Perkins of Bitcoin. "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" is a must read to understand the hijacking of Bitcoin. It took only one guy on the inside of Chas T. Main engineering to put countries billions in debt. To put Bitcoin in the hands of the banks it took only one neckbeard rat willing to sell out.

Signing the HK agreement ~~proves~~ strongly suggests that u/adam3us and u/luke-jr were out of the loop.

He did extensive research before arriving at his current position. He lists anecdotes to make the problem more real and personal, but his policies are based on evidence on the ground. He makes a strong case for the problems we're undergoing in his book and cites all his sources in the bibliography.

Nope. Boomers still in control. From about 1980 to probably 2025. Those fuckers aren’t going to give up their power to bleed this country dry until they’re in the ground. And they have the numbers to do it.

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

Read this book about the boomers by a boomer. I couldn’t get through more than 2 pages at a time without wanting to go all dexter on the entire generation.

I think you will be surprised to learn that what you have come to understand about neoliberalism and the positions supported by this sub are not always in alignment.

Make sure to read <em>Why Nations Fail</em>. Your first book report is due in two weeks.

There is a book on that generation showing how they used their voting power to benefit their own interest by screwing future generations. A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America:

> In A Generation of Sociopaths, Gibney examines the disastrous policies of the most powerful generation in modern history, showing how the Boomers ruthlessly enriched themselves at the expense of future generations. > > Acting without empathy, prudence, or respect for facts--acting, in other words, as sociopaths--the Boomers turned American dynamism into stagnation, inequality, and bipartisan fiasco. The Boomers have set a time bomb for the 2030s, when damage to Social Security, public finances, and the environment will become catastrophic and possibly irreversible--and when, not coincidentally, Boomers will be dying off. > > Gibney argues that younger generations have a fleeting window to hold the Boomers accountable and begin restoring America.

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

> the word “entitlements” only means welfare for people too lazy to work > don’t touch my social security, SSDI, unemployment, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. which are totally not entitlements when I’m using them > also, I still don’t like paying taxes

Recommend reading A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America since what you posted defines the majority of that generation.

> The crisis in VZ is a product of lack of diversification and an over reliance on the oil economy to fund social programs.

This is simply nonsense. The crisis in VZ is a product of:

• Price and currency controls
• Corruption and mismanagement in nationalized industries

> how does participation [this] make VZ an example of socialism?

It makes it a perfect example of everything Hayek predicted would result from central/collectivist economies. That the whole thing devolves into starvation and oppression is no head-scratcher. It's right on script.

Thoroughly debunked

See chapters 2-3

I'm just going to leave this book recommendation here

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A Generation of Sociopaths

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Edit: stupid "new" reddit can't deal with it's own link formatting

If you haven't already, I highly suggest you check out A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

Try to get past the title, since the author tries quite hard to build an objective, data-driven case for how Baby Boomers have handled their time in charge of the country.

It's bad here too. A lot of Baby Boomers seem to have no empathy for the young. [I know a few good ones who are friends so have to put up that caveat] An American man even wrote a book about narcissistic Baby Boomers. The lack of empathy for the young is astounding. Gen Xs got a lot of this but I have noticed for the millennials it has worsened.

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

I was ostracized and rejected by Baby Boomer parents who considered us failures for not obtaining the middle class and above and blamed us accordingly so some of this hits home.

You could get him a nice book as a make-up gift, this will cheer him up no doubt:

"A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America" https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

"In A Generation of Sociopaths, Gibney examines the disastrous policies of the most powerful generation in modern history, showing how the Boomers ruthlessly enriched themselves at the expense of future generations."

I bet most Americans do not know the Federal Reserve is a private banking cartel (Its as "Federal" as Fedex) and your personal income tax was implemented around the same time in 1913... Must be a coincidence right?

This book should be mandatory reading in high school. Take the red pill... https://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/091298645X

All of you questions answered:

The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve

https://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/091298645X/ref=sr\_1\_1?crid=3CYFCTTBPP89A&amp;dchild=1&amp;keywords=the+creature+from+jekyll+island&amp;qid=1621209499&amp;sprefix=the+creature+%2Caps%2C435&amp;sr=8-1