Review of Vote Your Conscience: The Last Campaign of George McGovern (Hardcover)

A first class chronicle of the 1984 McGovern campaign. Mr.Marano offers a top notch explanation of the motives that pushed Senator McGoveron into the race. You will be inspired by this beautifully written volume.



Click Here to see more reviews about: Vote Your Conscience: The Last Campaign of George McGovern (Hardcover)

Review of Ronald Reagan (Hardcover)

D'Souza does not hesitate to note flaws in Regan's character or mistakes made during his life, governorship or presidency. Even so, one sees a very different image of Reagan than what is popularized and by now accepted by default, without question, as facts of history. I was astonished at what I assumed to be true only because pundits and the media said so.

We are frequently told that Reagan was a doting "pawn" of other more intelligent powers. But D'Souza reminds us of 1976 when Reagan challenged the incumbent president - a bold move within either party. Having lost the first five states his campaign manager unilaterally established a withdrawal meeting with Ford. But Reagan, under tremendous pressure to pull out, even from his wife, refused, stating he would take his ideas all the way to the convention, even if he lost every state. Then he started to win and Ford narrowly escaped. In `82 Reagan was vilified with media prejudice (see Bernard Goldberg's "Bias") as Paul Volker (a Carter appointee) restricted the money supply, while Reagan himself signed the biggest tax cut in history. Keynesian's - advocates of centralized government intervention - shouted for Reagan's head. These actions would produce nothing they said, as tax cuts provided money to spend while shrinking the supply took it away. Who would not have changed course given the economic downturn from already depressed levels? Reagan defied pressure again with defense spending - accepting enormous deficits, as Democrats and Republicans were not willing to exchange their social programs (and associated votes) for his defense promise. Clear about financial and political costs, to Reagan, defeating the Soviets with technological strength vs. weakness was worth the price. Finally, Reagan refused Gorbachev when he tried to trade away Star Wars at Reykjavik - a deal Reagan nearly bought with his strong desire to end the Cold War, eliminating nuclear weapons. Again Reagan took a terrible beating in the media.

We find Reagan a simple and practical man. He saw the world in uncomplicated ways that our elite emphatically state the world can no longer be seen in. To Reagan there was good and evil, right and wrong. He focused on larger pictures of his intent with little or no concern for details, infighting, insults, meetings or defections. While Billy Graham pronounced he had caviar everyday in Russia and John Kenneth Galbraith, among so many intellectuals, noted the success and permanence of the USSR, Reagan could not believe it. To him it simply violated common sense to think that the communist system would motivate, inspire and succeed with human nature better than capitalism and democracy. Even the master international diplomat, Richard Nixon, derided Reagan for not accepting the USSR as it was and always would be, writing insultingly about Reagan for years.

Actions noted do not match the definition of "pawn". Nor was Reagan simply stubborn. Reaganomics worked, reducing Carter's inflation from 12% to 3%, interest rates from 21% to 9%, leading to the greatest economic expansion since World War Two. (Unable to disconnect the economic rocket from Reagan's guidance, the next tactic, now so worn, was to snivel, "but not all Americans are doing equally well."They were supposed to be?) In ten years of Détente nine nations fell into the Soviet sphere and seventy percent of South America was communist or socialist. By the close of Reagan's administration 90% of South America was democratic and nine other countries fell out of Soviet influence with Berlin's Wall tumbling down under the hammers of freedom. Reagan and Thatcher changed the world into the global economy we see today - with all its problems they are not that of dictators, KGB and nuclear holocaust.

As we discover, contrary to fashion, Reagan was focused with a determined conviction. His ideas were no accident or implant. After years of writing, meeting people across America through his position at GE and a life experience showing how hostile big government was (is) to everyday Americans, Reagan sensed the country was ready for his message. Reganomics turned out to be a revolutionary insight, not irresponsible idiocy. Time after time he defied pressure and won the biggest prize since World War Two. The economic impacts of Reagan's defense debt, according to economist Lawrence Lindsey, has been a "fantastic payoff - the best money we ever spent".

Apparently, today's vogue position on Reagan is intended to discount him, adopting politically correct propaganda promoted by his opposition. The same opposition he kicked out of university buildings commandeered by force and violence by the hypocrisy laden 60's "peace" generation. The same opposition who rode 20th century orthodoxy, stating that government should regulate, escort and pamper its citizens. Reagan ran against the 20th century and fundamentalist movements born in the 60's. For that they never forgot him, determined to bury his success under the suffocation of revisionist history. Fortunately for some, still open enough to challenge modern dogma, D'Souza has a book to read.



Click Here to see more reviews about: Ronald Reagan (Hardcover)

Review of The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America (Hardcover)

Kleinknecht opens by telling us that the Reagan legacy has been devastating for America - especially ordinary Americans.Boom-and-bust cycles, obscene CEO salaries, emergence of "Lockdown America", drug-company scandals, collapsing bridges, huge government deficits, ethical absences, plummeting/stagnating wages for working people, the flight of U.S. manufacturing abroad are all products of Reagan's free-market zealotry and gutting the public sector.Reagan also pioneered the use of wedge issues like race ("welfare queens," "war on drugs").

Kleinknecht also says the book was borne of bewilderment over the myth that continues to surround the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who he characterizes as an empty suit who believed in flying saucers and allowed an astrologer to guide his presidential scheduling.We just finished a presidential campaign season marked by unseeming competition among Republican aspirants to wrap themselves in the Reagan mantle.

Some portions of "The Man Who Sold the World" are missing credible documentation; others blame Reagan for actions that only began during his leadership and were extended by Bush I and II, and Clinton.His 1987 appointment of Alan Greenspan (Mr. Bubbles) to head the Federal Reserve may have been Reagan's worst, given Greenspan's key role in the dot.com and housing bubbles, but we cannot forget he was reappointed again and again by other presidents until 2006.Deregulation of airlines and trucking are also attacked, though undertaken by Carter.And finally, Kleinknecht misses some important additional Reagan actions - eg. undermining Carter's fuel economy and alternative energy initiatives, and the whole Iran-Contra fiasco.Nonetheless, the book still is an important contribution.

Reagan was well known for stories not quite rooted in fact, and his statistics were similarly also sometimes loose.This included his war on regulation and Murray Weidenbaum's (became Reagan's Chairman of Economic Advisers) conclusion that federal regulations cost the economy $103 billion/year in 1978, including $666/car.The Bureau of Labor Statistics later repudiated some of Weidenbaum's methodology and a subsequent year-long Wall St. Journal sponsored study of the 48 largest firms vs. the six most active regulatory agencies found the regulatory impact only 1.1% ($2.6 billion).Worse yet, Weidenbaum's analysis omitted any benefits from these regulations, and Japanese firms spent more for compliance and still cost less.Unfortunately, Weidenbaum's study came first, got all the press, and inspired the administration's weakening of regulations through reducing enforcement funds and installing leaders who didn't believe in regulation.

The finance industry particularly benefited.By the beginning of the 1980s, an estimated two-thirds of the nation's thrifts were losing money, and thousands virtually insolvent.Regulatory relief including increasing FDIC coverage from $40,000 to $100,000, allowing developers to own thrifts and borrow from them, loosening accounting practices to boost net worth, and freeing them from investment restrictions.The result - the 1989 S&L debacle that required $150 billion in taxpayer bailouts.

Kleinknecht believes the rapid rise of M&A activity under Reagan's relaxed anti-trust enforcement became a prime cause of our manufacturing decline.CEOs lived in fear of 90%-leveraged LBOs using the firm's own assets as collateral, instead of focusing on customers and the Japanese.The M&A/LBO debts incurred ($33+ billion in 1981, plus at least another $70 billion tied up in merger-related loan commitments) hampered firms from investing in new equipment and made them more vulnerable to downturns.Between 1980-86, M&A went from 1,565 ($33 billion) to $4,323 ($204 billion).

Business tax cuts, instead of spurring new investment in equipment, were largely used for M&A as well. Kleinknecht cites the example of G.E. - paid no income tax the first three years of Reagan, received $283 million in rebates (despite pretax profits exceeding $6.5 billion), while shedding 50,000 jobs through layoffs, attrition, and selling subsidiaries.Meanwhile, it acquired RCA and NBC, among others.

A number of credible studies document long-term stock losses by the majority of merged companies.A Wall St. Journal study in 2002 found the stocks of the 50 biggest corporate acquirers fell 3X the DJIA.

Kleinknecht's data on "Lockdown America" is quite limited, consisting of data from New Jersey.In 1980 it had 76 prison inmates per 100,000 population, and 331 in 2002; meanwhile, violent crime increased.

Overall, "The Man Who Sold the World" is important reading.



Click Here to see more reviews about: The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America (Hardcover)