Review of Introduction to Policing (Criminal Justice Series) (Hardcover)

This book is unorganized, out-of-date, too focused on New York City, and on every other page promotes the authors and their careers...On page 7 they are telling you how much has changed with the computer age, and the internet, and one of the authors tells you he went to grade school and they used quill pens and fountain jars...okay, I didn't need to know that.It was so annoying that by page 14, I was going to submit to them a list of improvements, but it would have been EXTENSIVE!From there on just gritted my teeth and got through it...Good luck!You'll be really tired of the references to the Trade City Bombing, and NYC in general, by the end of it!



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Review of America's Conscience: Facing Threats to Democracy, the Middle Class and Our World (Hardcover)

Bernadette T. Vadurro's "America's Conscience" is a great place to start reading for anyone who is just becoming aware that the neoconservative power structure that has orchestrated George Bush's presidency serves neither Americans nor the rest of the world well.And it's a valuable resource for readers who, already aware, would benefit from having facts, figures, sources, and resources at their fingertips in a single volume.

The author has organized and assembled a dizzying volume of information, documented each of the twenty chapters with notes, and provided the reader with wide-angle views of everything from endless war to those elusive WMDs; from spinning stories to outright lies; from quieting dissent to an often lazy media; from who gives money to whom to the impact of the contributions.And more.

Transcending the extremists on the political left and right who don't let research or fact interfere with their respective agendas, Vadurro constructs her argument with reason, backs it with documentation, and, in my reading, essentially asks Americans, "Is this what you want?"

"America's Conscience" provides intelligent, concerned and open-minded American citizens, regardless of political affiliation or lack thereof, with verifiable evidence to back up the cliched, but nevertheless accurate slogan, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."

The author has paid and is paying attention. Her book calls on the rest of us to do the same.






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Review of Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism (Hardcover)

For those who have read Kevin Phillips' American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury, many of the themes in the current work will sound familiar.In this book, as well as American Theocracy, he reminds us that previous empires such a 17th century Spain, 18th century Holland, and the late 19th and early 20th century Britain all succumbed to financialization as their global power reached its peak.He argues the the United States is now in a similar position.In the last 30 years financial services have grown from 11% of GDP to 21%, and manufacturing has declined from 25% to 13%.A reversal of roles that Phillips sees as very unhealthy.

This huge growth of the financial sector was not without adverse consequences: in the last 20 years public and private debt has quadrupeled to $43 trillion.How this came about has been expertly explained in another book called The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash by Charles Morris.There was easy money as the Federal Reserve was lending money at less than the rate of inflation.Money was risk-free for the lender since they collected fees up front and sold the securitized loans to investors.When this process was repeated millions of times, one ends up with hard-to-value securitized debt throughout the global economy.Then when housing prices start to decline and homeowners start to default on their mortgages on a grand scale, you have a global crisis of American capitalism.(Bear Stearns alone was estimated to be holding $46 billion worth of bad money.)

As in American Theocracy, Phillips writes that the oil industry is another component of the current crisis.In the US oil production peaked in the 1970s, on a global level it is peaking right about now.And with the ravenous appetite for oil from newly industrialized countries such as China and India, prices will continue to go up.The US still gets "cheap" oil relative to Europe since oil is priced in dollars, but that advantage may soon disappear.The weakening dollar is forcing OPEC countries to move to Euros and other currencies.And some oil producing countries such as Iran and Venezuela are moving to other currencies for reasons other than economic.

The author began his career as a Republican strategist, but he has long since disavowed them.Having a monetary policy of free money, a fiscal policy of tax cuts and increased spending, and an ideology of unregulated market fundamentalism, the Republicans have lost most of their credibiltiy.This does not mean Phillips has gone over to the Democratic side.He believes that Bill Clinton was instrumental in the financialization of the economy, and that currently Hillary and Obama are beholden to investment bankers and hedge fund managers.What used to be the vital center in Washington is now the "venal center."

The conclusion of this volume is very gloomy.Phillips believes that we are at a pivotal moment in American history when the economy has been hollowed out, we are saddled with trillions of dollars of debt, and our political leaders are dishonest, incompetent, and negligent.Given that all that may currently be the case, it may be instructive to further meditate on the empires of the past.Spain, Holland, and Britain all managed to survive and even thrive, hopefully the US will do the same.



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Review of The Eurosceptical Reader 2 (Hardcover)

This excellent collection of essays on the EU looks at the economics and the politics of the European Union; it finds the EU to be failing on both counts.
Tony Thirlwall explains why the euro would not bring a stable interest rate to aid our industry, nor would it curb the speculators: a single currency may end speculation within euroland, but it increases capital flows between euroland and everywhere else, threatening the euro's stability and therefore interest rate stability.
Mark Baimbridge, Brian Burkitt and Philip Whyman provide a characteristically sharp study of the European Central Bank. They note that the OECD says that for the industrialised economies, the natural rate of unemployment, below which inflation will accelerate, is 11%. So for the Bank, "the focus of monetary policy becomes to ensure, in practice, that unemployment is sufficiently high to reduce price and wage increases." The present level of unemployment across euroland is 11%, so this must be an EU success story: why aren't we applauding?
They show that Britain is not meeting the five tests. The EU's economies are diverging, as Wim Duisenberg has admitted. We have more economic flexibility than euroland does; investment into Britain is rising, the City of London is flourishing, and unemployment is lower than in euroland.
On the political side, many of the essays prove that the EU wants the euro to lock members forever into the planned EU state. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said, "The introduction of the euro was not only the crowning-point of economic integration, it was also a profoundly political act, because a currency is not just another economic factor but also symbolises the power of the sovereign who guarantees it."
And it would be a most undemocratic state, as even the Euro-fanatic Michael Heseltine admits: "The ... notable characteristic of present political arrangements is that they are about as ineffective and unaccountable as they could be ... the institutions themselves are totally incapable of adjusting to that change. We have federalism by stealth ..." Unaccountable, incorrigible, deceitful - he could be describing himself! No wonder he loves the EU.



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