Forum Post: OWS Reading List
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 18, 2011, 6:19 p.m. EST by OurTimes2011
(377)
from Arlington, VA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Five star (five is highest) scale. Number of stars indicates importance.
Senate Banking. Financial Crisis Report. http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/Financial.../FinancialCrisisReport.pdf
700 pages. Not a must read, but free. Shows how Goldman broke the law. Three stars.
ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism. http://www.amazon.com/ECONned-Unenlightened-Undermined-Democracy-Capitalism/dp/0230620515
Best book on the list. Very technical, however. A must read. Five stars.
Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich. http://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Democracy-Political-History-American/dp/0767905342/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318976074&sr=1-1
A must read. Shows the falsity of free market theory, how every great fortune in the US has been created with the help of government. Four stars.
A People's History of the United States. Howard Zinn. http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States-P-S/dp/0061965588/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318978196&sr=1-1
Read if you really want to understand how we got here. Four stars.
House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street. http://www.amazon.com/House-Cards-Hubris-Wretched-Excess/dp/0767930894/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318978832&sr=1-1
To understand how Wall Street firms make money and why they failed. Somewhat technical. Three stars.
Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism. http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Money-Reckless-Politics-Capitalism/dp/B002HOQ9DE/ref=pd_rhf_se_shvl2
Good update from the guy who wrote "Wealth and Democracy." Not as good as his earlier books, however. Two stars.
American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. http://www.amazon.com/American-Theocracy-Politics-Religion-Borrowed/dp/0143038281/ref=pd_rhf_se_shvl1
More from Kevin Phillips. Good update on money, politics and religion. Four stars.
American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush. http://www.amazon.com/American-Dynasty-Aristocracy-Fortune-Politics/dp/B000BNPGAU/ref=pd_rhf_se_shvl1
The Bush family financed Germany before WWII. No kidding. Three stars.
Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country. http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Temple-Federal-Reserve-Country/dp/0671675567/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319039233&sr=1-1
One of the best objective reviews of the Fed. Long and technical, tho. Three stars.
Wall Street Looted and Leveraged and We Bailed Them Out: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/wall-streets-naked-swindle-20100405
Bremmer Handed Over Billions in Iraq with No Receipts or Accounting http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/iraq_billions200710
Goldman Sachs Engineered It All, Profited and Took Bailout Money: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405
Rolling Stone has done the best job of covering the crisis objectively. Nobody else even comes close. Read these articles. Five stars.
Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us. http://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Economics-Ideas-Still-among/dp/0691145822/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319039380&sr=1-1
Great read. Companion to Econned. Two stars.
Bailout Nation, with New Post-Crisis Update: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy. http://www.amazon.com/Bailout-Nation-New-Post-Crisis-Update/dp/0470596325/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319039479&sr=1-1
Not the definitive book on the crisis, but close. Three stars.
Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers. http://www.amazon.com/Retirement-Heist-Companies-Plunder-American/dp/1591843332/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319039660&sr=1-1
Here's an article on the book: http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/reviews/story/2011-10-14/retirement-heist-book/50795990/1
Three stars.
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. http://www.amazon.com/Big-Short-Inside-Doomsday-Machine/dp/0393338827/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319040151&sr=1-9
Michael Lewis scored big with Liar's Poker. Here, he tries again, but misses, with many factual errors. Misses several critical players and points. Show how reporting skills decline as you get closer to the elite. Still, interesting. Two stars.
Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (American Empire Project). http://www.amazon.com/Nemesis-American-Republic-Empire-Project/dp/0805087281/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319040884&sr=1-3
As one reviewer said, "This third volume of the Blowback Trilogy is highly recommended reading for all Americans who feel righteous anger.." like OWS. Four stars.
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. http://www.amazon.com/Nixonland-Rise-President-Fracturing-America/dp/0743243021
You really want to know when all this crap started, read this book. Provides additional confirmation to the Kevin Phillips books. Three stars.
Good idea..I'll bookmark this page.
Suggestion: link to Google Books pages (which then link to Amazon).
Also suggest--a brief synopsis and possibly a three star rating system (must read/should read/supplementary reading)
This thread is my favorite one so far. Thanks for the post. Keep the titles coming!
" It takes a Pillage" by Nomi Prins. An excellent account of the 2008 financial meltdown and the criminality that transpired up to now by a Goldman Sachs insider.
http://www.nomiprins.com/
Some very good papers a her site too.
Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers
Sorry - it's a book. But here's an article on it: http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/reviews/story/2011-10-14/retirement-heist-book/50795990/1
If you don't know about Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans (really super-pensions for the 1%) and how they've helped take away from 99% of workers...please read the book.
Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
and you can find it right here --> http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=2100263&pageno=2
"The Smartest Guys in the Room" by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. This book is about the rise and fall of ENRON an is a very important book for anyone interested in tracing the roots of financial criminality in the US. Bethany McLean is a former Goldman-Sachs investment analyst whose article in Fortune Magazine "Is ENRON Overpriced" started the ball rolling against ENRON. Peter Elkind is a investigative reporter.
"Plunder" by Danny Schechter ("the News Disector"). An excellent account of the 2008 sub-prime mortgage scandal by one of the the few investigative journalists who is willing to talk about it. Great book and he did a documentary on it as well ("In Debt We Trust")
This is a great list, getting better.
A classic - Studs Terkel "Working"
http://books.google.com/books?id=fAiD4ApvANIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
This is light reading compared to some of the econ stuff you guys are posting but it is a nice book to read in a time where working people are being demonized like never before.
"Working" is a fine book. One of the effects of the Reagan Revolution propaganda barrage was to erode the dignity accorded by our culture to the working person, whilst lionizing entrepreneurs and CEOs.
I have a strong love for work narratives of any kind. Kim Bartlett's "Gulf Star 45" (oil rigs) and "Finest Kind" (commercial fishermen)...Mark Bowden's "Black Hawk Down" (Army Rangers), Ben Hamper's "Rivethead"...
Jefferson Cowie "Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class"
Today's recco: This fascinating book is hard to describe. It's partly a political, labor and economic history of the 1970s. It's partly a meditation on the working class experience as reflected in the movies and music of the era, from "Norma Jean" and "Joe" to Merle Haggard and "Saturday Night Fever".
Cowie attempts to explain the transformation that overtook the white working class between the "blue collar blues" and the onset of Reagan Democrats. It's difficult to summarize, but his conclusion is basically that government and the Democratic Party left their traditional base in the lurch, not the other way around.
Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys cultural studies and is interested in the origins of today's politics.
http://books.google.com/books?id=xz-EINoBGNcC&dq=stayin%27+alive&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Karl Polanyi's "The Great Transformation".
Today's recco: a famous book wide ranging in theoretical scope and importance. This is big-picture stuff, which dovetails with other discussions of the world financial system since the 19th century found in "Lords of Finance", "Secrets of the Temple", "The Commanding Heights", the work of Michael Hudson, etc.
Polanyi, drawing on many historical examples, shows how society cannot, and will not, tolerate the hellish free-market utopia which libertarians in the Gilded Age and the Reagan Revolution attempted to force on the world. Famous for proving that "the market", far from existing on the abstract, a priori plane as the libertarians would have us believe, is actually a secondary creation of human society and government, which can, and has at other times, invent new methods of relating economically.
Read this once you've had some experience debating with libertarians and Mises.org types and are familiar with their typical lines of argument. It makes much more sense in that context.
http://books.google.com/books?id=xHy8oKa4RikC&dq=the+great+transformation&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Wow. This is good stuff.
Looks like I am limited in the amount of stuff I can get into the original post. From now on, post your books in the comment section. Try to provide a link to Amazon, if you can.
Keep 'em coming. Let's make this the best post on the Forum.
Rick Perlstein, "Nixonland"
I've read a lot of books trying to understand the breakup of the Democratic Party, the loss of the white working class and the rise of conservativism. This book brings it all together. It's one of the best books of history I've ever read. If you want the deep background on the political tensions which threaten OWS, you need to read this.
If you enjoy "Nixonland", another good book about the same general topic (how working folks came to vote against their own best interests) is Thomas Edsall's "Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics". Not absolutely essential reading like Nixonland, but pretty damn good.
snore... Start with "Lords of Finance" which is a history of 1920's and 30's monetary policy. And is about as informative on what's happening today as anything possibly could be.
no.. it's not an easy read, but econ is not an easy topic.
Econned is better, and covers the same history.
How about matt taibi's book on wall street crime, and dana priestly's new one
Perhaps as a cautionary note, add in Eric Hoffer's true believer
Matt Taibbi's book is "Griftopia"
William Greider's "Secrets of the Temple" is an absolute must-read for everyone at OWS. Wonder what all this "End The Fed" stuff is about? He takes you through the Fed's history from the roots in the 19 century Populist movement, and then provides a detailed breakdown of how Paul Volker stopped inflation (and destroyed the American manufacturing base and the unions into the bargain) in the Reagan era.
This is NOT a Ron Paul/Alex Jones conspiracy anti-Fed book, but it does do an incredible job of explaining to the layman exactly how our central bank works and in who's interest. (spoiler: the bondholders).
add Chalmers Johnson's stuff
Outstanding stuff. We are creating a very good list. This was the idea. Now, we need to get this posted in the news section.
John Quiggan's "Zombie Economics" is a good supplement to Smith's "Econned". It gets a little technical though, so I'll give it a 1.5 rating (halfway between "should read" and "supplemental")
Outstanding! Will add it right away. Any other suggestions?
I've got many, many more suggestions on deck, will be adding.
Here's where all the money went, fellow Americans:
Wall Street Looted and Leveraged and We Bailed Them Out: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/wall-streets-naked-swindle-20100405
Bremmer Handed Over Billions in Iraq with No Receipts or Accounting http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/iraq_billions200710
Goldman Sachs Engineered It All, Profited and Took Bailout Money: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405
bailout nation - barry ritholtz
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Anything by Howard Zinn or Jared Diamond.
[Removed]