book reviews
It's rare to find a book on economic policy that is so well written for the general public without sacrificing first rate analysis. I would recommend it for undergraduates and for anyone who wants to get quickly to the heart of some very tough issues: fiscal stimulus; monetary policy; tax reform; trade imbalances; oil dependence; runaway entitlement spending; health reform; and preventing the next financial crisis. When a book is this quick a read, you often don't come away which much, but Seeds of Destruction pays big dividends and left me looking for more. You come away understanding the key drivers of economic growth without having to juggle equations or IS/LM graphs. They cut through a lot of extraneous issues and focus on the keys to good economic policymaking.
I really wanted to like Michael Lewis' latest book, The Big Short, because many of his other books have so hit home for me. Liar's Poker opened my eyes about Wall Street. I thought Money Ball was such an important book that I gave it to my teams at two different firms. And The Blind Side may have been this generation's version of Love Story, but it helped me understand far more about modern-day professional football (The book was far more about football than the movie) than I knew before.
Full disclosure: This is a review of Bruce Bartlett's latest book. I know Bruce well and consider him to be a friend. He's also one of the bloggers here at Capital Gains and Games. I told Bruce I would be writing a review but not what it was going to say. And...although there's an ad on CG&G, we're not making a penny even if you click on it to purchase the book.
The bottom line is simple: read this book.
The fact that Bruce criticizes supply-side economics in this book or, rather, the way supply-side economics is defined today, is hardly a surprise. Bruce has been doing that for some time. Nevertheless, because he not only used to be a supply-side true believer but, as Jack Kemp's chief economist, one of the people most responsible for translating the theory into actual legislation, his credentials for the criticism are unimpeachable.
