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380. Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by: Mark Levin

Author:  Robert A. Lawson, Benjamin Powell

Genre:   Nonfiction, Economics, History, Politics

224 pages, published July 30, 2019

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

In Socialism Sucks, economists Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell travel to many of the world’s Socialist countries (think Venezula, Cuba and North Korea rather than Sweden and Denmark which are capitalist countries with generous welfare states) to report on the impact of Socialist policies.  The results aren’t pretty.  Lawson and Powell give first hand, colorful reports on how Socialism has impoverished millions of people and decimated once vibrant economies.

Quotes 

“Groucho’s definition of politics is Marxism in a nutshell: “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”

 

“It wasn’t until the so-called “Marginal Revolution” in the 1880s when three economists, working independently, all concluded that the value of a good is based on what people subjectively think a particular (or “marginal”) unit of that good is worth, which is exactly right. The amount of time or energy it takes to make something doesn’t really matter when it comes to determining its worth. This is tough to grasp, especially for the individuals or company that produced the good and want to sell it for a price that they think is “fair” compensation for their time and labor.”

 

“The low rate of infant mortality is a product of data manipulation. At seventy-two abortions per one hundred births, Cuba has one of the highest abortion rates in the world, and Cuban doctors routinely force women to abort high-risk pregnancies so that Cuba’s bureaucrats can brag about their health statistics. If you correct the data to account for these factors, Cuba’s health statistics look a lot less impressive.”

 

“As economists, we believe that the American government’s half-century-long embargo on Cuba is bad policy, and that without it, we could bring the Cubans more freedom. The embargo has done nothing to undermine Cuba’s abusive Communist regime. Indeed, the Castros have used the embargo—they call it a “blockade”—to blame the United States for Cuba’s poverty rather than admit that socialism doesn’t work. Trade not only promotes economic development, it can open a society to other ideas—in this case, capitalist ones.”

 

“In 1988, the Chinese constitution was amended to officially recognize private property and private business. Before then, the Communist state had been China’s only official employer, with small exceptions. By 1998, the state employed about 60 percent of the working population, and in 2010 it employed only about 19 percent.  China had transitioned from socialism to a form of crony capitalism.”

 

“All told, in less than thirty years, through the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and other atrocities, Mao’s Communist government killed more of its own people than any other government in history—possibly as many as eighty million.  The peasants who escaped death found themselves poorer than their ancestors. In 1978, two-thirds of Chinese peasants had incomes lower than they had in the 1950s, one-third had incomes lower than in the 1930s, and the average Chinese person was only consuming two-thirds as many calories as the average person in a developed country.”

 

My Take

As an avowed free marketeer, I read Socialism Sucks as a member of the choir.  I already knew about the failure that is socialism and how its implementation is always at the point of a gun.  This book, however, put some meat on the bones of my ideological beliefs.  This book demonstrates with statistics and examples the true destructive power of socialism.  American socialists (I’m looking at you, Bernie Sanders) have no idea what socialism really is.  This is a book they should read.

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377. The Woman in Cabin 10

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Ruth Ware

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller

357 pages, published April 16, 2019

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Woman in Cabin 10 is a thriller that takes place in the constrained confines of a high end luxury yacht that has set sail on the North Sea.  Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, is on board to cover the maiden voyage.  At first, she enjoys the glamour and opulence.  However, when the weather starts to turn, Lo is awakened in the middle of the night and views a woman being thrown overboard.  When she rings the alarm bell, no one believes her since no passengers are missing.  Things become more desperate for Lo as she begins to doubt her own sanity and struggles to figure out what happened.

Quotes 

“My friend Erin says we all have demons inside us, voices that whisper we’re no good, that if we don’t make this promotion or ace that exam we’ll reveal to the world exactly what kind of worthless sacks of skin and sinew we really are Maybe that’s true. Maybe mine just have louder voices.”

 

“Maybe that was closer to the truth–we weren’t captor and captive, but two animals in different compartments of the same cage. Hers was just slightly larger.”

 

“I love ports. I love the smell of tar and sea air, and the scream of the gulls. Maybe it’s years of taking the ferry to France for summer holidays, but a harbor gives me a feeling of freedom in a way that an airport never does. Airports say work and security checks and delays. Ports say… I don’t know. Something completely different. Escape, maybe.”

 

“There’s a reason why we keep thoughts inside our heads for the most part—they’re not safe to be let out in public.”

 

“Of course the one type of sashimi you really must try is fugu,” Alexander said expansively, smoothing his napkin across his straining cummerbund. “It’s simply the most exquisite taste.” “Fugu?” I said, trying to insert myself into the conversation. “Isn’t that the horribly poisonous one?” “Absolutely, and that’s what makes the experience. I’ve never been a drug taker—I know my own weaknesses, and I am very aware of being one of life’s lotus-eaters, so I’ve never trusted myself to dabble in that sort of thing—but I can only assume that the high one experiences after eating fugu triggers a similar neuron response. The diner has diced with death, and won.”

 

“she had made her way up the corporate ladder by treading on the backs of more young women than you could count, and then, once she was through the glass ceiling, pulling the ladder up behind her. I remembered Rowan once saying, Tina is one of those women who thinks every bit of estrogen in the boardroom is a threat to her own existence.”

 

My Take

I gave The Woman in Cabin 10 four stars because it has the quintessential quality of a good thriller:  I couldn’t put it down.  In a similar fashion to Something in the Water (a page turner that I also really enjoyed) Ware does a great job of keeping the tension high, the red herrings plentiful and the twists coming at just the right moment.  Highly recommended vacation read.

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376. The End of Work

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   John Tamny

Genre:  Nonfiction, Business

256 pages, published May 7, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The End of Work, by free market economist John Tamny, is a very optimistic treatise on the future of work in the United States and around the world.  Tamny rejects the doomsday predictions that automization and globalization will take away your dream job.  Instead, he contends that the job market is only going to get better and better as a result of rapidly increasing prosperity which will free human beings to perform work that is fun, meaningful and personal.

Quotes 

“Capitalism cannot cause a financial crisis because capitalism is about markets constantly correcting errors. It is government intervention that can and often does cause crises,”

 

“An economy robbed of failure is also robbed of success, because failure provides knowledge about how to succeed. Failure is the healthy process whereby a poorly run entity is deprived of the ability to do more economic harm.”

 

“Failure is merely a harsh word for the experiences that animate the constant drive for self-improvement.”

“Taxes are the price we charge people to work, and that price affects where they work and whether they work at all.”

 

“The same is true for taxes. Politicians may raise the cost of work for their citizens, but if the cost is too high, those citizens won’t stick around to be fleeced, especially if they’re well to do. Like the car shoppers, they’ll go elsewhere.”

 

“Most people do not begin life on top. Politicians who raise income tax rates on top earners in the name of “fairness” are telling the strivers lower down that they will incur a penalty for succeeding.”

 

“Income inequality in a capitalist system is truly beautiful. It provides the incentive for creative people to gamble on new ideas, and it turns luxuries into common goods. Income inequality nurses sick companies back to health. It rewards hard work, talent, and achievement regardless of pedigree. And it’s a signal that some of the world’s worst problems will disappear in our lifetimes.”

 

My Take

The End of Work is a great book to read if you are a young person trying to figure out what you want to do with your life.  Indeed, after I finished reading it, I ordered a copy and sent it to my 21 year old son Nick who has recently graduated from college and, while working at a great job, is not passionate about his work.  Tamny’s advice is to go for your passion and you will be rewarded with an interesting and fulfilling career.

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373. All for Nothing

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Meris Delli-Bovi

Author:   Walter Kempowski

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

384 pages, published July 2006

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

All for Nothing takes place in Germany during the end of World War II when everything is falling apart.  The Russian army is advancing and Germans are fleeing the occupied territories in cars and carts and on foot.  In a rural East Prussian manor house, the wealthy von Globig family tries to seal itself off from the world.  Twelve year old Peter von Globig fakes illness to escape his Hitler Youth duties.  His father Eberhard is stationed in Italy with a desk job safe from the front and his mother Katharina has withdrawn into herself.  The house is run by a Auntie with the help of two Ukrainian maids and a Pole.  The family has no plans to leave until Katharina’s decision to house a Jewish stranger for the night forces their hand.

Quotes 

 

My Take

A very depressing, but insightful, book about the human condition, especially when under stress.  As a Christian, I don’t agree with  the author’s sentiment that our lives are “all for nothing.”  I think what we do during our brief stay on earth matters and how we live our lives and treat those around us has value.

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369. Still Life

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Louise Penny

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime

402 pages, published May 22, 2012

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Still Life is the first book to feature Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec.  He is called in investigate the suspicious death of Jane Neal in the rural village of Three Pines south of Montreal.   Neal’s body is found in the woods, shot in the heart with an old fashioned arrow.  Shortly before her death, Neal’s painting Fair Day which depicts many of the local community members was accepted into a local art show.  A coincidence?  Inspector Gamache must discover the truth.

Quotes 

“Life is choice. All day, everyday. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It’s as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful.  So when I’m observing that’s what I’m watching for.  The choices people make.”

 

“There are four things that lead to wisdom. You ready for them?’

She nodded, wondering when the police work would begin.

“They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean.” Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. “I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. I was wrong’.”

 

“Myrna could spend happy hours browsing bookcases. She felt if she could just get a good look at a person’s bookcase and their grocery cart, she’d pretty much know who they were.”

 

“Life is change. If you aren’t growing and evolving, you’re standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.  Most of these people are very immature. They lead “still” lives, waiting.”

 

“I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life.”

 

“They waited for life to happen to them. They waited for someone to save them. Or heal them. They did nothing for themselves.”

 

“The fault lies with us, and only us. It’s not fate, not genetics, not bad luck, and it’s definitely not Mom and Dad. Ultimately it’s us and our choices. But, but’ – now her eyes shone and she almost vibrated with excitement – ‘the most powerful, spectacular thing is that the solution rests with us as well. We’re the only ones who can change our lives, turn them around. So all those years waiting for someone else to do it are wasted.”

 

“I’ve been treating you with courtesy and respect because that’s the way I choose to treat everyone. But never, ever mistake kindness with weakness.”

 

“Aid workers, when handing out food to starving people, quickly learn that the people fighting for it at the front are the people who need it least. It’s the people sitting quietly at the back, too weak to fight, who need it the most. And so too with tragedy.”

 

“Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table,”

 

“Normally death came at night, taking a person in their sleep, stopping their heart or tickling them awake, leading them to the bathroom with a splitting headache before pouncing and flooding their brain with blood. It waits in alleys and metro stops. After the sun goes down plugs are pulled by white-clad guardians and death is invited into an antiseptic room.  But in the country death comes, uninvited, during the day. It takes fishermen in their longboats. It grabs children by the ankles as they swim. In winter it calls them down a slope too steep for their budding skills, and crosses their skies at the tips. It waits along the shore where snow met ice not long ago but now, unseen by sparkling eyes, a little water touches the shore, and the skater makes a circle slightly larger than intended. Death stands in the woods with a bow and arrow at dawn and dusk. And it tugs cars off the road in broad daylight, the tires spinning furiously on ice or snow, or bright autumn leaves. ”

 

“Life is loss.  But out of that, as the book stresses, comes freedom. If we can accept that nothing is permanent, and change is inevitable, if we can adapt, then we’re going to be happier people.”

 

“Everyday for Lucy’s entire dog life Jane had sliced a banana for breakfast and had miraculously dropped one of the perfect disks on to the floor where it sat for an instant before being gobbled up. Every morning Lucy’s prayers were answered, confirming her belief that God was old and clumsy and smelt like roses and lived in the kitchen.  But no more.  Lucy knew her God was dead. And she now knew the miracle wasn’t the banana, it was the hand that offered the banana.”

 

“Almost invariably people expected that if you were a good person you shouldn’t meet a bad end, that only the deserving are killed and certainly only the deserving are murdered.  However well hidden and subtle, there was a sense that a murdered person had somehow asked for it. That’s why the shock when someone they knew to be kind and good was a victim. There was a feeling that surely there had been a mistake.” 

My Take

While Still Life has received critical acclaim in the mystery fiction world (named One of the Five Mystery/Crime Novels of the Decade by Deadly Pleasures Magazine, Winner of the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys awards), I had a hard time really engaging with it.  I never warmed up to Chief Inspector Armand Gamache or the supporting characters.  Penny does have many insightful things to say about the human condition.  However, I was happy to finish the book so I could move onto something new.

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368. Justice on Trial: the Kavanaugh confirmation and the future of the Supreme Court

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino

Genre:  Non Fiction, Politics, History, Law

375 pages, published July 9, 2019

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Justice on Trial is an account of the bitter and circus like confirmation battle for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh who replaced Anthony Kennedy on the court in 2018.  With lots of history of the Supreme Court and biographical background on Justice Kavanaugh thrown in, Justice on Trial primarily focuses on the hearings which came down to a he said/she said between Kavanaugh and accuser Christine Blasey Ford.

Quotes 

“There had been only three confirmations in the final year of a presidency when the opposing party controlled the Senate, most recently in 1888, when Grover Cleveland nominated Melville W. Fuller to be chief justice.”

 

“The principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary,” wrote Justice Edward White in Coffin v United States, tracing it from Deuteronomy through Roman Law, Canon Law, and the Common Law and illustrating it with an anecdote about a fourth-century provincial governor on trial before the Roman Emperor.”

 

“Justice Brennan described the power of these unelected justices with chilling clarity when he told his incoming clerks that the most important rule in the law was the “Rule of Five.”

 

“Voters responded so well to Trump’s reference to Sykes and Pryor in debates and speeches that he decided to make a longer list of judges who met with conservative approval.”

 

“The Democratic strategy had been obstruction at all costs, so Klobuchar was annoyed at repeatedly being singled out for being cooperative and reasonable.” 

My Take

Like millions of Americans, I was riveted by the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh.  Justice on Trial takes you behind the scenes and tells the whole story, giving the reader a much fuller account of what happened and why there was such a media frenzy.  It also makes the case about the importance of due process, a foundational element of our Constitution and American life.   This book is a page turner and I highly recommend it, especially to readers interested in the judicial system.

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362. The Colorado Kid

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Stephen King

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Novella

205 pages, published October 4, 2005

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Colorado Kid is a novella by master storyteller Stephen King that centers around an unsolved mystery.  On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There’s no identification on the body.  It’s more than a year before the man is identified and the more that is learned about the man and the bizarre circumstances of his death, the less that is understandable.  It seems like an impossible crime.

Quotes 

“Sometimes loving eyes don’t see what they don’t want to see.”

 

“Forty seemed about right, and it occurred to me that it’s too bad for a fella to die at forty, a real shame. It’s a man’s most anonymous age.”

 

“Here I am, ninety years old and ready for the cooling board, using a brand new Macintosh computer, and there you sit, twenty-two and gorgeous, fresh as a new peach, yet scrawling on a yellow legal pad like an old maid in a Victorian romance.”

 

“Well then, I’m going to tell you a secret almost every newspaper man and woman who’s been at it awhile knows: in real life, the number of actual stories – those with beginnings, middles, and ends – are slim and none. But if you can give your readers just one unknown thing (two at the very outside) and then kick in what Dave Bowie there calls a musta-been, your reader will tell himself a story.”

 

“We poor humans are wired up to always think the worst is gonna happen because it so rarely does.”

 

“You go back to that old business the way a kid who’s lost a tooth goes back to the hole with the tip of his tongue.”

 

“It was that kind of story. The kind that’s like a sneeze which threatens but never quite arrives.”

 

“I like a woman who hasn’t decided the kitchen’s a place of slavery just because she works for a livin.” “I feel absolutely the same way about a man,” 

My Take

While I’m a big fan of Stephen King, I really didn’t enjoy The Colorado Kid that much.  Not enough story, character development and an unsatisfying ending.

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360. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Tammis and David Matzinger

Author:   John Carreyrou

Genre:  Non Fiction, Business, Crime, Science

339 pages, published May 21, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Bad Blood is written by John Carreyrou, the Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the story of massive fraud and deception by Silicon Valley startup Theranos which was at one time valued at 9 billion dollars and whose board of directors included such luminaries as George Schulz, David Bois, David Mattis and Henry Kissinger.  Carreyrou tells the fascinating of Stanford drop out Elizabeth Holmes, who fancied herself as a female Steve Jobs, and her quest to revolutionize the lab testing business by making blood tests significantly faster and easier.   However, when the technology didn’t work, Theranos started down a path of deception, obfuscation and harassment of anyone bold enough to challenge them.

Quotes 

“A sociopath is often described as someone with little or no conscience. I’ll leave it to the psychologists to decide whether Holmes fits the clinical profile, but there’s no question that her moral compass was badly askew. I’m fairly certain she didn’t initially set out to defraud investors and put patients in harm’s way when she dropped out of Stanford fifteen years ago. By all accounts, she had a vision that she genuinely believed in and threw herself into realizing. But in her all-consuming quest to be the second coming of Steve Jobs amid the gold rush of the “unicorn” boom, there came a point when she stopped listening to sound advice and began to cut corners. Her ambition was voracious and it brooked no interference. If there was collateral damage on her way to riches and fame, so be it.” 

My Take

I first heard about Theranos when I watched a 60 minutes expose on Elizabeth Holmes.  That piqued my interest to read Bad Blood.  However, I had to wait for my husband Scot to finish it before I had a turn.  After I finished, my mom and stepdad breezed through it in short order.  What a fascinating, page turner!  An extremely compelling true story with lots of larger than life characters, plot twists and a morality tale.  Highly recommended.

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359. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Gail Honeyman

Genre:  Fiction

327 pages, published May 9, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Eleanor Oliphant is a woman who is hard to pin down. She is socially awkward and usually say exactly what she’s thinking.  Her life is planned around work with weekends reserved for frozen pizza, vodka, and phone calls with her imprisoned mum.  All of this changes when she meets Raymond, the IT guy from her office.  When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living.

Quotes 

“If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn’t spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.”

 

“in principle and reality, libraries are life-enhancing palaces of wonder.”

 

“There are days when I feel so lightly connected to the earth that the threads that tether me to the planet are gossamer thin, spun sugar. A strong gust of wind could dislodge me completely, and I’d lift off and blow away, like one of those seeds in a dandelion clock. The threads tighten slightly from Monday to Friday.”

 

“Sometimes you simply needed someone kind to sit with you while you deal with things.”

 

“Although it’s good to try new things and to keep an open mind, it’s also extremely important to stay true to who you really are.”

 

“A philosophical question: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? And if a woman who’s wholly alone occasionally talks to a pot plant, is she certifiable? I think that it is perfectly normal to talk to oneself occasionally. It’s not as though I’m expecting a reply. I’m fully aware that Polly is a houseplant.”

 

“I find lateness exceptionally rude; it’s so disrespectful, implying unambiguously that you consider yourself and your own time to be so much more valuable than the other person’s.”

 

“Did men ever look in the mirror, I wondered, and find themselves wanting in deeply fundamental ways? When they opened a newspaper or watched a film, were they presented with nothing but exceptionally handsome young men, and did this make them feel intimidated, inferior, because they were not as young, not as handsome? Did they then read newspaper articles ridiculing those same handsome men if they gained weight or wore something unflattering?”

 

“She had tried to steer me towards vertiginous heels again – why are these people so incredibly keen on crippling their female customers? I began to wonder if cobblers and chiropractors had established some fiendish cartel.”

 

“Obscenity is the distinguishing hallmark of a sadly limited vocabulary.”

 

“No thank you,” I said. “I don’t want to accept a drink from you, because then I would be obliged to purchase one for you in return, and I’m afraid I’m simply not interested in spending two drinks’ worth of time with you.”

 

“These days, loneliness is the new cancer–-a shameful, embarrassing thing, brought upon yourself in some obscure way. A fearful, incurable thing, so horrifying that you dare not mention it; other people don’t want to hear the word spoken aloud for fear that they might too be afflicted, or that it might tempt fate into visiting a similar horror upon them.”

 

“I wasn’t good at pretending, that was the thing. After what had happened in that burning house, given what went on there, I could see no point in being anything other than truthful with the world. I had, literally, nothing left to lose. But, by careful observation from the sidelines, I’d worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little. Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don’t find very funny, or do things they don’t particularly want to, with people whose company they don’t particularly enjoy. Not me. I had decided, years ago, that if the choice was between that or flying solo, then I’d fly solo. It was safer that way. Grief is the price we pay for love, so they say. The price is far too high.”

 

“There are scars on my heart, just as thick, as disfiguring as those on my face. I know they’re there. I hope some undamaged tissue remains, a patch through which love can come in and flow out.”

 

“I have been waiting for death all my life. I do not mean that I actively wish to die, just that I do not really want to be alive.”

 

“I’m not sure I’d like to be burned. I think I might like to be fed to zoo animals. It would be both environmentally friendly and a lovely treat for the larger carnivores. Could you request that?” 

My Take

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine reminded me a lot of The Rosie Project.  Both books are about unconventional characters struggling to make sense of a world that was not made for them.  I enjoyed this book, especially the humorous and poignant insights of the title character.  It all expectedly wraps up neatly at the end, but it is an enjoyable time getting there.

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356. Coffee with Jesus

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   David Wilkie

Genre:  Fiction, Graphic Novel, Theology

118 pages, published November 1, 2013

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The graphic novel Coffee with Jesus is taken from a daily online comic strip born out of artist David Wilkie’s frustration with the polarized political climate in America.  The strip is organized around six themes:  getting to know Jesus, spiritual disciplines, relationships, culture, church, and the challenges of life.

Quotes 

 

My Take

I was first made aware of Coffee with Jesus when my church used it for several weeks as a launch pad for sermons.  There is a lot of insight and relevant commentary in this short book told in a new and creative format.  Many of the strips really got me thinking.

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