The Shock Doctrine - Naoimi Klein

-
ISBN: 978-0-141-02453-0

Verdict: 👍👍👍👍 

This is one of my favourite reads of 2019, 466+ pages

The book seeks to shed light on cause and effect in terms of disaster and benefits i.e. why  for some of the catastrophes , big business have benefited 💵in the past e.g. The Iraq War and US Hurricane 🌪Katrina and it does a great job !


Some great quotes, with my favourite one being one that describes the UK/Argentinian Falkland’s war as a “fight between two bald men over a comb”

The book diuscusses the advantages Economist Milton Friedman promoted a man she refers to as the ‘Grand Guru’ of a movement which went across the globe post disaster to "assist' yet benefit the US.

Friedman observed that “Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around”( p6)

The quote “the Russian people fronted the money for the looting of their own country” (p233) resonates through the book – it really does make you sit back and think !

I believe this is where the term Disaster Economics came from I think the book illustrates the concepts and the principles behind the term quite well. 

This was recommended to me by a former trader, now at IBM, as ‘worth a read if you have a lot of time on your hands and some misrepresented conservative views’  and he was right – I am glad I read this book and would recommend it to one and all !


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Surrounded by Idiots – The Four Types of Human Behaviour (or, How to Understand those Who Cannot Be Understood) – Thomas Erikson

-
Image
ISBN:  978-1-78504-218-8 Verdict :👍👍 I enjoyed reading this book with its elaboration of the concepts that centre around the D ominance, I nducement, S ubmission and A nalytics ability (DISA) system for  human  communication which the Author breaks into 4 Color Types ( Red , Yellow , Blue & Green ) and says that " behaviour.Its like a  recipe  - we need to understand all the ingredients before we bake the cake " p13 The book discusses the various  behavioural  traits of individuals which the author centers around a 4 square color model, with each color representing a specific trait and some behavioral patterns associated with the colors - here are some snippets; The Quote "Only Dead Fish Go with the Flow" to describe Reds is classical where Reds are quick thinkers and one on long before everyone else. Yellows can be amusing, creative and elevate the mood regardless of who they are with         p64 " Greens are easy to hangout with..
Read more

WHAT IT TAKES - Stephen A. Schwarzman

-
Image
ISBN:  978-1-4711-8955-5 Verdict :   👍👍 You have to respect Scharwazman for what he has achieved in his long life, reinforcing to some extent the old saying that ‘ money makes money ’.This book is worth reading if you are working in finance and is quite a nice read. The book takes you down Stephen's memory lane and his life time of investing. It’s a short book and does lack clarity on the analysis, rules and logic applied on the business decisions. The book is about Stephen and the people he knows and boy does he ‘name drop’, throughout the book, to the extent it was getting boring reading another name popping up towards the end.  There are snippets on Blackstone’s Business Drivers/Methodology e.g.  Blackstone’s three tests  “It must have potential to be hugely rewarding for investors . It must add to Blackstone intellectual capital. And it must have a 10 in charge of it.”          p281  Below are some of my best bits from the book; There
Read more

The Technology Trap - Carl Benedikt Frey

-
Image
I SBN :  978-0691172798 Verdict :  👍👍   👍 This is one of those books that you have to read in full to fully appreciate, with its well-researched examples to support the concept behind the book.  The book highlights how current automation and Artificial intelligent(AI) systems trends can be used with an historical economic lens to project and address the economic, political and social affects that will arise and by using examples from the industrial revolution when technology displaced workers we can predict the effects of technologies like driverless cars. I like the structured approach to present the argument and learnt along the way with references to various paradox ( Moravec, Polanyi etc. .) which I had not come across before and had to look up  Here are some bits I highlighted in the book. however, there were quite a few so I couldn't  list them all ; The pre-industrial era did not suffer a shortage of imagination, it suffered from a shortage of realization . ” P73 Parliam
Read more