Give Me a Break

By: John Stossel

Narrated by: John Stossel

Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

When he hit the airwaves 30 years ago, John Stossel helped create a whole new category of news, dedicated to protecting and informing consumers. As a crusading reporter, he chased snake-oil peddlers, rip-off artists, and corporate thieves, winning the applause of his peers.

But along the way, he noticed that there was something far more troublesome going on: While the networks screamed about the dangers of exploding BIC lighters and coffeepots, worse risks were ignored. And while reporters were teaming up with lawyers and legislators to stick it to big business, they seldom reported the ways the free market made life better.

In Give Me a Break, Stossel explains how ambitious bureaucrats, intellectually lazy reporters, and greedy lawyers make your life worse even as they claim to protect your interests. Taking on such sacred cows as the FDA, the War on Drugs, and scaremongering environmental activists, and backing up his trademark irreverence with careful reasoning and research, he shows how the problems that government tries and fails to fix can be solved better by the extraordinary power of the free market.

He traces his journey from cub reporter to 20/20 co-anchor, revealing his battles to get his ideas to the public, his struggle to overcome stuttering, and his eventual realization that, for years, much of his reporting missed the point.

Stossel concludes the book with a provocative blueprint for change: a simple plan in the spirit of the Founding Fathers to ensure that America remains a place "where free minds, and free markets, make good things happen."

©2003 John Stossel (P)2003 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"It's a powerful, well-argued, and immensely thought-provoking book, and with Stossel's visibility, not to mention the incendiary subject matter, it's sure to be a hot one, too." (Publishers Weekly)

It plays like a long Stossel segment

Stossel has a great gift for explaining libertarianism in a way that's both really entertaining and easy to understand. This book makes a variety of very persuasive well thought out libertarian arguments. It has a more personal touch than some of his other books to as he talks about how he became a reporter and over coming his studder. I can't reccomend this and his other books enough.

Hear how "woke" started

When they can't perform a cogent argument against you they tried to shut you down

Facts and reason at a fun pace.

Expressive, nicely-paced delivery by Stossel (after all, he is a professional broadcaster, right?). He snaps off compelling arguments about nearly every hot topic in today's America. If you like his stuff on ABC, you'll dig this, because the listen is laced with actual audio from revealing interviews he conducted over a career that, surprisingly, spans nearly four decades.

awesome

loved it, loved it, loved it. Its so good, I cant wait to read it again. Libertarians are coming back strong.

Good Listen

The fact that Stossel narrated this himself with some emotion really adds. Hearing his story and the circumstances around his reporting is fasinating.

such a refreshing point of view

He has an alternative view to many of my views, and I learned a lot. What a concept, limited government, and limited interference in our daily affairs. This book goes the extra mile, sprinkling in audio sound bites from John's TV reports. I also liked the musical interludes marking the start of each chapter.

Great book and very informative

I already liked John Stossel, but this book really sealed the deal. I always appreciate how John asks tough questions but with respect. It's a rare trait, but John's got it.

Leftist thinking is killing us!

It is so sad to watch “educated“ people think like totalitarian dictators. It’s so obvious this stems from our “institutions of higher learning“. It’s obvious our most educated are the biggest threat to our freedoms because “they know better than us”.

John Stossel tells it like it is

Uses facts and real world situations to explain free markets, limited government, and relaxing the rules. While I cannot agree with everything the man says, it's a compelling read.