Aftershock

The Next Economy and America’s Future

By: Robert B. Reich

Narrated by: Robert Reich

Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

The author of 12 acclaimed books, Robert B. Reich is a Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and has served in three national administrations.

While many blamed Wall Street for the financial meltdown, Aftershock points a finger at a national economy in which wealth is increasingly concentrated at the top - and where a grasping middle class simply does not have the resources to remain viable.

©2010 Robert B. Reich (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"Reich's thesis is well argued and frighteningly plausible: without a return to the 'basic bargain' (that workers are also consumers), the "aftershock" of the Great Recession includes long-term high unemployment and a political backlash - a crisis, he notes with a sort of grim optimism, that just might be painful enough to encourage necessary structural reforms." ( Publishers Weekly)

Defending the Indefensible

In an eloquent, wonderfully pleasant, soft, disarmingly convincing voice Robert Reich takes us through the looking glass into a world where fantasy is fact, black is white and white is black. As if it is not enough to fall through the looking glass, Reich delivers us into a world filled with mirrors where there is no way to tell what is real and what is an illusion. In Orwellian double speak, Reich repeatedly drives home the concept that if we can only focus closely on the wheels of the cart we will see that every time they turn, the horse moves.

As the patient gets sicker he gleefully announces the patient is responding to the medicine. He extolls the engine of consumption as the thing that builds wealth and is quick to measure assets but totally ignores liabilities and fails to acknowledge the obvious; that consumption is by definition wealth destruction. In a disturbingly perverted view, Reich asserts that the mess we are in is because we have failed to adequately “share the wealth” while conveniently ignoring the fact that for more than 20 years every effort was made to push money at people in the form of low interest loans that bore no relevance to the associated risk.

His enamor of Eccles, the privateer who helped FDR revitalize the economy, is so gushing that perhaps he can be excused for allowing it to cloud his mind when he manages the great leap of connecting two dots and establishing a trend, forgetting about the small sample size. There may be many reasons for the disproportion of wealth in our country in 1928 and 2007, but Reich uses it to erect a tower of defense of the great failure of 50 years of Keynesian economics better known as the great ice cream effect. Those who promise the most free ice cream to the most people will get elected. Had Reich written his book in 2007, no doubt we would have had a book of gushing acclaim that Keynes was right and the vast wealth spread across the middle class is proof of that. Instead, with the financial collapse, the tower began to crack in 2008 and Reich could not bring himself to accept his share of the blame for what ice cream givers had wrought even though he was one of the givers himself.

Reich effortlessly holds up the wondrous recovery (ending in the 1950’s) from the great depression as proof that the Keynesian approach magically works, cleverly ignoring that given 30 years and just about any approach would have led to recovery. This book is a defense of the indefensible. It is a “someone else did it” defense and he points a finger squarely at the 1% of wealthy Americans for hoarding money, as if we are in a poker game and there are a fixed number of chips, ignoring the croupier behind him printing more chips every second and pouring them into the game by the truckload. Thanks to the ice cream givers we are now all about the “share the poverty” and now with his book in print, Reich can smugly say “I didn’t do it.” Read Peter Schiff’s book on “How and Economy Grows” to clear your head of Reich’s psychobabble. It is a bit corny but you will not end every chapter with your mouth agape thinking “What the hell did he say?”

Completely one sided with straw man arguments.....

THIS BOOK IS PROPAGANDA TO THE CORE... If you are looking for a propaganda piece that sounds like it was written by the Federal Reserve itself then buy this book...

If you want the TRUTH about our financial mess then buy books like Meltdown, or any books by Ron Paul or Peter Schiff...

To give an example of how far out of wack this guy is- this guy gives the federal reserve credit for 'guiding us for 14 years' into prosperity.. This genius author should have checked how the Federal Reserve was actually created in secret on Jekyll Island. Then he should check into how quickly the severe 1921 depression (that noone hears about) was over very quickly because the government did nothing and let the free market correct itself...

But this ignorant author wants to act as though the reason we go into eventual financial prosperity following the great depression was because the Federal Reserve was given more power??? Oh my... This author is ignorant at best..


The author sets up straw man oposition claims that are half truths at best and knocks the straw man down to give the apearance of winning the argument... Thomas E Woods, Ron Paul, or Peter Schif could chew this author up and spit him out while they are sleep talking...

If you want proof just look into the past... in 2005-2006 while everyone was saying everything was great and there is not going to be any kind of collapse, the deseneters from that opinion were who? Thomas E Woods, Ron Paul, and Peter Schiff.... Now that the collapse has happened, morons like this author want to jump up and say he knows what the problem is.... I dare you to look into what this author had to say before this collapse... If you look into what he was saying before the collapse I seriously doubt you will buy this book.

full of contradictory, wrong and marxist thought

Keynes would be very proud of this book as it mentions his work often.


there is an often reoccurring talking point, the gap between the poor and the rich, and how accumulating wealth among the rich is the problem with the economy and how it is necessary to tax wealth in order to redistribute it.

Karl Marx would be proud of this book.

Uninspiring

Perhaps redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor would increase economic activity. But I will never be convinced that any regulatory agency could efficiently and fairly pull it off. Plus, it ignores what I believe about fairness and the rewards of hard work - even if it does not maintain a red-hot economy. Mr. Reich does not discuss the ill affects of a steep Federal Deficit.

Wealth Redistribution Propaganda

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Liberals will probably like it.

What was most disappointing about Robert Reich’s story?

I was amazed at how much spin was in the book. Factual errors and misrepresentation aside, anything contrary to his viewpoint is dismissed and marginalized. I would have though that this would at least been somewhat informative (even it it was obviously biased).

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Reading performance was OK, but a diatribe.

Not what I expected

Reich did a great job reading his book and he presented his information and opinions in a well thought out and easily understandable way. He has some very interesting ideas and I definitely learned a few things so its worth a listen.

I purchased the book thinking it would be a good explanation of the past recession as well as his thoughts on what our future looks like and practical things that we can do to prepare for it. Although he provided a good explanation of the reasons he believes the recession happened, most of the rest of the book consists of him explaining his liberal ideas about what is wrong with the country and what he thinks needs to be done on a large scale to get the country back on track. He doesn't give any thoughts on what can be done on a personal level to prepare for an 'aftershock'. I realize that I can't hold my false expectations against the content of the book but I was disappointed to get a bunch of liberal ideas instead of practical unbiased suggestions.

If you agree with redistribution of wealth, universal healthcare, and stronger unions you will enjoy the book. If you don't, you can still learn from it but won't find it as useful as you may have expected.

propagada

i am pretty liberal but this is typical one sided liberal viewpoint. It's like listening to a speech. I like that the author read it, but its pretty much the far left viewpoint without any attempt to provide a balanced opinion/view of the isues.