Thursday 25 October 2007

The Age of Turbulence, Alan Greenspan

I really had a hard time to finish this book, very little interesting in it. Very commonplace, most likely very few chapters were written by Alan himself.

In this book one learns that:

- Capitalism and Free Market are the solution of all problems. Planning is bad.
- Claims of intervention of USA to back military dictatorships in Latin America are made by weak populist regimes to gather popular support against an otherwise innocent external enemy
- There is no such thing as Climate Crisis and Resource Depletion - high Oil prices are mostly due to speculation, and we have enough Oil until 2050, when most likely we will happily run on Nuclear
- More consumption of goods means necessarily more happiness. India is bad, despite his millenary culture, because they don't burn enough oil.
- What is good for American Capitalism, is good
- Progress happens through Creative Destruction: the Rich creates, and the Poor is destructed.
- Taxing the Rich is bad; Providing Social Security is bad
- There is no way to predict what the world will look like in 2030 - so why have I bought this book?

I was hoping to read some harsh criticism against Bush, but Alan is too smart to cut the branch on which he is sitting.

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