Reviews
Required reading for the outraged
I’m not a religious man, but I’ve found my bible. It’s called Sold Out – How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America, put together by Wall Street Watch (www.wallstreetwatch.org). Now I feel like going door to door like a Jehovah’s Witness, this book (actually they call this 231 page book a “report”) tucked under my arm, with a spring in my step as I go forth to spread the good word.
…the Money industry displaced real businesses that provided real goods, services and jobs.”
How ever you found your way to this page – whatever it was that brought you here, means you should read this. Please stand by as I support that statement with something of a book review. It isn’t available in stores; you have to download and print it out which you can do HERE (safe PDF download). It’s free. If anything, it could cost you not to read it. This is the truth about how we got here.
First of all, I was stunned that they elaborate on several of my favorite themes, which I write about here, such as: corporations buying politicians, customers getting screwed by their credit card companies, people making money manipulating money instead of creating and selling goods and services, Wall Street ups and downs being a poor measure of our economy in general, and let us not forget just plain old-fashioned greed.
“The Federal Reserve has been loaning public money to Wall Street firms at as little as .25 percent. These companies are then turning around and charging Americans interest rates of 4 percent to 30 percent for mortgages and credit cards.”
Whenever I write on these themes, I usually get angry letters calling me a commie or socialist and suggesting that I read some book or other and that I don’t know what I’m talking about. In the future, I think I’ll just point them to this book.
…pushing paper around constitutes a quarter or more of our economy”
Sold Out is a play-by play account of our recent financial disaster and a thorough exposé of the factors that led us here. At times, it’s a bit of a history lesson, recounting mistakes that predate, by far, the Bush administration but it also holds George W. Bush to account. Sold Out points fingers where finger-pointing is do and assigns blame – there is plenty of it to go around. It’s a bit wonky at times, but a layman will have no trouble gleaning some valuable insight from this satisfying read that pulls no punches.
Print the report. Read it. Keep it near you. Share it with everyone you know. That’s what I’ll be doing.
Things will not change so long as Americans acquiesce to business as usual in Washington. It’s time for Americans to make their voices heard.”
Ah, how inspirational a quote, that last one. I think I’ll adopt it as my battle cry.
