Disposition of my current reading list.

  Just finished "The Occupy Handbook".  Took me an extra week longer than I anticipated because of work, but it was fascinating.  Here's a quick review.

While obviously the book leans liberal, it covers a wider spectrum of ideas outside of US economics and politics.  It is broken up into three parts: "How we got here"; "Where we are now"; and "Solutions".  Because of the nature of the beast, in each section there really is overlap as writers try to pull context into their contribution, and no author can resist but to offer a direction about how to move forward, even if they're writing about "how we got here".

I do question the purpose of Brandon Adams' contribution of three pieces in the collection -- the problem I have, is that each one is easily invalidated by pedestrian arguments.  In one of his three contributions, he cites the decline of culture (and not deregulation or a failure to spot a bubble) as the cause of the economic decline.  He says that if you want to blame someone, look at yourself and your tattoos and obesity for the short-term thinking that has pervaded our culture.  While true - that short-term thinking is pervasive, he does not bother to look as to what caused short-term thinking.  I can think of one: income inequality and a gamed system.  What's the point of saving money (and thinking long-term), if you know you're just going to end up on the losing end of a rigged game called Global Capitalism?  It's called behavioral finance, but it's in its infancy and it shows.

Some notable entries:

• David Cay Johnston -- offers up a very solid examination of the evidence of tax policies that favor the ultra rich and the policies.
• Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez -- provide a technical and logical argument that a top marginal tax rate between 50~70% would not discourage people from becoming wealthy.
• Robert Buckley -- explains why politics matter, if you care about Capitalism, by citing the Soviet Union's long road from Capitalism to Capitalism.  Hint: reform politics now or else follow the same, long path  as the former Soviet Union.
• David Graeber -- explains what Anarchism is and its crucial role in delivering true Democracy to the people, even as we are oppressed by the Republic in which we live in.

I strongly recommend reading it, because it has such a diverse scope of knowledge behind it, and you're offered access to it at a cheap price.

Onto the next book: Paul Krugman's "End this Depression Now!"  I have to put "Nudge" and "Worst-Case Scenario" on the backburner while I do some work and get Krugman's book completed -- there's a huge queue for his book at the library and if I don't tackle it now, it'll be Fall before it'll be available again.