Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Greedy, powerful billionaires have rigged the system for their own benefit at the expense of everyone else—this, in a nutshell, is Robert Reich’s thesis. Although I disagree with Reich on how the system works, that is not why I gave the book one star. I gave it one star because it is filled with inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and downright headscratchers. Below are just some (out of countless) examples. Reich claims he is “not advocating class warfare” (p. 17). But blaming billionaires and blaming CEOs like Jamie Dimon for all of our problems sure sounds like class warfare to me. In response to Dimon claiming that he “actually earned his money,” Reich says, “Not exactly” (pp. 18-19). He then gives a brief biography of Dimon, but none of the facts Reich recounts suggest that Dimon didn’t earn his money. Yes, his father’s friend offered him a job at American Express after he got his MBA. But so what? Many people get jobs through connections like this, yet very few of them become CEOs. Are we really supposed to believe that without that first job, Dimon would not have become as successful as he is? Billionaires, Reich tells us, rig the system and get everything their own way. But Reich points out that in 2013, Dimon’s bank, JPMorgan “paid out more than $20 billion to settle the claims” (p. 51). If Dimon is so powerful, why did his bank have to pay out so much? Or pay anything at all? Is it perhaps because billionaires are not as powerful as Reich claims they are? Yes, billionaires certainly have power and influence, but saying that they “rig the system” is a far stronger claim, which Reich provides little evidence for. Reich says, “Safety nets for the poor and middle class have begun to unravel” (p. 16). “Harsh capitalism for the many means most Americans . . . have no safety nets to catch them if they fall” (p. 53). This is just flat out false. There are a boatload of social safety net programs, and there have not been any cuts to them—not to food stamps, TANF, Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security. Reich says, “Getting something for nothing also describes General Motors’ receipt of $600 million in federal contracts, plus $500 million in tax breaks” (p. 48). A federal contract means providing a product or service to the government for a fee. How is that “getting something for nothing”? Also, regardless of how much you think GM should pay in taxes, keeping more of its OWN money (in the form of a tax break) is certainly not “getting something for nothing.” According to Reich, “Eleven years after Wall Street’s near meltdown, not a single major financial executive had been convicted or even indicted for crimes that wiped out the savings of countless Americans” (p. 52). So Bernie Madoff doesn’t count? What about Allen Stanford? Or Kareem Serageldin of Credit Suisse? According to a CNN article (4/28/2016), “35 bankers were sent to prison for financial crisis crimes.” Reich says, “The problem is [Wall] Street’s excessive power. How else can you explain why the Street was bailed out with no strings attached?” (p. 58). Although I agree with Reich that the Wall Street bail out was wrong, it’s false to say that there were no strings. The bailouts were not blank checks. They were mainly loans, most of which were paid back. Reich says that the “high-tech behemoths” (Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google) have “stifled innovation” (p. 112). The mind boggles. To claim that the MOST innovative companies of the last couple decades have “stifled innovation” is just ridiculous. Then Reich says, “There are basically only four ways to accumulate a billion dollars, and none of them is a product of so-called free market. . . . One way to make a billion is to exploit a monopoly. Jeff Bezos is worth $110 billion. . . . Amazon is a monopoly . . . Consumers have few alternatives.” (p. 142). No, Amazon is not a monopoly. It has countless competitors, both online and off. And consumers have countless choices. One really has to wonder what world Reich is living in. Reich says, “we don’t even require that American corporations disclose to their shareholders the campaign contributions they bestow on American politicians” (p. 65). This statement is highly misleading. Since the Tillman Act (1907), corporations have been banned from contributing money directly to politicians. Some corporations have PACs that contribute, but the money in corporate PACs is raised from outside sources; it does not come from the corporation itself. Reich doesn’t mention any of this. Furthermore, it’s curious that Reich is concerned about disclosure to shareholders. He also thinks we need “more protection” for “investors [shareholders] against looting and fraud by the financial sector” (p. 196). Despite this, he says, “The oligarchy’s allegiance is to corporate shareholders, and its major interest is enlarging their and its own wealth” (p. 77). So which is it, Mr. Reich? You can’t have it both ways. Are shareholders getting screwed? Or is “the oligarchy” screwing everyone else for the benefit of shareholders? Reich repeatedly peddles the myth that since 1980, the economy in general and Wall Street in particular have been deregulated (pp. 36, 73, 123, 127, 131). The reality is that the US Code of Federal Regulations has grown from about 100,000 pages in 1980 to more than 180,000 pages today. Reich then points to the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, saying, “Critics (including yours truly) predicted it would release a monster. The critics were proven correct” (p. 128). No, they weren’t. Deregulation did not cause the financial crisis. See “Why The Glass-Steagall Myth Persists” (Nov 12, 2012) at forbes dot com. Reich says, “Since the 1980s . . . the federal government all but abandoned antitrust enforcement” (p. 111). I guess Reich was asleep during the six-year antitrust case against Microsoft. Reich says, “Monsanto now sets the prices for most of the nation’s seed corn” (p. 111). That’s interesting because there is no Monsanto anymore; it was acquired by Bayer in 2018, two years before Reich’s book was published. Then there’s this: “Richard Nixon’s ‘law and order’ campaign on behalf of ‘the silent majority’ was an appeal to racism. . . . Racism was also behind Bill Clinton’s promise to ‘end welfare as we know it’ and to ‘crack down on crime’” (p. 157). So promoting “law and order” and wanting to “crack down on crime” is racist? Really? According to Reich, “Today, the Walmart family fortune grows by . . . $100 million per day” (p. 141). Reich doesn’t explain how he arrived at this figure, but it can’t possibly be correct. $100 million per day is $36.5 billion per year. But Walmart’s net income in FY 2020 was only $14.88 billion. Furthermore, the Walmart family (the Waltons) are not the only shareholders (they own 51%), and not all of Walmart’s income was distributed to shareholders. Even if you take into account the average appreciation in Walmart’s stock price over time, it still doesn’t come close to what Reich claims. Regarding the scandal of rich celebrities illegally pulling strings to get their kids into good colleges, Reich says, “the real scandal is not bribery by a few wealthy parents but how commonplace it has become for almost all wealthy parents to shell out big bucks for essay tutors, testing tutors, admissions counselors, and ‘enrichment’ courses designed to get their kids into the college of their choice” (p. 169). Let me see if I understand this. Bribery is not the problem; the problem, Reich would have us believe, is that parents are resorting to LEGITIMATE methods to help their kids get into college. What??? I could go on and on, but you get the point. Reich’s arguments are sloppy, and he plays fast and loose with the facts. **I originally posted this review back in June of 2020. And for a while it was the top-rated critical review. Amazon, however, removed the review without notifying me. After I noticed it was gone, I contacted them repeatedly to find out why, and they never answered me. This is ironic considering that in my review, I defend Amazon against Reich’s baseless attacks against the company.