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★★☆☆☆
A Flawed and Self-Serving Analysis
The main argument of this book is that extreme inequality creates an incentive for wealthy people to invest. Conard thinks the world would actually be better if we had twice as much concentration of wealth as we have now, because then there would be an even bigger payoff from innovation and more talented people would want to take risks. As Conard sees it, investors may get super rich from new innovations, but consumers benefit from those innovations even more. There are a couple of problems. First, extreme inequality leaves the vast majority of consumers with less to spend. Conard sees innovation coming entirely from rich people, but actually innovation occurs only when investors see a strong consumer market. Would Apple have developed the iPhone it it did not believe there were enough people who could buy the product? You need BOTH investors and consumers. Consumers have to have enough money in their pockets to create strong market demand. For more explanation of this, see Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, which focuses on how stagnant incomes have left the middle and working classes with insufficient income to drive the economy. The second problem is that Conard tells this fairy-tale about how everything wealthy people do with their money is productive and economically efficient. This is silly. Wealthy people regularly use their money to game the system in ways are are highly detrimental to the broad economy. To write a book like this and completely ignore the very real issues of crony capitalism and capture of the political process by a tiny elite seems quite disingenuous. The book is, in short, a very rich (and lucky) guy slapping himself on the back and trying to invent an economic philosophy that serves his ego.
June 2012 · Books
the product in question
Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You've Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong
4.2★ · 129 ratings, as of 2023
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