Money Matters
Train, John
might lead some to despair, and on the whole this book tells it well. However, author Alan Ebenstein seems sometimes to forget the distinction between telling a story and emptying your...
...Napoleon detested and exploited his bankers...
...In reality, Teddy Roosevelt bashed J.P...
...In other words, power comes in many forms--that of Mussolini, or the Pope, or Marilyn Monroe, or Marc Rich-which are quite hard to commensurate...
...Wilbur Duberstein, Esq., San Ramon, CA...
...Morgan, not vice versa...
...Today our military presence stabilizes Asia, where Europe is no help...
...What readers say: * "What an astonishing book...
...Answer: An immense compendium of what has already been written on this Friedrich Hayek or a wordy mechanical recitation of the origins of the First World War...
...Then, however, he drifts into controversial ground...
...the Rothschilds sucked up to the crowned heads in return for profits and titles...
...The reasons this will not happen are threefold: An ideological embarrassment about being seen to wield imperial power...
...Did we really need a discussion of Karl Marx's criticism of John Stuart Mill in a biography of T-his book tells us how money makes the world go round: Wall Street manipulating the White House, the Rothschilds dictating to the chanceries, Ouvrard squeezing Napoleon...
...Power grows out of the barrel of a gun," said Chairman Mao, but with money you can buy power in the form of Mafia muscle or a private army...
...Martin's Press, 320 pages, $29.95 Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of Basic Economics (Basic Books, 2000...
...Also, alas, less concise wisdom than on some single pages of Keynes or Schumpeter...
...Surprise...
...Political uncertainty loosens the bonds of confidence between creditor and debtor...
...His biography of Hayek is obviously a very well researched book, but that does not relieve a writer of the duty to be selective and to avoid going off on tangents...
...What tripe...
...to step up to the plate and impose a Pax Americana on the rest of the world...
...Pete Schmidt, Magnolia, AR...
...and this is the crucial point...
...Ferguson forgets that the U.S...
...Add $4.95 shipping and handling, plus sales tax for CA delivery...
...Available in bookstores everywhere or by calling 1-888-219-4747...
...subject...
...Ferguson tells us that efficient tax collection (e.g., through a permanent bureaucracy rather than using tax farmers) lets states make war on a larger scale than otherwise...
...If this book will not make you smarter, nothing will...
...Between the Alps and a Hard Place sets the record straight...
...30 days refund/return, except for shipping and handling...
...This book's use of"nexus"-bond or chain or tie--is also from Carlyle: Money and power are linked...
...But this one will do very well in the meantime and it sets a standard that will be a challenge to successors...
...Hugh Cunningham, DDS, Albany, GA...
...Information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom...
...We might say today that an economy is a complex system with so many variables as to be unmanageable from the center...
...The trouble with this whole approach is that in early times much of what central governments ever did was wage war...
...For cash Rich can get pardoned and Mussolini can square the Pope...
...However, author Alan Ebenstein seems sometimes to forget the distinction between telling a story and emptying your notebooks...
...The Europeans can give an example by shouldering their fair share of the burden of defending their own neighborhood...
...Lloyd Hammett, Winnfield, LA...
...HOW YOU TOO CAN DEVELOP A RAZOR-SHARP MIND AND A STEEL-TRAP 1IMORY aps Even Xt u4fr Days rardo Joffe Turn to page 443 of thts book and see 'how you con get it for oboolutelyfrotl 8 1/2" x 11" - 454 pages, $29.95 *The "better deal": Buy three books for the price of two - $59.90...
...One can almost hear those brain cells crackle...
...Carlyle held that history is an unpredictable, chaotic process...
...Only $29.95* *But see below for an even better deal...
...The old paradox about putting several chimps in front of typewriters in the cellar of the British Museum Library and having them type away until they produce a perfect First Folio of Hamlet is paralleled in reverse by this situation, hiring a bevy of readers to dig out everything relevant to a topic and thereupon stringing it all together...
...There follow pages and pages of figures setting forth the supposed proportion of total government outlays dedicated to military spending in many countries over the ages...
...L Basic Books, 552 pages, $30 The Hon...
...So how does one kind operate on THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 0 Summer Reading Issue 2001 John Train Money Matters NIALL FERGUSON'S THE CASH NEXUS: MONEY AND POWER IN THE MODERN WORLD What happens if an Oxford history (not economics) don collects a very large advance to engage a research staff and produce a volume on power and money...
...Mention order code 1092Y147 and give Visa/MC # and expiration date, or send check for $29.95...
...In Soviet jargon, the "monopolies" called the tune and the politicians danced...
...Alas, the figures, in addition to being suspect, do not necessarily distinguish between feudal, conscript or professional armies, or direct costs versus pensions and infrastructure...
...Between the Alps and a Hard Place sets the record straight...
...in other matters the citizens mostly fended for themselves...
...has been steadily at war for generations, always to repel aggression against another country, including his own: The first and second World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan (by proxy), the Gulf, the Balkans...you name it.This effort saved Europe from Hitler, and, after a 50-year duel that has barely ended, from the Stalin gang...
...The review section on arithmetic alone is worth many times the price of this book...
...Sid Tuchman, Indianapolis, IN...
...What is one to make of the 552 pages of this opus...
...He pleads, believe it or not, for the U.S...
...St...
...But can any reader not be already aware that the threat of war depresses bond prices, war being inflationary if not hyperinflationary...
...He is a regular columnist for the Financial Times...
...No money, no Swiss guards," said Racine...
...This one must contain ten thousand figures, plus over a thousand endnotes, and a 40-page bibliography...
...The Berezovsky gang are testing the rule...We'll see what happens...
...But let us return to the original question: What is The Cash Nexus about...
...I have myself stated the whole conception thus: Money is a fungible unit of power...
...He concludes that it "fluctuates quite substantially according to whether or not a state is at war...
...This is marvelous...
...I already feel a whole lot smarter than before I immersed myself in Joffe's 16-Level Paradigm...
...If the reader takes only one thing from this book, then I hope it is the realization that, even in such dry-as-dust entities as bond yields, Carlyle's everlasting chaos of being may be discerned...
...REGNERY PUBLISHING, INC...
...124 another...
...Joffe's book makes math not only enjoyable, but highly rewarding...
...In other words, the work fails to sustain its portentous thesis...
...He "came to realize that the bond market was interesting precisely because it concerned itself with the bonds...between states...
...and a pusillanimous fear of military casualties...
...Ferguson tells us that it started out as a history of the international bond market...
...Answer: In and out of money...
...Gosh...
...There are more quite useful statistics here than in many a shelf of works on economics...
...One encounters an example of the method quite early, starting on page 40, when Ferguson tries to figure out how much defense really costs...
...He then, more usefiully, attempts to relate military spending to GNP in many times and places...
...But the whole conception is suspect as to the modern world...
...For that matter, war has killed off many a currency and its bonds completely...
...Available in bookstores everywhere or by calling 1-888-219-4747 ts biggest campaign contributor, and contradicted established American policy toward Switzerland...
...John Train, author of Money Masters of Our Time, writes on foreign affairs and military matters for the Wall Street Journal and other publications...
...But you'll have to do some heavy mental lifting...
...Best think of it as a resource...
...Order directly from the publisher by toll-free phone (800) 600-2777, by fax (415) 356-7804, or by mail...
...an exaggerated notion of what Russia and China would do in response...
...REGNERY PUBLISHING, INC...
...advance books division of jomira/advance 470 Third St., #211, San Francisco, CA 94107 The Truth about Switzerland oted author Angelo Codevilla shows that the Clinton administration's pressure on Swiss banks to pay reparations for the Holocaust was a service rendered to its biggest campaign contributor, and contradicted established American policy toward Switzerland...
...Perhaps it's best put another way: What happens if an Oxford history (not economics) don collects a very large advance to engage a research staff and produce a volume on power and money...
...A modern intrusive government like ours, which manipulates every part of our lives, will, of course, spend a lower proportion of its income on defense, so the information we have just tried to absorb is useless-as, in the end Ferguson admits: "The above figures...tell us hardly anything meaningful at all...
...nor between the various layers of taxation...
...Someone may someday write a better biography of Hayek...
...Probably this year's most important self-improvement book...
Vol. 34 • July 2001 • No. 6
