9/06 : Empire of Debt-The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis

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BOOKREVIEW 1

Empire of Debt

The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis

by Addison Wiggin & Bill Bonner

The Rise Of An Epic Financial Crisis
Controversial financial writers Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin are dumbfounded by the way American politics and the U.S. economy have shifted over the last decade, from a time when "conservatives" believed in economic freedom and fiscal restraint, to today when many conservatives proudly promote unfettered deficit spending and military adventurism. In Empire of Debt, the authors share their amazement by highlighting recent as well as historical changes and providing a wry but witty look at the state of the American "empire" and its slouch toward bankruptcy.

Although many will take issue with their cynical perspective on the United States and its economic future, Bonner and Wiggin see the current state of the American empire as "a comic opera that seems as though it might veer into tragedy at any moment." In Empire of Debt, they describe the consumers, economists, politicians, investors and businessmen who are the richest people on the planet as "hustlers, clowns, rubes and dumbbells" who rely on the savings of poor people from China "just to pay their bills." They argue that all of the restraints and modesty of the early days of America have been replaced by "a vainglorious system of conceit, deceit, debt and delusion."

Empires and Imperialists
The authors take issue with the way America has become an empire, much like the Roman empire, ready to fall due to its corruption and excesses, while revealing its many similarities to other empires. One element of the empire that they point out is the proliferation of imperialists: the people who believe that their culture, society, economy, political system or they are superior to others and have the right to tell other people what to do. In Empire of Debt, the authors warn that an empire "is a monopoly on force. Nature will tolerate it for a while, but sooner or later, the imperial people must revert to being normal people, and the preposterous beliefs that imperial people cherish, also must pass away."

Everything regresses to its mean, the authors explain, so we can expect that as Asian incomes rise, American incomes will fall. They write that Americans are borrowing and spending at incredible rates, and investing without regard for the lessons and patterns of the past. By looking at the current state of the American economy and pointing out the ebb and flow of boom and bust cycles, they offer some help for determining where in the cycle the country currently may be.

One indication that the United States may be at the top of an imperial cycle is the invasion of Iraq. The authors write that in this endeavor, Americans were delusional to believe that by getting a dictator off the backs of the desert tribes there, they will suddenly "start building shopping malls and the women will all start dressing like Britney Spears."

‘The Imperial Agenda'
The authors explain that people never choose to have an empire, "it chooses them. Gradually and unconsciously, their thoughts, beliefs and institutions are refashioned to the imperial agenda." Bonner and Wiggin describe the democracy of the United States as a "delicate flower" that was planted centuries ago by the Founding Fathers and is now being crowded out by "the imperial weed" that has taken over the soil of North America in the 21st century.

Although there is much humor throughout Empire of Debt, its joviality is tempered with numerous charts and lists that depict the excesses and wastefulness of the American system. For example, the authors point out the high costs of "bossing people around" with this statistic: "Federal regulatory costs of $877 billion combined with outlays of $2,292 billion bring the federal government's share of the economy to some 27 percent."

Since all empires must eventually pass away by finding a way to destroy themselves, the authors predict that debt will be the source of America's demise. By examining the "mistakes" of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, a growing trade deficit, and the economic growth of China and other countries, Empire of Debt casts a critical eye on America's confidence and its vulnerable dollar, Treasury bonds, stocks and house prices. By observing many of the indicators that are usually hidden beneath the excesses of an empire, the authors prepare their readers for an inevitable recession, or worse. Their advice? "Buy gold."

Why We Like This Book
Empire of Debt offers readers an iconoclastic yet informative look at the current state of affairs in the United States and compares it to history's similar times. Through satire and profundity, the authors take a serious look at the difficulties facing the nation today and make sense of them through historical juxtapositions that reveal them in an unusually compelling light. With humor, smarts and a deep respect for the lessons of the past, the authors turn the horrors of debt into a fascinating tome. Copyright (c) 2006 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

http://www.summary.com/book-reviews/_/Empire-of-Debt/

 

BOOKREVIEW 2

Empire of Debt, by Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin

I presume that most readers are aware that the federal government recently increased its debt ceiling—and promptly went on another spending spree. Most thoughtful individuals, upon hearing the news, probably shook their heads and sighed. I suspect the contrarians Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin cackled with laughter. That's just one of the things I appreciate about contrarians. In addition to often providing a nice jolt of humor where it's least expected, they often shake us more mundane folks out of our routines, and cause us to look more closely at phenomena or ideas we'd either already passed judgment upon, or passed over as inconsequential.

Under a patriotic-looking dust jacket and the rather dry title Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis, Bonner and Wiggin have presented a contrarian paean to history. In sixteen chapters organized into four sections, they show how attending to Dead Men Talking—the title of the first chapter—can help guide individuals through today's choppy waters and, quite likely, through the unseen but anticipated circumstances of the future. And they often do it with words highly likely to appeal to those with an anarchistic or voluntaryistic bent:

And what about the millions of dead Americans who immigrated to the United States to find freedom; what do they think of the country now? They came believing that if they minded their own business, they would be left alone to do what they wanted. But now, every pettifogging Pecksniff with a government service (GS) rating is on their grandchildren's case. ....

Each generation seems to think they are the first to stand upright, that their mothers and fathers walked on four legs and howled at the moon! Even when the living feign admiration for same [sic] fallen forebear, it is usually without paying of the least attention to what the poor schmuck actually said or knew. The dead leave us their memoirs, their gospels, their histories, and their constitutions—for what is a constitution but a pact with the dead?—and we ignore them. We seem to believe that all that they suffered, all they went through, all the mistakes they made, hold no more interest for us than a comment by a sunstruck contestant in a TV survival show: This is . . . like . . . weird . . . (p. 29, emphasis mine)

Bonner's and Wiggin's style is as contrarian as many of their ideas. Their dry humor, sometimes self-deprecating and sometimes sardonic, may be off-putting to some, especially when its target is an admired figure, but the wit helps the bad news go down, and helps one wade through the sometimes repetitious 300-plus pages. And make no mistake, the news is bad: America's empire of debt has been a long time in the making, and according to some, appears to be on the edge of collapsing. Having been raised by parents who experienced the Depression, and currently doing occasional work digging up economic statistics, I didn't require a lot of convincing. Thus for me, much of the value of Empire of Debt is in the back story—the history leading to today's outrageous profligacy. It's refreshing to see prominent authors lampoon not only former leaders, but those who build and maintain their undeserved thrones:

Many of the best American presidents—such as Garfield, Harding, and Arthur—are rarely even mentioned. Lincoln, Wilson, and Theodore Roosevelt, on the other hand, are routinely described as national heroes. Nobody really knows which president was good for the nation and which was bad. .... But the historians who guess about such matters have a disturbing tilt—not toward mediocrity, but toward imbecility. (p. 94)

Joining with Jim Bovard, they also question the claim that to be a democracy is to be peaceful:

Even today, people still believe that democracies are more peaceful than other forms of government. The United States of America maintains that her form of democracy is so important to the peace and prosperity of the world, she not only invites other nations to join her, she insists. And yet the point has hardly ever been seriously addressed and never proven.

What we do know is that since democracy has become widespread, there has been little letup in the incidence of war and probably an increase in its violence. Unlike the subjects of a tyrant or a monarch, the citizens of a democratic regime are more fully and readily engaged in wartime. When people feel threatened, or feel that they have a stake in the conflict, they are more inclined to devote their energy and resources to victory. Popular newspapers and television work them up to violence easily. (p. 107)

Tying together military and monetary madness, Bonner and Wiggin neatly encapsulate the recent onslaught of liberty:

One of the most riveting features is the remarkable way the masses rush not only to their own ruin, but to the elimination of the institutions they claim to cherish. In America, they claim to love freedom but at the first imperial trumpet blow—the war to make the world safe for democracy, the Cold War to contain the red menace, or the War on Terror—they line up to get registered, inspected, searched, proved approved, and certified. There seems to be no violation of their liberty so great that they would protest nor any violation of anyone else's that they wouldn't applaud, and no expenditure of funds so extravagant that they would bother to ask questions. (p. 79)

And while both have presumably added to their wealth over the past years, that doesn't stop them from offering sobering insights into market cycles that also apply more broadly:

[I]t is feelings that move the market. Like bilgewater, they tend to slosh from starboard to port and back, in short cycles and in long ones. In the end, they give us the averages—the normal, the ordinary, the balance that keeps the boat from sinking altogether.

The same is true in all areas of collective action. The crowd can do no real thinking or real analysis. It has no private, insider information. It is not because of logical, objective reasoning that the mob of investors deems a stock worth 10 times earnings one day and 20 times earnings two years later. Nor does logical reasoning lead one generation to favor a republican form of government while the next happily consents to a dictator or an empire. (pp. 324-5)

Weary as I've become of ostensibly pro-freedom individuals who see nothing wrong with what Bonner and Wiggin term pax dollarium (and sometimes pax dollarum, presumably a spell-check and proofreader failure), their brief but spot-on treatment of gold was most appreciated:

Gold has a long history. And during its history, many was the time that humans were tempted to replace it with other forms of money—which they believed would be more convenient, more modern, and most importantly, more accommodating. Gold is hard to find and hard to bring up out of the earth. By its nature, the quantity of gold is always limited.

Paper money, by contrast, offers irresistible possibilities. The list of bright paper rivals is long and colorful. You will find hundreds of examples, from assignats to zlotys, and from imperial purple to beer suds brown. But the story of paper money is short and predictable. Since the invention of the printing press, a new paper dollar or franc can be brought out at negligible cost. Nor does it cost much to increase the money supply by a factor of 10 or 100—simply add zeros. It may seem obvious, but adding zeros does not add value. . . . .

The trouble with gold is that it turns its back on world improvers, empire builders, and do-gooders. It is money that no central bank promotes and none destroys. It is money that exists only in a tangible form, a real metal—a number on the periodic table. Gold goes up and down, just like other kinds of money, say economists. Which is true. You can protect yourself from inflation in other ways, say the speculators. True again. Gold pays no dividends or interest, say the investors. True.

Nor will gold cure baldness or add inches to your most private part. Even as money, gold may not be perfect. But it is better money than anything else. (pp. 328-9)

Given how frequently Bonner and Wiggin poke at targets bound to be sacred to someone—past presidents (including Ronald Reagan), Alan Greenspan, the war on terror, the current real estate market, the stock market, and the almighty dollar among them—it's surprising on one hand that Empire of Debt has sold so well. On the other, however, Addison and Bonner have earned strong reputations in the financial world, so it's hard to ignore what they say, however unpleasant it may be. If you're a regular reader of their Daily Reckoning newsletter, Empire of Debt may not pack as strong a punch, as the points have probably been presented there, perhaps as frequently as they're repeated in the book. Scattered typos and verbatim repetitions (including an entire paragraph, and a singular phrase repeated twice on the same page) may annoy some readers. Nonetheless, I found Empire of Debt very informative and cleverly written. Arguably, the most valuable idea Bonner and Wiggin present is a broad caution each of us would do well to remember from time to time:

Distilled information tends to be expressed as moral interdictions. Don't steal. Don't lie. Don't buy expensive stocks or sell cheap ones. Don't expect to get something for nothing. Don't neglect your spouse. .... Each don't represents lessons learned by previous generations. For every don't, there must be a million sorry souls burning in Hell.

Undistilled information, on the other hand, is nothing more than noise—newspaper headlines, TV babble, cocktail chatter, the latest innovation, the latest business secret, the latest fashion. It is public information, backed by no real experience or private insights. It is not useless. It is worse than useless, for it misleads people into thinking they know something. (pp. 34-35)

For all their self-deprecation, these two witty contrarians appear to be on to something. Now if I could only laugh about what's coming our way as they do ...

http://www.endervidualism.com/salon/books/bonner.htm

Meet the Authors

• 

  Bill Bonner

  Since founding Agora Inc. in 1979, Bill Bonner has found success and garnered camaraderie in numerous communities and industries. A man of many talents, his entrepreneurial savvy, unique writings, philanthropic undertakings, and preservationist activities have all been recognized and awarded by some of America's most respected authorities. Along with Addison Wiggin, his friend and colleague, Bill has written two New York Times best-selling books, Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt. Both works have been critically acclaimed internationally. With political journalist Lila Rajiva, he wrote his third New York Times best-selling book, Mobs, Messiahs and Markets, which offers concrete advice on how to avoid the public spectacle of modern finance. Since 1999, Bill has been a daily contributor and the driving force behind The Daily Reckoning . Bill's most recent book Dice Have No Memory Big Bets and Bad Economics from Paris to the Pampas was released in April 2011.
• 

  Addison Wiggin

  Addison Wiggin is the executive publisher of Agora Financial, LLC, a fiercely independent economic forecasting and financial research firm. He’s the creator and editorial director of Agora Financial’s daily 5 Min. Forecast and editorial director of The Daily Reckoning. Wiggin is the founder of Agora Entertainment, executive producer and co-writer of I.O.U.S.A., which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, the 2009 Critics Choice Award for Best Documentary Feature, and was also shortlisted for a 2009 Academy Award. He is the author of the companion book of the film I.O.U.S.A.and his second edition of The Demise of the Dollar… and Why it’s Even Better for Your Investments was just fully revised and updated. Wiggin is a three-time New York Times best-selling author whose work has been recognized by The New York Times Magazine, The Economist, Worth, The New York Times, The Washington Post as well as major network news programs. He also co-authored international bestsellers Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt with Bill Bonner.

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