What's What and Who's Who

Now isn’t that an interesting title? I hope the content will be interesting also!

I thought I would mention some books that I have heard reviewed on my favorite programs:

·         Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth

·         Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Saving the World by Anand Giridharadas

·         Searching for the Stars on an Island in Maine by Alan Lightman 
The first book is about the concept of reducing spending when there is an economic downturn which is the immediate impulse of governments and which has proven time and again to be a false step. It is a belief that I have long held and I was very pleased to hear this author speak with authority on this subject (he’s an economist).

The second book was also fascinating (in listening to the author’s discussion) wherein he suggests that for those magnanimous CEO’s of huge companies such as Google, Amazon, etc. to announce they are giving away a billion dollars to invest in inner city schools (or whatever pet project they have chosen) is not serving the cause at all. Indeed he suggests (rightly in my opinion) that the fact that they have never paid their fair share of taxes in the first place they have actually caused the problem in the first place.

As I have suggested for years we look at problems upside down and we ask the wrong type of questions. This is me talking and not the authors above. For example, a question that drives me crazy is “who is going to pay for it” because the answer is obvious and the question is loaded. Anderson Cooper kept asking the question of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on “60 Minutes” the other night. A more intelligent and cogent question would be “who are THE taxpayers who are going to pay for it”.

The third book is a curious mix of physics and spirituality and the author was a very interesting speaker. I saw him on “Story in the Public Square” which is a PBS series running on Sunday mornings. In some respects I think the book has ideas also explored in Deepak Chopra’s “How to Know God”. I was amazed to hear him posit an idea that my father suggest to us some 50 years ago (I have always said my Dad was the smartest person I ever knew)! The idea? That our “personal” atoms exist after we die and go out into the universe and perhaps some day, some way, they end up in another being (not all of them, one or two, maybe more). He also reaffirmed my position that as limited human beings we have difficulty completely embracing the concept of infinity.

I am hoping to read some of these books, indeed all of them, by the end of the year but for now . . . let me enjoy The Long Valley and the ordinary mishaps of mice and men.