Money: How the Destruction of the Dollar Threatens the Global Economy — And What We Can Do about It by Steve Forbes with Elizabeth Ames

by

In Money, Steve Forbes provides a brief history on the development of money and monetary systems, and then spends a lot of time explaining his opinion about the recessions in the 2000s””its causes, consequences, and fixes. It should be no surprise that Forbes argues that loose money and over-regulation of the financial markets–not the opposite–are what caused our recent financial difficulties, and he traces the source of trouble to the decoupling of the dollar from a gold standard.

In the period since the Federal Reserve began meddling with the economy (1913) and the U.S. abandoned the gold standard (1973), government (and individual) debt has exploded, the purchasing power of the dollar has plummeted, and our economy has been subjected to a roller coaster ride of booms and busts, including the recent recession in the 2000s. To remedy our economic sickness and usher in an era of growth and stability, Forbes argues, we should return to a sound monetary system based on a gold standard.

Forbes spends a lot of time explaining that as a medium of exchange money has no inherent value; its purpose is to serve as a measurement of the value of other things. The government has (or should have, rather) an interest in setting and maintaining a consistent means of measuring value. Forbes writes, “œJust as we need to be sure of the number of inches in a foot””or the minutes in an hour””people in the economy must be certain that their money is an accurate measure of worth. When the value of money fluctuates, as it so often does today, it produces uncertainty in addition to unnatural and often destructive marketplace behavior””artificial booms and busts that breed malignant economic and social consequences.”

Read more

Thoughts on KindleUnlimited

by

KindleUnlimited is a product that as a big reader I am interested in.  But I do not think this is a product for everyone. After a day of playing with it and exploring the titles here are a few thoughts. (Here is my updated thought after 3 months). 1) Unlimited, but only ten titles at … Read more

KindleUnlimited

by

KindleUnlimited is now live.  I am not sure if Amazon moved up their release because of the leak or if it was always planned for release today. Kindleunlimied is a “˜netflix for books’ plan.  For $9.99 a month you get access to more than 600,000 books.  And with about 7000 of those book, there is … Read more

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

by

The Complete Sherlock Holmes: The Heirloom Collection is indeed the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. All four of his novels are included as are all of his short stories. From reading the novels and many of the short stories, one can discover exactly how Sherlock and Watson have become the beloved detective and sidekick that we know them as today. You can also see how some images or characteristics of the detective may be more accurate than others.

Admittedly, since the collection is almost sixty hours of listening I read not all of it but A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hounds of Baskerville, all of the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a few from the Memoirs of Sherlock of Holmes, including the one where he supposedly dies along with Moriarty, and the short story entitled The Empty House, which is the one in which he makes his triumphant return. It is my opinion that no adaptation or at least no adaptation of the 21st Century has gotten the character of Sherlock Holmes wholly correct. Some adaptations, especially the older ones, have painted him as simply serious crime solver. Some make him out to be an anti-social, strange inventor and boxer/badass (Sherlock Holmes movies of 2009 and 2011). Others turn him into a genius that is so weird that he could possible suffer from Asperger’s and couldn’t function without the help from Watson (BBC’s Sherlock). It is my impression that while many of these characteristics are based on Conan Doyle’s original Holmes that they are exaggerated depending on the focus or feel of the movie.

Read more

1000 Book Review Posts

by

Yesterday marked the 1000th Book Review post. I want to thank the contributors that have helped me get to this point, including Emily Flury and Seth Simmons who are the two that have contributed the most posts. Since starting MrShields.com in 2009 and moving to Bookwi.se in 2011, there have been roughly 750,000 pages views, … Read more

Strip Tease by Carl Hiaasen

by

Summary: A farcical skewering of politicians, money and regular people trying to make a living.

A few months ago Audible was having a buy one get one free sale.  One of the options was Strip Tease. I couldn’t really find anything to match with the other book that I did want, so I threw it in my cart as a free extra.

I have read two other Hiaasen books, but it has been a while.  I remembered them as funny, sort of mysteries concerned primarily with local Florida issues.  After I was about half way through Strip Tease I went back and read my previous reviews.  I was not kind.  I thought the characters were basically unlikable and while the writing was ok, there was very little redeeming value in the books.  And basically I feel the same about Strip Tease.

Strip Tease is primarily about Erin, a young divorced mother who is working as a stripper because it is the only way she can earn enough money to pay her lawyer to try and get back her daughter from her dirtbag ex-husband.

Read more

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

by

Ready Player One

Summary: A classic young adult quest novel based in 2044, but built on 1980s culture.  A fun book for both adults that lived the 1980s and teens that were years from being born.

My Sister-in-Law introduced me to this book.  Published last August it was several lists of the best of 2011, but I had not heard of it until her recommendation.

Wade is living in 2044.  The US has degenerated into lawlessness.  The world economy is in ruins because of huge shortages in oil, energy, water and food.

The world is falling apart, but there is one consolation, Oasis.  The Oasis is an immersive online world.  Most people now live more in the Oasis than in the real world.  Students go to school in the Oasis, adults work in the Oasis, everyone escapes reality in the Oasis.

The creator of the Oasis is James Halliday.  Five years before the start of the book, Halliday died and left his enormous fortune and the entire company to whomever solves his puzzle.  Wade (his avatar is named Parzival in the Oasis) and many others have made it their goal to solve the puzzle.  It is their lottery, their work, their only hope.

Read more

The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic by James KA Smith

by

1404896221_0.pngSummary: Maybe our need for interpretation and our finiteness as humans is a feature of our creation, not a consequence of the fall.

The more I read James KA Smith, the more I appreciate his perspective.

The Fall of Interpretation was Smith’s first book.  It was an adaptation of his Ph.D. dissertation that he lightly edited and re-released in 2012.  Last fall, it was briefly on sale, and I picked it up because it was written by Smith, without really knowing what it was about.

Like normal for Smith, this is a book that has way more philosophy than I understand.  But also, like normal, I can follow the argument without always understanding some of the minor details.

Smith’s argument is “To be human is to interpret, to encounter the world and entities within the world” and “something of an encounter conditioned by the situationally of human finitude”.  He is suggesting that our finitude is not something to be overcome, but something to be embraced as a feature of our creation.  (Yes, the language can be a bit overly academic, but it is understandable.)

The problem is that,

“At root (and roots, of course, are usually buried, unseen and hidden) the linking of interpretation to fallenness may be understood as the product of a dominant Western interpretive tradition, a broadly neoplatonic understanding of creation and Fall, an understanding that is itself an interpretation. I believe that this tradition, which has significantly influenced aspects of the Christian tradition, remains plagued by an incipient Neoplatonism (or gnosticism) that continues to construe creational finitude and human be-ing as “essentially” fallen and therefore ties hermeneutics to such a corrupted condition.”

What was important about this book for me was his discussion of the finiteness of humanity.

Read more

MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors by Richard Hooker

by

Summary: Basis of the movie and beloved TV show, and well mined by them both for ideas.

Every night my senior year of college MASH was on at 10 PM and was watched by whoever happened to be around.  Long before that I had seen most of the episodes, but it is a testament to its quality that college kids were devoted fans to a show that started the year before most of us were born.

Last week the novel was the Audible deal of the day so I picked it up.  And mostly I enjoyed it.

Read more