by David Cay Johnston
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Product Description
The bestselling author of Perfectly Legal returns with a powerful new exposé
How does a strong and growing economy lend itself to job uncertainty, debt, bankruptcy, and economic fear for a vast number of Americans? Free Lunch provides answers to this great economic mystery of our time, revealing how today’s government policies and spending reach deep into the wallets of the many for the benefit of the wealthy few.
Johnston cuts through the official version of events and shows how, under the guise of deregulation, a whole new set of regulations quietly went into effect— regulations that thwart competition, depress wages, and reward misconduct. From how George W. Bush got rich off a tax increase to a $100 million taxpayer gift to Warren Buffett, Johnston puts a face on all of the dirty little tricks that business and government pull. A lot of people appear to be getting free lunches—but of course there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and someone (you, the taxpayer) is picking up the bill.
Johnston’s many revelations include:
• How we ended up with the most expensive yet inefficient health-care system in the world
• How homeowners’ title insurance became a costly, deceitful, yet almost invisible oligopoly
• How our government gives hidden subsidies for posh golf courses
• How Paris Hilton’s grandfather schemed to retake the family fortune from a charity for poor children
• How the Yankees and Mets owners will collect more than $1.3 billion in public funds
In these instances and many more, Free Lunch shows how the lobbyists and lawyers representing the most powerful 0.1 percent of Americans manipulated our government at the expense of the other 99.9 percent.
With his extraordinary reporting, vivid stories, and sharp analysis, Johnston reveals the forces that shape our everyday economic lives—and shows us how we can finally make things better.
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 excellent book, highly recommended, 2008-06-27
Well written, informative and each chapter is a separate story about the transfer of public wealth in to the hands of the very rich. A real eye opener that every citizen should read, it will change the way you look at government.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
How "Special Interests" Pick Your Pocket to Create Billion-Dollar Fortunes, 2008-05-14
I wanted to lose my lunch on the shoes of any politician or executive named in this book after reading what David Cay Johnston had to say. Unless you want to be cheated forever (and for more money), read this book and let your "elected" and "appointed" representatives know that you won't stand for it any more.
George Washington, as usual, got it right: If we allow political parties to exist rather than looking out for everyone's interests in a non-partisan way, the parties will sell out the public interest for pennies to get money to run election campaigns and conduct party politics.
It's popular now to say we need a change in Washington, a change that involves changing political parties in charge of governing. Wrong! Really, how foolish can we get? Can't anyone remember what Washington said?
In the meantime, you can read the excellent exposes in David Cay Johnston's book to help you realize that your Federal, state, and local legislators in the United States are selling out your and your children's interests to curry favor with those who will give them large campaign contributions. Yes, there's some corruption but mostly it seems to be related to wanting power and more power . . . and not understanding what the costs will be.
Once again, we see tales of how the fig leaf of "free markets" is invoked to put in changes that cause "rigged markets" with vastly increased profits. My favorite example in the book is how President Bush and his pal, "Kenny Boy" Lay, from Enron rigged the electricity markets so that instead of consumers paying the lowest price anyone was willing to sell electricity for (a Dutch auction) the highest price bid is paid to all (which means they take turns putting in phony high-priced bids to rig prices way above where they would be in either a free or a regulated market).
Here are some of the more interesting cases in the book:
1. How famous Scottish golf courses were re-created through indirect and direct taxpayer subsidies in a remote part of Oregon that is easily accessible only by corporate jet.
2. How public parks were gobbled up to build the new Yankee Stadium in New York City and parks in poor areas everywhere were left untended to favor richer areas.
3. Ways that college and graduate school students are cheated on their interest rates for student loans.
4. How burglar alarm monitoring companies are subsidized to earn big profits by free police services covering false alarms while response rates to real crimes decline.
5. How John Snow stopped repairing the track at CSX causing deaths with no risk that any costs would be incurred by CSX. You, the taxpayer, paid instead for his willful neglect.
6. How many "high profile" politicians including Rudy Giuliani have ignored anti-corruption laws and take huge gifts and trips from lobbyists.
7. How two leading sporting goods chains persuade governments to subsidize their stores with tax breaks worth a multiple of the total construction cost of each store.
8. How "good guy" Warren Buffett is out for all the tax breaks he can get, regardless of the public cost and harm to the local community in Buffalo.
9. How "required" title insurance creates one of America's most profitable industries by bribing banks and lawyers with money you pay when you buy a home.
10. How the California courts let Barron Hilton seize the assets of a charity that his father had established to help the poor. So if you like Paris Hilton's clothes, realize that she paid for them in part with money that was destined for those who need clothes . . . any kind of clothes.
11. We've all read about the massive amounts of money made in Russia and elsewhere by politicians selling off government operations at bargain prices to their pals. Well the same thing has been going on here with selling off municipal utilities and non-profit foundations. It's like a banana republic.
12. You'll also read about how creating "deregulated" utilities allows companies to shuffle around costs between their subsidiaries so that rate payers pay for the same construction costs twice.
13. You will be reminded of President Bush's misstatements and keeping the lid on more accurate reports about what his drug benefit plan for seniors would cost. But what's a few hundred billion for a guy who spent a trillion dollars (so far) in Iraq?
Most people would probably like this book better if it had a more partisan tone (how the Republicans stole from the poor and middle class to make the rich a lot richer). Instead, the book points at individuals (a more accurate way to assess the sources of corruption) including two-term president "the peoples' choice" George W. Bush and invokes spiritual rules for suggesting other ways of making choices.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
 Disapppointing follow up to "Perfectly Legal", 2008-05-08
David Cay Johnston's book "Perfectly Legal" was a masterpiece of muckraking which opened my eyes to the way the game is rigged in this country in favor of the rich. The book drew on his experience as a tax writer for the New York Times and presented, in tremendous detail and with great amounts of evidence, exact and precise ways in which the tax code has been rigged. It's layered and powerful - "Perfectly Legal" is an amazing book and I highly recommend it.
"Free Lunch" expands on this theme (rich people rigging this country's government to help them) feels like more of a polemic. The writing is shakier and the fact-based evidence is disguised behind a wall of obvious disgust and contempt for the people taking from the many to give to the wealthy and obscenely wealthy. I don't blame him, in fact I am disgusted by it as well, but it means that this book will not have the same impact as "Perfectly Legal". It is more "preaching to the choir" if you will.
The book also seems to bounce around too much. Some topics are covered in depth quite a bit while some not as much. Important points, like the fact that roughly 100% of the increase of value of sports teams has come from taxpayer subsidized stadiums, or that increased funding of libraries, parks, etc. could provide a useful buttress against gang crime, are not given adequate depth in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong - this is a valuable book and I do hope Johnston keeps up this important work. There is lots of good stuff in here, and it's critical more people know what politicians really mean when they talk about "free markets" and the like. But "Free Lunch" is not as convincing as "Perfectly Legal" and therein lies its greatest flaw.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Smiting the greedy, 2008-05-08
David Cay Johnston is a crack reporter with a moralist's passion. In Free Lunch, he empties his notebook from a long and distinguished career, at the New York Times and other papers, exposing the how the rich and corporations use the power of government to line their pockets at the expense of the rest of us. The result is a loosely organized, but always compelling, compendium of some of the greatest heists of the last few decades, from taxpayer funding of sports arenas to electricity deregulation to the public subsidies Wal-Mart and other retail giants win to put their competitors out of business.
Johnston is a throwback, a Republican of the Teddy Roosevelt, Bull Moose variety, who lives by the wisdom of Adam Smith and the Bible. He understands the force of greed and its power to undermine free markets, especially when it enlists government in its service. He is appalled by the misconduct of corporate executives who jigger stock options and expose the public to harm, and by a government that looks the other way. He is outraged that the rich use government to take from those with less. And when you finish reading Free Lunch, you will be too.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Ready to be shocked by our government's spending habits?, 2008-05-06
The rich and wealthy elite of America are getting tons of free breaks, but who's picking up the bill? "Free Lunch: How The Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves At Government Expense (And Stick You With the Bill)" states how the common taxpayer doesn't gain any benefit through all of this and is simply paying for everything. "Free Lunch: How The Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves At Government Expense (And Stick You With the Bill)" outlines horrifying facts such as America having the most expensive but least efficient health care system in the industrialized world, subsidies for high class golf courses, and how corporations such as Major League Baseball teams get billions of dollars from the government. "Free Lunch: How The Wealthiest Enrich Themselves At Government Expense (And Stick You With the Bill)" is highly recommended for economics shelves and anyone ready to be shocked by our government's spending habits.
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