A sometimes abstract, sometimes philosophical and sometimes anecdotal mélange of chapters not always easy to follow, but...
A sweeping examination of the relationships between humans and money.
New York Times editorial board member Porter is fascinated by what individuals pay for tangible commodities. After a chapter devoted to consumer goods, the author covers a wide range of topics, examining what people in the United States and other societies believe a human life is worth, how to value happiness, whether a free lunch really exists and how to rethink capitalist economies when predictable market behaviors become out of kilter. The author finds that husbands pay for brides in some cultures to maximize reproductive success. In other cultures, parents abort female fetuses to avoid the costs of marrying off their daughters. Porter also asks why it has evolved that employers pay workers rather than enslave them, and why many wealthy individuals believe their most valuable commodity is scarce free time. Given the power of pricing to change behaviors, the author is surprised that governments generally avoid price manipulations to control the behaviors of the governed. He marvels at the differences between the U.S. government and various European governments regarding the price of gasoline for motorized vehicles. In the United States, relatively cheap gas prices lead to urban sprawl and dangerous air-pollution levels, while in Europe, higher taxation on consumer purchases of gas has helped control sprawl and pollution. Porter writes that global warming is partly a failure of polluting nations' economies to place a proper price on the endowments of nature. Failing to determine socially conscious prices demonstrates a lack of will, not a lack of science.
A sometimes abstract, sometimes philosophical and sometimes anecdotal mélange of chapters not always easy to follow, but almost always interesting.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59184-362-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
A provocative contribution to the energy debate.
Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Abraham advocates a new power-generation strategy for the next 20 years.
The author suggests that the United States derive its energy from a combination of sources, including nuclear energy, natural gas and coal gasification and hydroelectricity, solar power, wind power and other renewable sources. However, Abraham warns that competing priorities—increasing energy independence, maintaining low energy prices and the not-in-my-backyard syndrome, among others—combined with what he deems to be irrational fears about nuclear energy have prevented a competent approach to dealing with the problem of global warming: “The contradictions,” he writes, “always emerge to undermine any momentum we may establish.” Although bipartisan consensus has been at low ebb recently, Abraham attempts to bridge the gap. He remains a strong advocate for tapping off-shore oil reserves and opening the national parks for drilling, but he gives short shrift to the conservative claim that scientific evidence about global warming is a hoax. While he endorses solar and wind power as auxiliary energy sources, his central thesis focuses on the need to build more than 50 new nuclear plants in the next 20 years as a major component of a viable program for clean energy. A section on nuclear energy covers several crucial objections—reactor safety, terrorist attacks, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the problem of nuclear waste—and points to its advantage over solar and wind power because of its tremendous energy density: “2 million times greater than the energy releases from chemical reactions of fossil fuels.”
A provocative contribution to the energy debate.Pub Date: July 6, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-57021-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2010
The suspenseful tale of an employee buyout that has kept an old-line steel mill operating when many of its Rust Belt counterparts have fallen by the wayside. Drawing on apparently open access to key figures in the lengthy survival struggle, Pittsburgh-based attorney Lieber offers an absorbing account of what happened after National Steel, then America's fifth-largest producer, resolved to close its tinplate facility in Weirton, West Va. While the 1982 decision made business sense, it would have precipitated a socioeconomic disaster in the surrounding area. With thousands of high-paying jobs at stake, the community, politicians, the plant's union, and a flock of outsiders (some with ideological axes to grind) went into action. In return for sizable wage concessions, rank-and-file workers eventually acquired the Weirton complex by means of a controlling interest in a debt-burdened employee stock ownership plan. The 1984 buyout proved but the start of a long march during which the self- consciously democratic owners have had to cope with the fact that their tinplate competes not only with imports from Asia and Europe but also with such rival materials as aluminum and plastic. Constant debates about badly needed capital expenditures, contractual rights, corporate governance, and allied issues convulsed without ever quite transforming shop-floor culture. Despite frequent infighting, Weirton has retained a place in the global steel market in large measure because labor and management found ways to get along with each other at critical junctures. Lieber's narrative brings events to vivid life with deft profiles of the lawyers, union stewards, corporate executives, investment bankers, and other parties to the protracted proceedings who rose to the occasion—or failed to. A detailed briefing on a consequential deal that opened the way for more landmark transactions. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: June 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-670-82075-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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