A refreshingly unconventional and defensibly encouraging account of America’s economic and political future.
An optimistic prognosis of America’s financial future focuses on major global trends in monetary policy.
In this book, Katusa acknowledges that the United States is currently in the throes of an economic crisis, caught in a deflationary recession out of which it won’t soon extricate itself. But he refuses to join the now familiar chorus of “doom-and-gloom sentiment” regarding the future prospects of the country. The author convincingly predicts that the U.S. will continue to be a pioneer in technology, especially in the energy sector; that it will bolster its domestic manufacturing capabilities; and that it is uniquely prepared to accommodate the coming backlash against globalization, partially the consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic. But Katusa concentrates on the advantages the nation gains as a result of the dollar and grand shifts in monetary policy. Regarding the dollar, he argues that it will continue to serve as the default currency of the world, its hegemony unchallenged by ultimately weak rivals. In fact, America will dominate the international credit market so thoroughly that the principal geopolitical alliances will form around a shared dependency on U.S. dollars. At the heart of his book is a searching discussion of the American and global transition to modern monetary theory, in which the U.S. government continues to stimulate the economy through controlled inflation. Because of the digitization of currency, the “money supply can be increased indefinitely and in unlimited quantities without provoking the hyperinflation that has laid waste to most previous fiat currencies.” Katusa’s contentions are lucidly presented, an especially impressive feat given the technically prohibitive nature of the subject matter. He often strays far beyond his expertise—he makes sweeping predictions regarding foreign policy and energy storage, for example—but the core of his argument doesn’t depend on these digressions. In addition, he furnishes an edifying and accessible overview of monetary theory in general and the history of fiscal policy as it has been conducted by the U.S.
A refreshingly unconventional and defensibly encouraging account of America’s economic and political future.Pub Date: May 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-54-452144-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Katusa Research Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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