Free Lunch

Free Lunch
Author: David Kay Johnston 2007 293 pp
My rating: 3*
Started December 31 2008, Finished January 7 2009.

While this book’s accounts of how the wealthiest Americans enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us is nearly guaranteed to outrage the reader, and while I often reacted that way to tales of, say, how George W Bush made his fortune almost entirely through tax breaks that were only available to him and his fellow owners of the Texas Rangers, much of the indignation I felt while reading this was at the book itself which I found a pretty slapdash affair, anecdotal and weakly sourced. I was expected the book would reveal a systematic assortment of recently enacted policies designed to transfer wealth to the wealthy and which could be reasonably remedied, but instead the examples it provides cover such a broad range from state business incentives, quirks of municipal laws, lack of federal regulation and even court interpretation of existing laws that the conclusion I was left with is that of course the system isn’t perfect.

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Chapter One, the introduction, felt unfocused, wandering and extemporaneous.

Chapter Four doesn’t demonstrate that US government policies are responsible for job migration overseas.

Chapter on home security claims that the local police force responds to home security alarms; this is contrary to my experience which is that home security companies have their own agents.

Chapter on title insurance states that Iowa has a unique system which is “better and cheaper” but the rate he lists for title insurance in that state is more than I paid for the title insurance on my house.

Chapter 18, on the west coast electricity crisis of a few years back stirs outrage which is undercut but its simplistic inference that market manipulation by Enron was fully responsible for the crisis.

Chapter 21, a summary of the deficiencies of the US health care system (which the author points out exists as a business, not a service, contrary to most other first world countries) is concise and effective.

Chapter 22 is 20 pages long and filled with factual assertions, yet has only three foot notes.

Cites Alpha magazine as reporting that in 2006, the top 25 hedge fund managers averages $570 million in salary. (246)