A new luxury fever has America in its grip. Independent of stock prices, recessions, and inflation rates, the past two decades have witnessed a spectacular and uninterrupted rise in luxury consumption. Ordinary, functional goods are no longer acceptable. Our cars have gotten larger, heavier, and far more expensive. Mansions larger than 30,000 square feet no longer seem extravagant. Wristwatches for the super-rich cost tens of thousands of dollars. We are living in … More >>
Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy In An Era of Excess
All the world needs is one more socialist with a Ph.D.
Rating: 1 / 5
It seems that after nearly a century since “Theory of the Leisure Class” was published, the intellectual and achedemic shade of T. Veblin has found his way back into the mainstream- again. Actually, that’s not totally fair- to Veblin that is. Veblin is considered by many to have been an economist in the generally excepted sense of the word. While his “Theory of the Leisure Class” gets the most recognition whenever his name pops up, Veblin was not simply a pamphlet pusher. The same CANNOT be said for Mr. Frank, who, like his intellectual granddaddy K. Galbraith, is fond of playing the armchaired Robin hood. He is, it seems, the intellectual heir to a long line of such poverty pushers. He resurrects the timeless concept of “equal” distribution of income with the same old cliches. This time however, we get to wade through lots of graphs and polls and digitized diatribe that supposedly “prove” Frank’s thesis. I loved one reviewers point about Mr. Frank’s comparison of a poll taken in america and one taken in Turkey supposedly showing that on average we’d all be happier living as Turkeys than Americans (Yes, I KNOW it’s turks!). This sort of poorly constructed logic pervades throughout the book. There are some good sub-sections and some enlightening anecdotes, but I wouldn’t buy the book ESPECIALLY if the title attracted you. If anything, the results run contrary to the subtitle: “Why money fails to satisfy in an era of content.” Mr. Frank actually never proves that money dosen’t satisfy people, but that it dosen’t satisfy the people who he wants to be satisfied. Really, skip this one and read “Theory of the Leisure Class”- both books (Frank’s and Veblin’s) are worthless as far as Im concerned, “Theory of the leisure class” just says the same thing with a lot more gusto. If you loved to be preached to about the virtues of sacrifice and social canabilism, “Theory of the Leisure Class” is second to none!
Rating: 1 / 5
A jumble of references to a jumble of studies aimed at convincing you that we’d all be better off with a sales tax of up to 70%, with 36 pages of footnotes. The book progressivly steps you through the arguments, starting with
1. Something is terribly wrong with the way we’re living today
2. It’s because we’re making poor decisions on what we spend money on
3. We’d all be happier if we paid a lot more taxes.
No joke!
He makes passing references to the failure of centrally planned economies, but doesn’t appear to have drawn any real lessons from them. I get the impression that he mentions these failures so that nobody can accuse him of having ignored them.
All in all, I’m happy I checked this out from the library instead of buying it.
Rating: 1 / 5
It seems that after nearly a century since “Theory of the Leisure Class” was published, the intellectual and achedemic shade of T. Veblin has found his way back into the mainstream- again. Actually, that’s not totally fair- to Veblin that is. Veblin is considered by many to have been an economist in the generally excepted sense of the word. While his “Theory of the Leisure Class” gets the most recognition whenever his name pops up, Veblin was not simply a pamphlet pusher. The same CANNOT be said for Mr. Frank, who, like his intellectual granddaddy K. Galbraith, is fond of playing the armchaired Robin hood. He is, it seems, the intellectual heir to a long line of such poverty pushers. He resurrects the timeless concept of “equal” distribution of income with the same old cliches. This time however, we get to wade through lots of graphs and polls and digitized diatribe that supposedly “prove” Frank’s thesis. I loved one reviewers point about Mr. Frank’s comparison of a poll taken in america and one taken in Turkey supposedly showing that on average we’d all be happier living as Turkeys than Americans (Yes, I KNOW it’s turks!). This sort of poorly constructed logic pervades throughout the book. There are some good sub-sections and some enlightening anecdotes, but I wouldn’t buy the book ESPECIALLY if the title attracted you. If anything, the results run contrary to the subtitle: “Why money fails to satisfy in an era of content.” Mr. Frank actually never proves that money dosen’t satisfy people, but that it dosen’t satisfy the people who he wants to be satisfied. Really, skip this one and read “Theory of the Leisure Class”- both books (Frank’s and Veblin’s) are worthless as far as Im concerned, “Theory of the leisure class” just says the same thing with a lot more gusto. If you loved to be preached to about the virtues of sacrifice and social canabilism, “Theory of the Leisure Class” is second to none!
Rating: 1 / 5
Professor Frank’s title for Chaper 10 ’smart for one dumb for all’ sums up much of the recent business and political behavior in our country.
Jobs are going to China and a flood of imports are drowning our factories because our government and business leaders are practicing “smart for one” while our country slides toward the status of a 3rd world nation.
It is said that a nation’s wealth is measured by what it can manufacture – not by what it consumes (who said that?)
Every CEO worth his or her salt these days is moving manufacturing operations overseas as fast as possile to get a piece of the short-term profits under “smart for one”. If this continues, the ‘dumb for all’ effect will doom us to to poverty and China will (again?) rule the world of commerce.
Luxury Fever is a great book which should be read by every person who cares about the USA over the long haul – especially our elected officials. I’d like to see RH Franks (Luxury Fever) team up with Ravi Batra (The Myth of Free Trade) as lobbyists to return sanity to our country’s business climate.
Adam Smith has been taken out of context. When he spoke about the “Invisible Hand” (of commerce) there was an ethic in the land that accepted pervasive empathy as a given. Today, our leaders push unbridled avarice and seem to think that empathy is only for the weak ‘players’.
Rating: 4 / 5