Ventura musta read Emanuel Todd's book

[Michael Eisenstadt]

Emanuel Todd is an intellectually dishonest French 
sociologist whose recent book The End of Empire is 
available in English.

Some of Ventura's/Todd's statistics are bogus, the rest
are tendentious. They don't add up to the reality
of life in the US.

The basic argument is that America, compared to Europe,
is parasitical in the sense that Americans dont 
really work or have jobs. Todd "proves" this by 
reference to our international trade deficit. This 
is a bogus conclusion. Todd like so many other
talking/writing heads is an ignoramus about
economics and outsourcing. Paul Krugman whose 
politics we all agree with has written several books 
explaining international trading monetary theory. The 
theory itself is counter-intuitive and not easy to grasp.
A country's trade deficit does not make their citizens 
parasites on the rest of the world. 

As for the rich exploiting their workers and the latter's
immiseration, that is a fact of life everywhere and is 
not confined to only rich Americans doing it.

Ventura's retread of Todd's book belongs where
we actually find it: in the Austin Chronicle. He
writes his articles at 3am in the morning or so he 
says. That is an amusing conceit which excuses 
much. Unfortunately most of us are forced to read 
him during the day


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