Book Description
"The IMF and the World Bank have integrated a large number of countries into the world economy by requiring governments to open up to global trade, investment, and capital. They have not done this out of pure economic zeal. Politics and their own rules and habits explain much of why they have presented globalization as a solution to challenges they have faced in the world economy."--from the Introduction
The greatest success of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank has been as globalizers. But at whose cost? Would borrowing countries be better off without the IMF and World Bank? This book takes readers inside these institutions and the governments they work with. Ngaire Woods brilliantly decodes what they do and why they do it, using original research, extensive interviews carried out across many countries and institutions, and scholarship from the fields of economics, law, and politics.
The Globalizers focuses on both the political context of IMF and World Bank actions and their impact on the countries in which they intervene. After describing the important debates between U.S. planners and the Allies in the 1944 foundation at Bretton Woods, she analyzes understandings of their missions over the last quarter century. She traces the impact of the Bank and the Fund in the recent economic history of Mexico, of post-Soviet Russia, and in the independent states of Africa. Woods concludes by proposing a range of reforms that would make the World Bank and the IMF more effective, equitable, and just.
Customer Reviews:
Hard to read but incisive, 200 pages of tightly packed information.......2007-02-21
This book is definitely not in any way pop-nonfiction -- it is written more like a scientifical publification -- so it is tough to comprehend it at times (especially for a non-native with only average English skills). The book is highly rewarding nontheless -- the most balanced and insighting introduction of these two institutions I have read.
It studies the IMF/World Bank effect in Mexico, Russia and Africa, gives a bit of a background of the globalizers and finally comes up with actual ways in how they could be reformed.
If you don't want to be radically pro- or anti-globalization -- only know about it -- this might be the book you should get. It helps if you have some kind of a previous idea about IMF and World Bank.
Customer Reviews:
Good Introduction .......2007-09-01
We recommend this book to our clients who want to learn more about global currency markets. It gives a great introductory overview and history of currency. Brief and well written.
AWESOME! THE BEST PLACE TO START!.......2006-08-28
Starts from the very basics. This is the first book I ever read on Forex. Got me off to a running start!
You're better off reading something else..........2006-07-10
So many editorial reviews on Amazon are so far off the mark...and this book is no exception. Poorly written, poorly edited and of course poorly priced. The author spends too much time on his personal observations, which are highly subjective of course, but devoid of the poignancy that would justify such missives. He then moves quickly from one topic to the next, explaining none in sufficient detail.
Much of what he writes isn't very important to a trader and is probably obvious to a student of financial markets. Laypeople will learn something about the world of forex, but this cursory treatment lacks focus. They are better off reading a few focused books. The few pages devoted to interviews from successful traders were informative, but I found myself disagreeing with some of the "facts" (read: opinions) offered up. If you must buy this book, take what is written here with a grain of salt. Then go buy a serious book on the stucture of the foreign exchange market, on risk management and on trading strategies.
This book will not make you a better trader and it certainly isn't worth the price.
Good Introduction to the Forex Market!.......2006-05-02
This book definately gives the reader a good look at the intricacies of the Forex, but it is not the final step in your education of the Forex market. The Forex market is a world unto itself and by nature is a huge gamble for a private investor. This book is a great place to start. The author uses good examples to illustrate his points and doesn't assume the reader has a thorough understanding of macroeconomics.
Solid Basics.......2006-01-16
Author Peter Rosenstreich's short, concise guide is a neophyte's introduction to the world of foreign exchange trading. Its chief virtue is that it warns against trading if you don't have a strategy and some level of technology. Its chief vice is the suggestion that it is realistic for individual investors to expect to make money in the foreign exchange markets. The author cautions against the risks of the market (and gives good advice on spotting the most egregious frauds), but even to suggest that an individual retail trader equipped with an Internet connection, a news feed, a research source and a charting service can hope to succeed in Forex investing is a bit misleading. Perhaps, it would have been more enlightening if the author had discussed the competition that confronts the potentially foolhardy neophyte, in terms of equipment, technology and expertise. That said, readers will gain an elementary - but not really an insider's - acquaintance with the ABCs of the Forex markets and will learn the names of key agencies and approaches. We find that the book's most useful attributes include references to further reading that should deter novices from attempting to trade their own money in the foreign exchange markets. For solid basics, read on - but zip your wallet.
Book Description
Ever since the French Revolution, Madame de Pompadour's comment, "Après moi, le déluge" (after me, the deluge), has looked like a callous if accurate prophecy of the political cataclysms that began in 1789. But decades before the Bastille fell, French writers had used the phrase to describe a different kind of selfish recklessness--not toward the flood of revolution but, rather, toward the flood of public debt. In Before the Deluge, Michael Sonenscher examines these fears and the responses to them, and the result is nothing less than a new way of thinking about the intellectual origins of the French Revolution.
In this nightmare vision of the future, many prerevolutionary observers predicted that the pressures generated by modern war finance would set off a chain of debt defaults that would either destroy established political orders or cause a sudden lurch into despotic rule. Nor was it clear that constitutional government could keep this possibility at bay. Constitutional government might make public credit more secure, but public credit might undermine constitutional government itself.
Before the Deluge examines how this predicament gave rise to a widespread eighteenth-century interest in figuring out how to establish and maintain representative governments able to realize the promise of public credit while avoiding its peril. By doing so, the book throws new light on a neglected aspect of modern political thought and on the French Revolution.
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Generational Accounting around the World (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report)
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
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ASIN: 0226032132 |
Book Description
The realities of mounting government debt, tax burdens, and an aging population raise serious concerns about the financial legacy confronting future generations. How great a fiscal burden will current policies leave to subsequent generations, and how might changes in those policies alter the intergenerational distribution of public welfare? Generational accounting has recently emerged as a robust new method of fiscal analysis and planning designed to assess the long-term sustainability of fiscal policy and to measure the extent of the financial load ultimately borne by present and future generations. A seminal contribution to public economics, generational accounting has already been adopted by 23 nations around the world.
Combining the latest and most extensive country-by-country generational analyses with a comprehensive review of generational accounting's innovative methodology, these papers are a consummate resource for economists, political scientists, and policy makers concerned with fiscal health and responsibility.
Book Description
With grand announcements, recycled promises, and much hype about debt relief by the leaders of the world's rich creditor countries, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank since 1999, many of us can be forgiven for believing that the debt crisis of the world's poor countries is over. Far from it.
Customer Reviews:
Unmissable.......2006-05-17
The relief of debt for poorer countries is an issue which many support but few really understand. Noreena Hertz is someone who knows what she is talking about. She formerly worked at the World Bank and in now Professor of Economics at Cambridge. She is also a tireless campaigner for debt relief.
What I most appreciated was her ability to explain the economics in a way that was both understandable and convincing. She tells us how the debts came about - often during the cold war in an attempt by the West to gain and maintain areas of influence in the developing world. She also reminds us that many of these loans went to corrupt leaders of countries whose citizens now have to pay the price. As a result basic human needs - food, housing, and healthcare are sacrificed to service the debt payments.
We are left in no doubt that we carry a significant responsibility for this situation. This is why we should lobby our leaders to write of these debts. It is easy to say that fault lies on both sides. That may be so but if poor children have to pay then we who are in a position to do something should do all that we can.
She writes all of this in a very readable style. This book did far more than big events such as Live 8 to convince me of the need to do something. I would urge all readers to get hold of a copy and read it!
You "Hertz"ed it here first.......2006-03-14
Insightful, interesting and accessable. I read this book as part of my disseration research for a critical assessment of World Bank/IMF policy with regards to third world development. Prof. Hertzs' arguements are persuasive and compelling. They demand the attention of the policy-makers, finanical workers and the international community at large. Debt hangs from the neck of the developing world preventing it from standing upright. Prof. Hertz explains that this need not be the case.
Should private and public creditor be paid for their loans to corrupt government?.......2006-01-20
Debt cancellation for developing countries is a subject that has attracted much attention and little real action, despite in 2005 G8 countries and few others have taken some clear-cut commitment. This readable book provides:
a) a quick and simple description as to how developing countries got trapped into unsustainable debt levels. But among developing countries it fails to distinguish between middle-income emerging market economies and low-income economies. Therefore, the author jumps to the conclusion that Argentina (or Turkey) and Somalia (or Botswana) should be treated the same.
b) a simple theory, which suggests that developed countries often offered loans to corrupt governments (or full-fledged dictatorship) of developing countries and therefore, the peoples of those countries cannot bear the burden of servicing that debt, for which they did not benefit at all. Thus understood the problem, the full debt cancellation is a moral (and maybe legal) obligation. The author does not develop further that theory, but in practice she says that those countries that have violated human rights, or more specifically, at the time of borrowing were violating civil and political liberties, and/or economic, social and cultural rights should be provided full debt cancellation. Who and how the violation would be assessed is not clear, but this idea merits to be developed further and into operational detail.
I would recommend it for the general reader and those interested in development issues without prior knowledge.
Very sensible propositions.......2005-05-17
Noreena Hertz's basic principle is that the rights of creditors do not stand above fundamental human rights.
Debt repayments should not be imposed on governments when they could put in danger a minimum level of food, health care, clothing, water, education and housing for the entire population.
But as US president Calvin Coolidge said to the English delegation after WWI: 'We lent you money. Didn't we?'
The fact is that a lot of money was lent to corrupt and despotic regimes (Suharto, Marcos, Abacha, Ceaucescu, Mengistu, the South-African apartheid regime ...). More, after the end of the cold war, the US asked immediate debt repayment from States which were no longer strategically important.
Democratic governments should not be responsible for irresponsible lending by States or International Organizations.
She remarks that 60-70 % of all World bank projects under Mc Namara were failures and that only 10 % were ecologically and socially sound investments.
For her, debt should be forgiven if it was lent to undemocratic regimes, if the investments were against the interests of the majority of the population and when those who gave the money knew for what it was disbursed.
Ultimately, debt forgiveness will ot only favour the poor but also the rich countries, for it should not force nations to implement unsound policies and should improve security in the world.
By the way, she rightly lambastes massive arms investments (4 stealth bombers represent 1 schoolyear for 155 million children) and agricultural subsidies in the US and Europe (every cow receives 2,20 $ per day, or more that 1 billion human beings on our planet).
This book is a must read about a crucial problem for a massive part of the world population.
Honest, but ............2005-04-04
Just as her other great book , The Silent Takeover, this one is an honest effort, well documented and basically well intended.I think Ms. Hertz is brilliant and brave in her exposure of the facts. But...and there is always a but. I think that, her final proposals tend to be naive. Do not misunderstand me. Her proposals would be very good...if and only if, the people with the power to move ahead with the kind of actions that are needed were really interested in the fate of poor countries and in the people of their own countries ( as she very well explains). What they are interested in , I mean the elites everywhere,is in PROFITS and power..that is the reason and the blood of limitless capitalism. All other issues, including the welfare of the people or the environment are simply not considered.
Another point is that the role of the corrupt political elite in third world countries is in some way minimized. These guys are gangsters and must be treated as such. But instead they are very well treated by the political and corporative elites in the developed nations...and when they no longer represent PROFITS or geopolitical advantages they are simply discarded..Just remember Noriega or Saddam...The sad point is that the people of these countries can not discard these gangsters by their own means..Why?? Because of the support the corrupt Govts' receive from the rich countries..And they preach about moral and ethics....!!! Very good read....Worth your time.
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- Epic Saga Of Redressing Justice Long Overdue
- good read which brings 'boring' negotiations to life
- An epic account of an epic struggle
- Too gossippy for a serious book
- Authoritative...and gripping
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The Victim's Fortune: Inside the Epic Battle Over the Debts of the Holocaust
John Authers , and
Richard Wolffe
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
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Similar Items:
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Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II
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Holocaust Restitution: Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy
ASIN: 0066212642
Release Date: 2002-06-04 |
Amazon.com
"You can't make the dead good again. We can only take a modicum of justice--a modicum of attempting to somehow right wrongs in a small way for those who are still alive." So remarked a Holocaust survivor on receiving compensation--small, but meaningful--for the tortures he had suffered six decades before. That compensation, for him and thousands of other victims, was a long time in coming. When it did, it was not done out of innate goodness on, say, the part of the banks of Switzerland, which had held billions of dollars deposited there by men and women who would not live to claim them--even though, financial journalists Authers and Wolffe are quick to remark, those banks were staffed by good and well-intentioned people. What compelled those banks, along with companies and governments throughout the world, to do so was massive legal action, a chain of class-action lawsuits that stretched out for half a decade, brought on by lawyers, victims, and civil rights groups in a dense storm of argumentation. In this careful, complex study, Authers and Wolffe detail how these actions took shape against very long odds. Their book is a fascinating case study in justice served--if, some critics continue to charge, too little and too late. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
An extraordinary behind-the-scenes story of money, justice, and the fallout that remains from the twentieth century's worst crime.In April 1996 a billionaire businessman pulled aside Hillary Rodham Clinton at a political fund-raiser in his Manhattan apartment. Handing Mrs. Clinton a magazine article on the secretive Swiss banks, Edgar Bronfman launched an emotional fight for the forgotten fortunes of the Nazis' victims. The First Lady took the bait, and with a simple call to her husband, set in motion a whirlwind of events that rewrote history and offered a last glimmer of hope to a dwindling number of elderly war survivors.Backed by the White House, a small group of Americans embarked on an epic journey to pursue the debts owed to Holocaust victims for more than a half century. For five years they traveled from country to country and company to company, confronting those who profited from the war -- the bankers, insurers, and industrial executives who never fully acknowledged their companies' complicity in the Nazi crimes. Armed with class-action lawsuits and threats of economic sanctions, the disparate band of American lawyers, politicians, and Jewish groups fought fire with fire against some of the world's most powerful corporations and governments.But what began as a moral crusade quickly degenerated into a bare-knuckled global battle that opened up painful debates about justice and how to achieve it. The demands for billions of dollars in restitution triggered bitter disputes over who should pay the survivors and who should receive the cash. Many Europeans dismissed the demands as blackmail.The Victim's Fortune tells the remarkable tale of the Americans who cajoled, bullied, and squabbled their way across the world. It also reveals how Europeans first stonewalled, then nickel-and-dimed their way toward peace with the past.John Authers and Richard Wolffe offer a spellbinding investigative account of this momentous international struggle, which has blazed a trail for future reparations settlements of every kind. It is a riveting political drama that captures the outsize personalities, ruthless tactics, and moral dilemmas surrounding the light over compensation, all unfolding against the backdrop of one of the darkest moments in human history.
Customer Reviews:
Epic Saga Of Redressing Justice Long Overdue.......2002-09-05
John Auteurs and Richard Wolffe have written a thorough, often mesmerizing, account on recent efforts to win compensation for Holocaust survivors from Swiss, German, Austrian and Italian banks and insurance firms and German and Austrian firms. "The Victim's Fortune" chronicles how an unlikely alliance of American Jewish leaders and lawyers successfully confronted these banks and firms, winning long-overdue compensation to those who had lost savings and life insurance policies to the Nazis and their allies or were slave laborers working for German and Austrian firms during World War Two. To their credit the authors wade successfully through an intriguing mix of characters, covering in separate chapters legal battles in Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Austria. This important book should be required reading by those interested in World War Two, The Holocaust, and present efforts in seeking compensation from those countries and individuals who supported Al Qaeda's dastardly terrorist attacks on the United States last year.
good read which brings 'boring' negotiations to life.......2002-08-02
The Victim's Fortune is a good read and it offers interesting insights into the compensation talks saga. It is written in the style of `barbarians at the gate,' i.e. it tells a story by following the people involved and the personal axes they have to grind.
At the time, I followed the news of the Swiss banks and German companies with half an eye, dismissing it as (tedious) legal blackmail. But this book, which fell into my lap by chance, brought the whole dispute to life for me, including yes the greedy lawyers but also the victims and companies who tried to do the right thing. As with everything, it is much more interesting when you feel you know the people involved. Contrary to a previous review, the authors do not simplify the conflicts or the characters, which is a strong point. The 'gossip' in the book is what makes it human, and a book about these settlements that does not take the human angle runs the risk of being exceedingly boring.
I also learned a thing or two about the grounds for compensation-the use of slave labor by daimler, even ford; and the arrogance with which insurance companies asked for a death certificate to honor life insurance of holocaust victims. As a victim says, 'at auschwitz, they didn't give death certificates.'
But it's not just for novices- those with a greater knowledge and interest in the compensation dispute will certainly find an extra couple of layers of intrigue and emotion.
The book is also about the difficulty of trying to compensate for something as profoundly horrific as the holocaust, the uselessness of monetary compensation.
For such a complicated issue, with so many actors involved, it is quite an easy and pleasant read.
An epic account of an epic struggle.......2002-07-30
The publisher says "John Authers and Richard Wolffe offer a spellbinding investigative account" of the international struggle to retrieve some of the debts owed to Holocaust victims for more than half a century by bankers, insurers and industrial executives. I rarely agree with a publisher's endorsement of abook but in the case of "The Victim"s Fortune" I can only agree with the judgement.
The authors meticulously give their sources for what participants say and do, and, by having visited many of the major protagonists are able to sketch accurate and very lively pen-pictures not only of people but of locations: there are 45 pages of notes and sources and a full index - the general reader may not need them but they are there to reinforce the veracity of the account.
It would have been easy to have been less than even-handed to some of the powerful characters encountered in the book: it is a tribute to the authors that they maintain an even keel while charting the reader through a variety of events which could easily have seemed an incoherent maelstrom. The story starts in 1995 and culminates in June 2001 when payments of $5000 begin to be made to the dwindling band of holocaust survivors. The six years saw the involvement of a swathe of characters, from Jewish leaders, lawyers, bankers, insurers, judges, to President Clinton and Christoph Meili, a security guard at UBS who found in the course of his patrol that key documents had been put ready in the shredding room. In return for his whistle-blowing he had to flee his native Switzerland when he received death threats and warnings that his children would be kidnapped, and make a home in USA, the first Swiss citizen ever to seek asylum there on grounds of political persecution.
It is a roller-coaster of a book with new, well-defined and important characters arriving in most chapters. It is a fascinating read both for the issues involved and the egos on display. I have only had time to read the book once and will certainly do so again. It is no exaggeration to refer to the epic battle over the debts of the holocaust: I am profoundly grateful to the authors for opening my eyes to the reality of how deals get made, who truly benefits in such a tangled web. Lawyers, companies, governments even, had their own agenda: the payment was too little, too late; to quote one former slave-labourer "if it had been earlier or larger, it would have been no more moral".
This book is a triumph and deserves to be widely read.
Too gossippy for a serious book.......2002-07-23
I thought "The Victim's Fortune" by John Authers and Richard Wolffe
(New York: HarperCollins, 2002) might help me understand the strange
process by which the Claims Resolution Tribunal goes about granting
awards to Jewish claimants for a small percentage of the money that
the tribunal decided to give them.
The book did no such thing. I read the first 106 pages which were filled with gossipy details about the many competing lawyers, dropping snide remarks about many of them along the way, especially Ed Fagan, whom the authors describe as a small-time personal-injury lawyer (even though Fagan was well enough off to afford having his office on the 84th floor of the World Trade
Center).
The book is also filled (up to where I stopped reading) with other
put-downs, such as the one where U.S. District Judge Edward Korman
tries to have the competing lawyers bury the hatchet by inviting them
to dine at Gage and Tollner, a non-Kosher Brooklyn eatery where poor
Israel Singer has to make do with a glass of water.
In the end, an award is hammered out. But there are many references
to a separate audit by a group headed by Paul Volcker, and to an
Independent Committee of Eminent Persons (ICEP). None of this is
explained. Nor is the process by which the ICEP determines who will
get what, whether the information is based on the Volcker audits, why
only 35% of the award is paid out while the rest is held back in case
of competing claims, even though claims were closed several years ago.
I now know a great deal about how some of these lawyers acted without
hope of being paid while others (Fagan is targeted here, along with
some others) are acting on a contingency basis. But I still know
nothing about the process in operation.
Starting on Page 107, the authors do their thing about insurance,
slave labor, property confiscations, etc. I could not bear to punish
myself any more.
Authoritative...and gripping.......2002-06-14
What a great book. Not only did I learn the intimate details of one of the most fascinating legal battles in recent decades, but I was thoroughly entranced. It reads like one of those great non-fiction legal thrillers that have come out recently, like A Civil Action. Full of incredible details, like the contents of hand-written messages passed across the table during furious negotiations inside grand Swiss halls, and incredible personalities: Al D'Amato, Edgar Bronfman, Bill Clinton, Jorg Haider...what more could you ask for!?!?
Book Description
The First Battle is a graphic account of the first major clash of the Viet Nam War. On August 18, 1965, regiment fought regiment on the Van Tuong Peninsula near the new Marine base at Chu Lai. On the American side were three battalions of Marines under the command of Colonel Oscar Peatross, a hero of two previous wars. His opponent was the 1st Viet Cong Regiment commanded by Nguyen Dinh Trong, a veteran of many fights against the French and the South Vietnamese. Codenamed Operation Starlite, this action was a resounding success for the Marines and its result was cause for great optimism about America's future in Viet Nam.
Those expecting a book about Americans in battle will not be disappointed by the detailed descriptions of how the fight unfolded. Marine participants from private to colonel were interviewed during the book's research phase. The battle is seen from the mud level, by those who were at the point of the spear. But this is not just another war story told exclusively from the American side. In researching the book, the author talked with and walked the battlefield with men who fought with the 1st Viet Cong Regiment. All were accomplished combat veterans years before the U.S. entry into the war.
The reader is planted squarely in America in1965, the year that truly began the long American involvement. Operation Starlite sent the Viet Nam War into the headlines across the nation and into the minds of Americans, where it took up residence for more than a decade. Starlite was the first step in Viet Nam's becoming America's tar baby.
The subtitle of the book is: Operation Starlite and the Beginning of the Blood Debt in Viet Nam. Blood debt, han tu in Vietnamese, can mean revenge, debt of honor, or blood owed for blood spilled. The Blood Debt came into Vietnamese usage early in the war with the United States. With this battle, the Johnson Administration began compiling its own Blood Debt, this one to the American people.
The book also looks at the ongoing conflict between the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marines about the methodology of the Viet Nam War. With decades of experience with insurrection and rebellion, the Marines were institutionally oriented to base the struggle on pacification of the population. The Army, on the other hand, having largely trained to meet the Soviet Army on the plains of Germany, opted for search-and-destroy missions against Communist main force units. The history of the Viet Nam War is littered with many "what ifs." This may be the biggest of them.
Customer Reviews:
Marines in the first ground battle in Vietnam........2006-02-21
I am not sure what the other reviewers were reading, but this book was not that interesting. I could even have rated it lower.
The material for the book was the first Marine campaign in the war called Operation Satellite. A clerk made a typo and renamed it Operation Starlite. Regardless of the name, the setting was close to the DaNang military airport. The Marines thought that the VC were resting a large troop of soldiers to launch at the airport. In fact, the VC regiment was resting and regrouping and was not going to attack the American airport. Through a series of air strikes, helo and naval landings--the Americans fought a regiment of Viet Cong and killed 600 at a cost of 54 of their own soldiers.
The book goes through the story of the battle and what happened. I don't particularly care what segment (squad, etc) went what way, what they used for weapons, etc. A large part of the book describes this and the book has no flow and doesn't excite the reader to pursue further. I did, and found much the same throughout the book. Also, the book is generally pro-VC and makes no mention what some of the VC did to their fellow countrymen. This was a tough read at only 200 pages.
For those interested in battles and plotting them on the map, this book may interest you. For those who lost family, this may also be of interest. For the great majortiy of lay readers, there are better Vietnam stories elsewhere.
The First Battle.......2005-10-02
I actually would rate this book a 4.75, but I'll have to settle for a 5. My wife and I have just returned from a return trip to I Corps with fellow Marine veterans and Captain Ed Garr, mentioned in the book, as one of the guides. I really enjoyed the book overall and I thought "setting the stage" was well done. I visited the Operation Starlite battlesite for the first time and saw one of the rapidly deteriorating Amtrac's that the Vietnamese have recently covered and hold up as a symbol of America's defeat in Vietnam. The book did a great job of filling in the holes and fleshing out my memories. The book was clinical in a positive sense but could, I think, have benefited from more indepth, first hand accounts. All in all, an enjoyable book that even my wife could read without getting annoyed because of the tendency of accounts of Marines to be rather raw. Good job Otto Lehrack.
The First Battle: An Outstanding Work of Military History.......2004-09-05
Otto Lehrack has described, analyzed and ultimately explained in fewer than 200 tightly yet lucidly written pages the reality and significance of Operation Starlite--a battle that took place in August 1965 and was, as the title notes, the "First Battle" of the Vietnam War between U.S. troops and Viet Cong Regulars . The description of the battle itself is set in a carefully and clearly established historical framework and geographical setting while throughout the text the reader is given insightful "color commentary", including relevant and invariably interesting facts about the personal history of the key unit commanders on both sides as well as the operational doctrine, training and tradition, unit history and behavior in combat of both the Marines and Viet Cong who fought this critical engagement.
A significant part of the appeal of this excellent book lies its methodical "zoom in" approach, commencing with the reader's high-level historical and geographical orientation in Chapters 1 and 2 entitled, respectively, "Inching Toward the Abyss" and "America Touches the Tar Baby." These chapters together total only 18 pages yet set out the best capsule account of America's long slide into the Vietnam War I have read anywhere. The opening sentence of Chapter 1 is chilling both in retrospect and, whether or not so intended, in its implicit parallels with current events: "The United States came to this pass in baby steps, characterized more by Cold War fears, hubris and inattention than by level-headed policy examination."
Having given us a high level zoom view, First Battle narrows the focus somewhat and moves to an informative and substantive discussion of the Marine's entry into the geographical area in Southern I Corps where the battle was fought, including an excellent discussion of the establishment of and operations at the Marine's Chu Lai base, and, tightening the focus again, moves to the engagement itself, addressing in logical sequence the intelligence that led the Marines to conclude the 1st VC Regiment was on the Van Tuong peninsula south of Chu Lai base, the command process leading to the Marine's decision to undertake the operation, including a helicopter reconnaissance flight over the peninusula whose "brevity and apparent casualness" did not fool the VC, the Marines'decision to undertake and the planning for a surprise assault combining amphibious and helicopter elements and the conduct of the assault itself. These chapters also provide specific description of and insight into the planning of the VC who, though warned by the reconnaissance and able able to determine the Marines' objective, nevertheless "seriously underestimated the speed with which the American Marines could mount the attack." Lehrack develops this point nicely and it reappears as a theme throughout the book both in connection with the fast-moving operations of the Marines in Starlite and the later flexibility and ingenuity shown by the VC and North Vienamese forces in adapting to American tactics and capabilities as the war continued.
Lehrack has documented the text in a highly professional manner and the text itself artfully interweaves facts from a variety of primary and secondary sources to tell the story of Starlite. In this regard, Lehrack conducted extensive interviews not only with Marines participating in the engagement at all levels of command but, very significantly, with numerous members of the VC 1st Regiment. (It was apparently during these interviews that he came to understand the Vietnamese concept of "blood debt" that appears in the title of the book and, as he explains it, sheds light on the conduct of the VC and North Vietnamese both during and after the war.) The descriptions of the key small unit engagements that took place in the context of the battle now called Operation Starlite are vivid and filled with detail that illuminate both the nature of the action and the character of the combatants themselves, which one can only conclude was remarkable on both sides. There is insufficient space to do justice to the excellent discussions of these engagements in First Battle. Suffice it to say they make for a "good read" and are clearly informed by the author's research, including review and assessment of command logs, after-action and interrogation reports, his walks of the battlefield and interviews and conversations with the participants on both sides and, finally, his own combat experience as a Marine infantry company commander in the Vietnam War.
This is an excellent book and I recommend it highly. One cautionary note...if you're not familiar with the lexicon of Marine and VC operations in Vietnam, make sure you identify the glossary set out in Appendix 2 (page 188) of the book before you start reading so that, as you read, you can refer quickly to its brief but clear definitions of terms.
An Incredible, fast moving operation.......2004-08-01
Otto Lehrack's, The First Battle, Operation Starlite and the Beginning of the Blood Debt in Vietnam, is a well-written account of the U.S. Marines' first major operation of the Vietnam war. Lehrack brings the story to life through the eyes of Marines in the mud, compellingly describing action during the operation without pulling punches, and keeping historical context accurate.
A very readable, fast moving, incredible story, the author went to extraordinary efforts to interview US Marines, the South Vietnamese ARVN, and the 1st Viet Cong Regiment, to make sure the operation's details accurately depict command and grunt level decisions. The reader can almost taste the fear, hear the shooting, and feel the pain of war. Lehrack brings human realism to the forefront, making accounts of the battle a struggle of real people.
Highly recommended.
Morton M. Rumberg
Captain, USAF, Retired
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Developing the Domestic Government Debt Market: From Diagnostics to Reform Implementation
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Managing Public Debt: From Diagnostics to Reform Implementation
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Domestic government debt markets play a critical role in managing public debt effectively and reducing the vulnerability of developing countries to financial crises. Many aspects of debt markets - money, primary, and secondary markets; a diversified investor base; and sound securities custody and settlement systems and regulation - interact in complex ways and are affected by previous policies and developments. Developing the Domestic Government Debt Market: From Diagnostics to Reform Implementation draws insights from a joint pilot program set up by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to design relevant reform and capacity-building programs in twelve countries. The experiences of these geographically and economically diverse countries - Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Zambia - illustrate the challenges, obstacles, and progress in applying principles of market development. Developing the Domestic Government Debt Market will serve government officials contemplating or in the process of reforming their practices, providers of technical assistance, and practitioners working on building capacity in debt market development. Because effective development of debt markets is one key piece in sound public debt management , readers will also be interested in the companion volume, Managing Public Debt, published by The World Bank in February 2007, based on the same joint pilot program.
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Developing the Domestic Government Debt Market: From Diagnostics to Reform Implementation
ASIN: 0821368729 |
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High-quality public debt management plays a critical role in reducing the vulnerability of developing countries to financial crises. With sound risk and cash management, effective coordination with fiscal and monetary policy, good governance, and adequate institutional and staff capacity in place, governments can develop and implement effective medium-term debt management strategies. Managing Public Debt: From Diagnostics to Reform Implementation draws insights from a joint pilot program set up by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to design relevant reform and capacity-building programs in twelve countries. The experiences of these geographically and economically diverse countries - Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Zambia - illustrate the challenges and elements necessary to make progress in the area of public debt management. Managing Public Debt will serve government officials contemplating or in the process of reforming their practices, providers of technical assistance, and practitioners working on building capacity in public debt management. Because effective implementation of debt management strategies also requires a developed domestic government debt market, readers will also be interested in the companion volume, Developing the Domestic Government Debt Market, published by The World Bank in February 2007, based on the same joint pilot program.
Book Description
For the greater part of recorded history the most successful and powerful states were autocracies; yet now the world is increasingly dominated by democracies. In A Free Nation Deep in Debt, James Macdonald provides a novel answer for how and why this political transformation occurred. The pressures of war finance led ancient states to store up treasure; and treasure accumulation invariably favored autocratic states. But when the art of public borrowing was developed by the city-states of medieval Italy as a democratic alternative to the treasure chest, the balance of power tipped. From that point on, the pressures of war favored states with the greatest public creditworthiness; and the most creditworthy states were invariably those in which the people who provided the money also controlled the government. Democracy had found a secret weapon and the era of the citizen creditor was born. Macdonald unfolds this tale in a sweeping history that starts in biblical times, passes via medieval Italy to the wars and revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and ends with the great bond drives that financed the two world wars.
Customer Reviews:
This book offers relentless proofs that public debt works.......2004-11-25
I have not finished this marvelously over-written book but I can tell you I no longer look at the U.S.'s problems the same way. This book of history has much to say about our current problems with social security, health insurance and the Middle East. The most impressive insight I have taken away from this book is that a King with a hoard of gold is no match to a republic where everyone willingly shares the debt load, no matter how great that debt is. You have to wonder if the U.S./U.K. would do better in Iraq if they spent more time setting up money markets. I also understand why the Palestinians refusal to use direct deposit will forever keep them poor and undeveloped.
Insightful!.......2004-06-08
This impressively researched opus reflects an obsession with One Big Idea that never comes quite clearly into focus, but revolves around the critical historical role played by national credit. Behold an author who not only quotes the Biblical book of Numbers, but also interprets it as a document of financial history, ignoring the contentious issues of authorship and anachronism that make scriptural exegesis such challenging work for specialists. He traces the way government and conflict are funded from Herodotus to the Hanoverian Court to Woodrow Wilson. Like the River Platte, this work is a mile wide and an inch deep; but the river has a definite direction, and this meanders. If you fancy an intriguing browse through major and minor points of political and fiscal history, we have found just the book for you. Some scenes are indelible, like the Germans celebrating WWI bond purchases by driving iron nails into a big wooden statue of a Field Marshall, and may jolt you if you think Allied and Axis powers were funded differently. The U.K. and the U.S. sponsored similar popular financial mobilizations, complete with bombastic slogans (no statues, though).
England's Democracy versus France's Ancien Regime.......2003-11-14
MacDonald argues that democracy arose to allow governments to borrow for war from their people. There is superb chapter on France versus England in eighteenth century. England had half the GNP of France, but it was always able to outspend France in their wars. England relied on 3% perpetual debt, readily marketable by holders, with published information about budget and single market indicator of England's credit rating. Plus England was run by "heroic citizen-creditors" who were willing to entrust their capital to Bank of England (for loan for war) because they ran the government and were sure they would get taxes to make the debt sound.
France had kings who defaulted on a whim, a bramble bush
of borrowing instruments, a terribly inefficient tax system, with lots of exemptions for their aristocrats, no public information and a lousy resale market. French citizen did not lend to France. England paid 3% on its debt and France paid 11% on its debt as the Revolution neared. England carried debt of double its GNP and France went bankrupt which killed the ancien regime with debt of 2/3d of GNP. Terrific story.
MacDonald is concise and accurate summarizer of the literature on issues (American Revolutionary War debt) that I know about.
Insightful!.......2003-10-16
This impressively researched opus reflects an obsession with One Big Idea that never comes quite clearly into focus, but revolves around the critical historical role played by national credit. Behold an author who not only quotes the Biblical book of Numbers, but also interprets it as a document of financial history, ignoring the contentious issues of authorship and anachronism that make scriptural exegesis such challenging work for specialists. He traces the way government and conflict are funded from Herodotus to the Hanoverian Court to Woodrow Wilson. Like the River Platte, this work is a mile wide and an inch deep; but the river has a definite direction, and this meanders. If you fancy an intriguing browse through major and minor points of political and fiscal history, we have found just the book for you. Some scenes are indelible, like the Germans celebrating WWI bond purchases by driving iron nails into a big wooden statue of a Field Marshall, and may jolt you if you think Allied and Axis powers were funded differently. The U.K. and the U.S. sponsored similar popular financial mobilizations, complete with bombastic slogans (no statues, though).
An excellent history of public debt and its role in developi.......2003-08-25
This book is not what you think. The title suggests the repeat of the theme exposed by Paul Kennedy in the 80s in his book "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers." But, the two books advance almost symmetrically opposed theories. Paul Kennedy suggested that great powers eventually decline because they can't withstand the fiscal burden of maintaining a nonproductive military effort to govern their empire (the Imperial Overstretch concept). Macdonald instead advances that a public bond market is a nation?s best tool in raising funds for emergencies such as warfare. In Kennedy's book debt is bad. In Macdonald it is good.
Macdonald's argument starts with the fiscal stress associated with having to raise huge amount of funds in preparation for warfare. In such situation, raising taxes is impractical. Often tax rates would have had to double or treble to raise adequate funds to finance wars throughout history. A government can?t do that without causing a revolution. Often what states and government did before the advent of well developed public bond markets was to mine their grounds (or grounds of conquered territories) for mineral riches (gold and silver). The states would then hoard these gold reserves as funds available for a rainy day (war). But, as Macdonald points out this treasure hoarding was most inefficient from an economic standpoint.
Public debt markets became a much preferred alternative to treasure hoarding for financing wars. This was true for several reasons. Treasure hoarding represented a huge amount of wasted capital not reinvested in the economy where it could have generated rapidly rising living standards for society at large. Bond financing (public debt) was so much more flexible a tool for war financing than an ongoing tasking treasure hoarding mechanism.
Comparing two countries, one being a bond borrower, the other a treasure hoarder, one could readily observe that the bond borrower economy would grow much faster, and that it would have an easier time to finance wars when and as needed. Typically, you run out of gold reserve faster than you run out of a state's borrowing capacity.
But, for a public debt market to thrive you need democratic institutions. In democracies, the motivation of the government and its citizen are aligned. This facilitates a trust between the creditors (citizens) and the borrower (the government). As a result, democratic governments can borrow more and at a lower interest costs then other governments. In other words, the creditors of a democratic government assess a lower credit and counterparty risk to a democratic government, and therefore demand a lower risk premium (lower interest rates). This is Macdonald's main argument. Therefore, he concludes that the pressure to create public credit markets to finance wars was an impetus to create public debt markets and in turn to develop democratic institutions.
Macdonald's theory is so current. Today, it is self evident that the countries who have the most transparent disclosure, integer accounting system, accountable governance associated with democracies can borrow at a substantially lower cost than others.
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