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Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.97302
EAN: 9781591841913
ISBN: 1591841917
Label: Portfolio Hardcover
Manufacturer: Portfolio Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: December 27, 2007
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover
Studio: Portfolio Hardcover
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Editorial Review:
The bestselling author of Perfectly Legal returns with a powerful new exposé How does a strong and growing economy lend itself to job uncertainty, debt, bankruptcy, and economic fear for a vast number of Americans? Free Lunch provides answers to this great economic mystery of our time, revealing how todays government policies and spending reach deep into the wallets of the many for the benefit of the wealthy few. Johnston cuts through the official version of events and shows how, under the guise of deregulation, a whole new set of regulations quietly went into effect regulations that thwart competition, depress wages, and reward misconduct. From how George W. Bush got rich off a tax increase to a $100 million taxpayer gift to Warren Buffett, Johnston puts a face on all of the dirty little tricks that business and government pull. A lot of people appear to be getting free lunchesbut of course theres no such thing as a free lunch, and someone (you, the taxpayer) is picking up the bill. Johnstons many revelations include:
How we ended up with the most expensive yet inefficient health-care system in the world
How homeowners title insurance became a costly, deceitful, yet almost invisible oligopoly
How our government gives hidden subsidies for posh golf courses
How Paris Hiltons grandfather schemed to retake the family fortune from a charity for poor children
How the Yankees and Mets owners will collect more than $1.3 billion in public funds In these instances and many more, Free Lunch shows how the lobbyists and lawyers representing the most powerful 0.1 percent of Americans manipulated our government at the expense of the other 99.9 percent. With his extraordinary reporting, vivid stories, and sharp analysis, Johnston reveals the forces that shape our everyday economic livesand shows us how we can finally make things better.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A Book that Will Engage and Enrage You
Seven years into the governmental nightmare known as the Bush II Admininstration, and scant months before the near collapse of the American economy under the weight of a devalued dollar, massive trade imbalances, failed hedge funds, near-failed banks and investment firms, bursting real estate bubble, $4.00+ per gallon gasoline, and the prospect of dual bankruptcies by Ford and General Motors, David Cay Johnston's FREE LUNCH emerged in bookstores. Mr. Johnston's book was as much a warning against ... Read More
Rating:  - excellent book, highly recommended
Well written, informative and each chapter is a separate story about the transfer of public wealth in to the hands of the very rich. A real eye opener that every citizen should read, it will change the way you look at government.
Rating: - How "Special Interests" Pick Your Pocket to Create Billion-Dollar Fortunes
I wanted to lose my lunch on the shoes of any politician or executive named in this book after reading what David Cay Johnston had to say. Unless you want to be cheated forever (and for more money), read this book and let your "elected" and "appointed" representatives know that you won't stand for it any more.
George Washington, as usual, got it right: If we allow political parties to exist rather than looking out for everyone's interests in a non-partisan way, the parties will ... Read More
Rating:  - Disapppointing follow up to "Perfectly Legal"
David Cay Johnston's book "Perfectly Legal" was a masterpiece of muckraking which opened my eyes to the way the game is rigged in this country in favor of the rich. The book drew on his experience as a tax writer for the New York Times and presented, in tremendous detail and with great amounts of evidence, exact and precise ways in which the tax code has been rigged. It's layered and powerful - "Perfectly Legal" is an amazing book and I highly recommend it.
"Free Lunch" expands on this ... Read More
Rating: - Smiting the greedy
David Cay Johnston is a crack reporter with a moralist's passion. In Free Lunch, he empties his notebook from a long and distinguished career, at the New York Times and other papers, exposing the how the rich and corporations use the power of government to line their pockets at the expense of the rest of us. The result is a loosely organized, but always compelling, compendium of some of the greatest heists of the last few decades, from taxpayer funding of sports arenas to electricity deregulation to ... Read More
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