Hamilton's Blessing: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt: Revised Edition Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a revised and updated version of a book originally published in 1997. The author reviews the history of the national debt from the beginning of the United States to the present, and does so in an engaging and informative manner. The book is written in a style that does not assume the reader has any specialized knowledge about financial or tax matters.
The author discusses the financial plight of the United States after the American Revolution, and the reasons why Alexander Hamilton (first Secretary of the Treasury) pressed for the creation of a national debt to deal with that financial plight. The author does a good job of setting forth the pros and cons of a national debt that have been raised and debated throughout American history, identifying the political ideas and movements that have influenced the debate over the national debt. The author also shows how and why the national debt has fluctuated over the years, and points out the consequences (both intended and unintended ) of the national debt and efforts to reduce it. Finally, the author reviews the rapid growth of the national debt during the past 40 years, identifies the serious fiscal problems posed by the current huge national debt, and proposes some possible solutions to address the national debt in a serious, systematic way.
Anyone interested or concerned with the current state of the U.S. national debt, regardless of the person's political views, should read this book. Whether you agree or disagree with the author's arguments and conclusions, you can learn much from this book.


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Time and Money: The Macroeconomics of Capital Structure Review

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(More customer reviews)"Time and Money" combines a new graphical depiction of
competing theories of unemployment and trade cycles with standard
Subjectivist arguments in this area. The authors'"loose joint" theory
of trade cycles is an extension of arguments made by Austrian
economists Ludwig Von Mises and Friedrich Von Hayek. Garrison also
critiques the ideas Keynesians and Monetarists. One of the key
strengths of the graphics in this book is that it focuses attention on
under appreciated elements of subjectivist-Austrian trade cycle
theory. These graphs clarify the effects that interest rates have on
household decisions on saving and consumption. Also, the graphs
facilitate comparisons between different schools of thought. This book
has little that is really new in the Subjectivist theory of the trade
cycle and its associated critiques of competing theories in this
area. By in large, this book organizes material from other books and
articles, many of which are by Garrison.
The primary value of this book is in its organization and presentation of
this alternative explanation of the trade cycle and unemployment. This
book is important because it facilitates the dissemination of a viable
explanation of important economic phenomena. The need for this
dissemination is both internal and external to the Subjectivist
school. Many members of the Subjectivist school promote this theory
without fully understanding it. Those outside of the school tend to
ignore this theory completely. These two facts are closely
related. Clear representation of these ideas is an essential part of
the effort on the part of Subjectivists to regain their former place
among the mainstream of the economics profession. By doing this in his
book, Garrison has made great progress in reducing the costs of
learning about Subjectivist Capital/Trade Cycle theory. A lower money
price for this book would extend this process further.

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Time and Money argues persuasively that the troubles which characterise modern capital-intensive economies, particularly the episodes of boom and bust, may best be analysed with the aid of a capital-based macroeconomics. The primary focus of this text is the intertemporal structure of capital, an area that until now has been neglected in favour of labour and money-based macroeconomics.

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