“An Inconvenient Book” by Glenn Beck in a lot of ways sums up what is wrong with the Conservative moment. It is filled with claims that use zero economics, when in fact economics should be their friend. Glenn Beck, who has become very popular among both Conservatives and Libertarians, has done a good job on his show in supporting the free-market and bashing Obama. But after reading this book I wonder what the Glenn Beck show would look like with a Republican held White House and/or Congress.
The book is written very well in that it reaches out to all types of readers and in a lot of ways makes you laugh. It has some of the best info graphics I have ever seen in a mass market book. So as far as the words and pictures, it is a great book. But the content fall short.
A few parts of Mr. Beck book has caused me to write two separate posts on tipping and on running out of oil. I will not dwell on these subjects but I urge you to read them if you think that this review fall short on criticizing content.
The very first chapter on Global Warming was very good and uses good non crazy arguments against the Global Warming advocates. But soon after that he goes into topics in which most people who buy his book. Chapters on Marriage, Porn, Body Image, Renting Movies (not kidding) and Blind Dating are pointless and useless. I know that often time we pretend that pundits are experts on politics, but that does not stretch into other areas that are more personal.
His chapters on the Minimum Wage, Opinion Polls, and Poverty are much more productive and provocative. But many of the time his solutions fell short. Take illegal immigration, which is the chapter he decides to end his book on. This probably means that he thinks very highly on the subject and that he wanted to leaving a lasting impression so it should be the best written.
First, he plays in this paranoia of a super corporate group has control over the United States government and keeps the border from being secure. And his solutions are to build two fences and hit the employers hard. Besides the fact that a Conservative is making an argument FOR government, the two ideas are just moronic.
The fence is very expensive as he wants “double layers of fencing with road in between for patrols, concrete vehicle barriers, surveillance cameras, and tunneling sensors.” He says it would be $20 billion. First, if this is a government estimate you can trust it is wrong. Also what about the maintainance of this. And really if people really want to get into America, is this going to be effective?
Sidenote: Glenn, when you want to compare figures for people do not use “how much 9/11 cost the City of New York.” First, it wasn’t on purpose. Second, it was a terrorist attack.
Next, he wants to hit the employers. I guess he is already assuming that his fences will not work and he is a Conservative against small businesses. All small business are trying to do one thing: survive. Glenn Beck must not think that there is going to be any red-tape involved on already small struggling business.
And let’s think about the reason why businesses hire illegals, part could be minimum wage but mainly it is because they are hard works and can outwork some of us “non-mexicans.” And consider the costs. The business owner is choosing someone who they have a hard time communicating with over “non-mexicans.” That means we Americans are very inefficient workers. So wake up, you cannot be pro-free trade and anti-illegal labor force.
So overall this book is not worth reading or buying. It was a huge let down and it made me think a lot less of Mr. Beck.
Rating: 1/5
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