The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America--and What We Can Do to Stop It

The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America - and What We Can Do to Stop It by Thom Hartmann"The Crash of 2016" is a provocative and troubling look at an economic implosion that will occur unless we take drastic measures to stop it. "A story of how America was dragged into the Crash of 2016." Well-known progressive national and international radio and TV talk show host and accomplished author, Thom Hartmann places his focus on an economic crisis that may turn into the Fourth Great Crash since the Declaration of Independence in 1776. This stimulating 294-page book includes sixteen chapters broken out by the following five parts: 1. The Economic Royalists and the Corporatist Conspiracy, 2. Why We Crashed, 3. "Oppression, Rebellion, Reformation", 4. The Great Crash, and 5. Out of the Ashes.Positives:1. A professional and gifted author Hartmann is a master at engaging the public with a well- balanced narrative of history, current events and foresight.2. The book has great format and flow. It's entertaining, enlightening and the pages turn themselves.3. Hartmann is a great and passionate thinker. His knowledge of history, and his ability to identify patterns is only matched by the skill to convey his conclusions in a lucid, straightforward manner.4. Troubling, straight-forward eye-opening conclusions. "This crash is coming. It's inevitable. I may be off a few years plus or minus in my timing, but the realities of the economic fundamentals left to us by thirty-three years of Reaganomics and deregulation have made it a certainty. We are quite simply repeating the mistakes of the 1920s, the 1850s, and the 1760s, and we are so far into them it's extremely unlikely that anything other than reinflating the recent bubbles to buy a little time here and there will happen."5. Consistent use of terms. Hartmann does a great job of defining new terms and being consistent in their use. You will not only understand the terms fully as he applies them throughout the book but it may even become part of your lexicon. Phrases like "the Great Forgetting" and "the Economic Royalists" are now imbedded in my brain.6. So what was the Tea Act really about? "The purpose of the Tea Act was to give the East India Company full and unlimited access to the American tea trade and to exempt the company from having to pay taxes to Britain on tea exported to the American colonies. It even gave the company a tax refund on millions of pounds of tea that it was unable to sell and holding in inventory." In other words, corporate mooching.7. Thought-provoking and great quotes abound, ""Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters."8. A great job of pointing out those elements in our society that threaten our representative democracy. ""We no longer have a government of, by, and for the people--representative democracy. We have government by plutocracy--the rule of the rich for the rich by the rich," Moyers said on my television program. "Plutocracy has one purpose, which is to protect wealth."9. An expose of those pushing and driving the agenda of the Economic Royalists. "A new generation's legal system with Royalist interpretations: Corporate personhood is real, money is speech, democracy is not sacred, and organized money should always have privilege over organized people."10. The policies of the New Deal that held the Royalists in check and allowed a middle class to thrive. Great stuff!11. How Reagan stole the Leisure Society. " As a result of the Reagan tax cuts, that era from 1947 to 1979, in which all classes of Americans saw their incomes grow together, ended. A new era, in which only the wealthiest among us got rich off a booming economy, commenced."12. In fairness, Clinton does not go unscathed. "Tariffs were ditched, and then Bill Clinton moved in to the White House in the 1990s. He continued Reagan's trade policies and committed the United States to so-called free-trade agreements such as GATT, NAFTA, and the WTO, thus removing all the protections that had kept our domestic manufacturing industries safe from foreign corporate predators for two centuries."13. The Monopoly Endgame. "Rising health-care, food, and energy costs can all be traced back to this problem of monopoly in America."14. Interesting points. "Jefferson noted the absurdity of a rigid Constitution--or at least an interpretation of that Constitution--that does not change as the nation grows and times change, saying, 'We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.... Let us follow no such examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself.'"15. The rise of the Kocktopus, find out what this is all about.16. The impact and background behind the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. "As a result of Citizens United, outside political spending skyrocketed from just $68 million in the 2006 midterms, to over $304 million in the 2010 midterms. That's a 400 percent increase in corporate cash influencing elections and buying politicians, just ten months after the Citizens United decision."17. Troubling strategies exposed. "Kick more voters off the rolls, and let corporations have more of an influence in who wins them--that's ALEC's strategy."18. The scenarios confronting us due to the looming Crash of 2016. Interesting case studies, Germany and China.19. In part five, Hartmann provides a path to redemption. "First things first: We need to tip the scales of power away from organized money and back to organized people. And the way to do that is to get rid of this whole idea of corporate personhood."20. In defense of a Green Revolution. "A new study by the research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance has found that unsubsidized renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels such as coal and gas. In fact, it's a lot cheaper."21. Notes linked.Negatives:1. Hartmann does a great job of summarizing the illness, providing the path to a cure but less so in the prevention department.2. Hartmann does wonders with words but more graphs would have added value and provided readers with a visual tool. The one chart provided shows clearly how compensation failed to match actual productivity.3. Some great scientific and practical discoveries that are helpful to humanity do result from the Military Complex. I do understand Hartmann's point, I just wanted to throw that out.4. Comprehensive Notes section but a formal and separate Bibliography never hurts.In summary, I really enjoyed this book. Hartmann exposes the underbelly of the impending economic crash and provides hope and ideas on how to recover from it. It's a thought-provoking and interesting book. Hartmann has a great grasp for what ills our society and provides insightful history and compelling observations, my main concerned is how practical his guidance is. How can we mobilize the populace against this well-funded force that manages to compel people to vote against their own interest in favor of the Economic Royalists without having to hit rock bottom? And that is the question...a very solid book, I highly recommend it!Further suggestions: " Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do about It (BK Currents (Paperback)) " and many others by Thom Hartmann, " Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History " by Matt Taibbi, " Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class " by Jacob S. Hacker, " The Monster: How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America--and Spawned a Global Crisis " by Michael W. Hudson, " Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and Cheat Everybody Else " by David Cay Johnston, " The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity--and What We Can Do about It " by Les Leopold, " Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction " Barry C. Lynn, " Beyond Outrage: Expanded Edition: What has gone wrong with our economy and our democracy, and how to fix it (Vintage) " by Robert B. Reich, and " The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street " by Robert Scheer.

"We are standing today at the edge of the Fourth Great Crash and war in American history," says Thom Hartmann at the beginning of this book. "THe previous three," he says, " were gut-wrenching in their horror and bloodshed but they ultimately transformed America in ways which made this a greater and more egalitarian nation, . . They were predicted by Thomas Jefferson who said that periodic revolutions were necessary for America - and for any democratic state - to flourish and grow. And if they were stalled or blocked, then the ensuing crisis would be all the more intense." He put it best when he said:"If this avenue of periodic revolution] be shut to the call of sufferance, it will make itself be heard through that of force, and we shall go on, as other nations are doing, in the endless cycle of oppression, rebellion, and reformation; and oppression, rebellion, and reformation, again; and so on forever."The oppressors in Jefferson's scenario have gone by different names at different times but they are always the Plutocracy - the wealthy bankers and industrialists who put their own personal enrichment ahead of the well-being of the nation with disastrous results. During our revolution they were called "Loyalists," and "Tories;" in the early days of our new nation, "Federalists;" by the last half of the nineteenth century, during the Gilded Age in America, the newspapers called them "Robber Barons." Hartmann uses a term coined by FDR, "Economic Royalists." Regardless of their name, their rise to power has always been a harbinger of impending collapse and disaster.Hartmann believes that the best form of government is a democratic one with a strong and vibrant middle class. This government then institutes (1) progressive taxation, (2) a social safety net such as social security, (3) guarantees the right of unions and "putting America first," and (4) sets rules and regulations for the marketplace to keep the Economic Royalists from getting too powerful and misbehaving."Over the course of the last thirty years or so all modern presidents, beginning with Reagan, have pursued policies which led to the destruction of the middle class and the elevation of the plutocracy to complete and absolute power: massive tax cuts for the rich and super-rich; union busting; the manufacturing of a debt crisis; failure to enforce the anti-trust laws; deregulation of the banking business causing it to become the Wild West of lawlessness and get rich quick schemes; NAFTA; repeal of the Glass-Steagle Act; the end of welfare (Aid to Families With Dependent Children) as we know it; and "the end of big government (as if this were something to be proud of).History tells us that when the foundations collapse, and a society's cultural core is hollowed out and the "madness" takes hold, its members will pretend all is well. Life seems to go on as average citizens try to get by, while the very rich, who understand what's happening, consolidate their power and wealth before the final crash. This is the cancer stage of capitalism, the point at which the Royalists have fully contaminated the body economic and politic, making the crash inevitable. This is where we are today.Chris Hedges is one of the foremost journalists chronicling the rise of these Economic Royalists and the consequences they bring to us. His view of the current "cancer stage in America is described as follows: "We have powerful corporate interests that have commodified everything including human labor. , , . This means that human beings no longer have any intrinsic value in the ethics of corporations. . . They are commodities to exploit until exhaustion or collapse. The same is true of the natural world - We exploit the natural world until exhaustion or collapse."Is there going to be a great crash within the next few years (2016 is an approximation. Hartmann admits that he could be off by a few years.)? I must confess that I do not know. I do know that the condition of the country is pretty much the way Hartmann has described it. We have long since ceased to be a democratic-republic with a strong and vibrant middle class. We have become (as authors too numerous to mention have chronicled) a plutocracy of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. In any event the prognosis is dismal.

This is a great book. I came across Thom Hartman on Russia Today, the only place thinkers with an alternative view to that pushed by the BBC, Sky etc. can get aired, which is a shame as stories have many sides so hearing them all is important. I'm in agreement with Thom and Max Keiser and Stacey Herbert that something big is about to happen and this book tells you why. The velocity of money is totally screwed and has to 'eat itself' as Marx said.

Real eye-opening stuff! Gives a major insight as to why the crash of 2008 happened and what's happened since. The book focuses mainly on American history and financial issues; but there are parallel issues and connections for all European countries. Definitely a 'must read' book!

Unexpectedly interesting and provocative time consumer, factual and useful. Educational end economically clairvoyant. All in all a good reading-up experience.

Can actually see it coming, but its never too late to make changes, if only the Controllers could open their hearts and their tight fists

interesting but stretched things it a bit, but I agree with the global point the book is making