Cannibal Capitalism; How Big Business and the Feds are Ruining America - Hill (2012).epub

Publication Date: December 6, 2011

An unbiased look at how the economic practices of corporations, leaders, and government are severely damaging the American way of lifeMost of us have lived our lives by the rules--going to school, investing in real estate, and building careers--but the so-called Great Recession has changed everything. Cannibal Capitalism: How Big Business and the Feds Are Ruining America answers the questions on everyone's lips; what happened and where do we go from here?
Unlike in most other recent instances of financial turbulence, when this crisis hit, the country turned on itself economically, with the powerhouses--corporations, business leaders, and government--throwing the everyman under the bus. In an effort to avoid becoming slightly less rich, the super-rich effectively cannibalized the true engines of growth in the economy, in the process putting the bottom ninety-nine percent of the population at serious risk of losing everything. Cannibal Capitalism fights back, arguing that to really recover we need to educate our children, invest in our small businesses, use our inflated money to develop real things that build real wealth, and get back to exporting in a big way.

Review
"Anyone concerned with the serious issues and possible solutions facing our economy should read this book."--Professor Carl Schramm, Ph.D., President and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation

Michael Hill's research illustrates the importance of a bipartisan approach to rebuild our nation's economy by stimulating job growth through the creation of new high-growth firms and by promoting entrepreneurship-friendly policies.--Professor Carl Schramm, Ph.D., an American economist, President and CEO of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

"Perhaps no book could be timelier for the Occupiers and their blitz against what they consider unchecked capitalism than Michael C. Hill's Cannibal Capitalism: How Big Business and The Feds Are Running America."--Alexander Heffner, USA TODAY

"Sobering read to anchor oneself in the harsh economic realities." -- D. Murali, Business Line

"...Hill's analysis of cannibal capitalism's hazards is well worth the attention of readers, especially Occupiers who have yet to hone a cohesive message." (USA Today, January 2012)
From the Author
I was in the eye of the hurricane that was the housing crash of 2007-8. Considering the valuation of my home building business by a reputable investment bank, my net worth was valued in excess of $40 million, but in the span of a few months my business collapsed with the rest of the housing market and I was bankrupt.
This was not the normal cyclical correction that is common in the real estate game. This collapse ripped through all of my hedges, the stop gap measures that would have protected my assets in a normal housing correction. It was the harbinger of a serious failure of our entire global economic system. Determined to understand what had happened, I immersed myself in business data, census statistics, and economic theory and metrics. My early findings became the basis for an op-ed article published by the Washington Post, but that was only the beginning. As they say, history is prologue. The problems in our economy go back further than 5, 10, or 20 years. Everything traces back to the Great Depression.
Our leaders' efforts to stave off the Great Depression led to a fundamental shift away from thousands of years of economic history, changes that are fundamentally unsustainable. We created a faux economy and have exported it to the entire world. Instead of developing a strong economy based on the production and exchange of commodities, we created ever increasingly complex and ultimately hollow instruments to simulate wealth while at the same time undermining the development of real wealth. We appeared to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, but in fact we are subsisting on Cannibal Capitalism.



Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (December 6, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 111817531X
ISBN-13: 978-1118175316