Funk Rating: 2 out of 10
We live in America and I treasure the freedom of the press. I support everyone's right to have opinions and if they'd like, to publish them.
But this book is poorly drafted, and the analysis is very weak and superficial. It has about enough content for a 7 page magazine article, and they just keep repeating the same stuff over and over again, and to give it heft, throw in footnotes that take up the 2nd half of the book so it has some thump factor ("see, it's gotta be right, it's BIG").
Short version, they can't do math and they try to be as sensational as they can be. They'd have you believe if you buy a $200,000 house, it's actually a $400,000 house if you finance it with a mortgage. So that nicely doubles things through a quick illusion. I'll leave it at that as I don't typically get into content in my blog. But rest assured the rest of their "financial analysis" that gets them to $3 trillion is just as hollow and wrong-headed.
I think the author's fundamental point is fair enough as it goes: we grossly underestimated the cost of the Iraq war. Fine, I can buy that. But let's not make up pretend math to argue with the benefit of hindsight that we'd have $3 trillion to spend on other things if only we hadn't gone into Iraq.
I can't recommend this book.
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