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Binding: Audio CD
Dewey Decimal Number: 070.92
EAN: 9780060585679
Edition: Abridged
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
ISBN: 0060585676
Label: HarperAudio
Manufacturer: HarperAudio
Number Of Items: 1
Publication Date: February 01, 2004
Publisher: HarperAudio
Release Date: January 20, 2004
Studio: HarperAudio

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:


Ballooning government? Millionaire welfare queens? Tort lawyers run amok? A $330,000 outhouse, paid for with your tax dollars? John Stossel says, "Give me a break."



When he hit the airwaves thirty years ago, Stossel chased snake-oil peddlers, rip-off artists, and corporate thieves, winning the applause of his peers.



But along the way, he noticed that there was something far more troublesome going on: While the networks screamed about the dangers of coffee pots, worse risks were ignored.



In Give Me a Break, Stossel explains how ambitious bureaucrats, intellectually lazy reporters, and greedy lawyers make your life worse even as they claim to protect your interests. Taking on such sacred cows as the FDA, the War on Drugs, and scare-mongering environmental activists -- and backing up his trademark irreverence with careful reasoning and research -- he shows how the problems that government tries and fails to fix can be solved better by the extraordinary power of the free market.



He traces his journey from cub reporter to 20/20 co-anchor, revealing his battles to get his ideas to the public, his struggle to overcome stuttering, and his eventual realization that, for years, much of his reporting missed the point.



Stossel concludes the book with a modest proposal for change. It's a simple plan in the spirit of the Founding Fathers to ensure that America remains a place "where free minds -- and free markets -- make good things happen."






Rating: - A farce of investigative journalism
Stossel has slowly morphed since the days of Hugh Downs into a ranting polemicist who seems to be terminally irritated by even the most basic aspects of everyday life. Angry old men like he and John McCain's brother pose as concerned citizens when all they really seek is a society that serves their needs uniquely. In struggling to paint 'liberals' as the scourge of the earth, Stossel only succeeds in revealing his own neuroses in this unfortunate volume.

This book is merely an anthology ... Read More

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Rating: - Common sense thoughts
A quick and enjoyable read. Liberals, and I don't consider myself one, will most certainly dislike the section on why government in general tends to mess things up. However, Mr. Stossel does criticize the private sector as well, and this gives the book a certain balance.

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Rating: - Must Read for Every American Citizen
Most Americans are what I call "default liberals". John was too, and he shows how most people, including me, have an epiphany of the faulty logic involved in modern liberlism, and make the slow, painfull transformation away from these feel-good yet harmful policies. This isn't a difficult or very acedemic book on libertarianism, but it is the best "starter" for anybody getting into politics I have ever read.

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Rating: - this guy just makes sense
Best book I've read in a long time. I went into it with no expectations, and came out of it agreeing with almost everything the guy said. Absolutely worth the purchase price, or even check it out from a library if you're not sure you'll like it. I can't remember a book where I had this kind of a reaction. I'd say maybe 10% of the things John Stossel wrote I disagreed with strongly (which is fine, it still gives you something to think about) and another 10% I was very much torn between two viewpoints ... Read More

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Rating: - An Excellent, Gentle, and Popular Introduction to Libertarianism
Many do not understand the phenomenon that is Libertarianism, a political philosophy which is greatly like that that of the Democratic-Republicans of our nation's Founding Fathers, the thought of John Stuart Mill, and - to a lesser and slightly more conservative degree - that of Edmund Burke. Too infrequently do Americans even breach the subject of political philosophy with any depth, primarily thanks to our general tendency for pragmatism (if we are being positive) and superficiality (in a more negative ... Read More

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