 Two award winning journalists follow Trump's topsy-turvy money trail.
Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig are journalists at The New York Times. Since 2016, when Trump came to power, they have been closely investigating the former president’s finances. Both journalists won a Pulitzer Prize for their work on Trump’s income tax returns which were anonymously mailed to Susanne Craig. Lucky Loser is the result of their years of reporting, plus additional new interview material. There were perhaps two pivotal people that helped create Trump. Firstly and most importantly, his father Fred Trump, a property developer that used depression era government programs to access attractive financing deals. A lack of government oversight allowed Fred Trump to skim off extra profits by inflating building costs. Fred became a multi-millionaire. When his go-getter son wanted to enter the family business, Fred overlooked many of Donald’s faults, such as his impetuousness and failure to perform due diligence. Trump junior would rack up reckless debts, leaving a financial mess in his wake, only to have his father come in and mop things up. The mystery is why Fred, a mild mannered man who avoided the limelight, enabled his blowhard son, often referring to him as “the smartest person I know”. The second person instrumental in giving the world Donald Trump was British television producer, Mark Burnett, creator of The Apprentice. At a time when Trump's finances were in more disarray than usual, the flashy, media hungry businessman was seen as a logical host for the game show. Trump had a reputation among media insiders at the time, and some saw him as a bit of a joke. The show’s producers were shocked when they were shown the Trump Organisation offices at Trump Tower, where filming was to begin. The offices had an overpowering smell of mold, from the carpets, and a lot of the wooden furniture was chipped and in need of repair. It was soon obvious that a set would need to be built. There was spare office space on another floor, which would become home to The Apprentice. Trump had a habit of firing contestants that were good performers on the show, so the editors would have to go back and re-edit to make them look less competent and more worthy of being kicked off the show. In large part it was the show’s editors that made Trump look good. There were many other enablers along the way, most notably financial journalists who should have called out Trump’s boasts and falsehoods much earlier. But Trump got free pass after free pass, until the illusion of Trump’s success became so big that no amount of truth telling could kill the lies. Even Bill and Hillary Clinton attended Trump’s marriage to Melania. Is it any wonder that so many Americans came to believe Trump really was their political saviour? Lucky Loser also shows consistent behavioural patterns - a recurring victim mentality, a penchant for impulsive decision making, a delusional self-belief - that highlights a character that has not changed one bit over the decades. An exhaustively researched book that will last as a damning document. Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered his Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, by Russ Buettner & Susanne Craig. Published by Jonathan Cape. $36.99 Review by Chris Saliba  The esteemed economist and public policy analyst Joseph Stiglitz argues that we need rules and regulations in order to maximise freedom for all.
Joseph Stiglitz, if he needs any introduction, is an American economist whose work mainly concentrates on bringing more fairness and equity to modern economies. The title of his latest book, The Road to Freedom, is a play on Friedrich Hayek’s hugely influential The Road to Serfdom (1944), which argued in favour of free markets and individual liberty. It was Hayek and American economist Milton Friedman who ushered in the age of neoliberalism, an economic philosophy (critics would say dogma) of no holds barred capitalism. Formidable politicians such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan gave these ideas flesh and bone, implementing neoliberal policies. In The Road to Freedom, Stiglitz argues that unfettered freedom is a myth. One person’s liberty impacts on the freedom of others. We need regulation and government intervention to ensure the utmost freedom for all, so wealth does not become too concentrated and the poorer in society not exploited. One of the basic premises of neoliberalism is that markets work with crystal clear transparency, a perfectly level playing field. But Stiglitz argues there are multiple power imbalances that corrupt outcomes and work towards consolidating wealth in the hands of the few. While The Road to Freedom is ostensibly a book on economics, it also deals with other interesting areas, such as how belief systems are formed and the internet’s ability to reinforce and entrench false narratives. This is a work of philosophy as much as it is one of economics. Impassioned, urgent and written in Stiglitz’s usual accessible style, The Road to Freedom explains why we cannot continue under the current system of extreme wealth to individuals and excessive power to corporations. A must read for all students of economics and politics. The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society, by Joseph Stiglitz. Published by Allen Lane. $36.99 Review by Chris Saliba  An argument against extreme wealth.
Ingrid Robeyns is a Dutch and Belgian (she holds dual citizenship) philosopher and economist. In her book Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth, she suggests a wealth limit that no citizen should cross. For Robeyns, that figure should be around 10 million dollars. There are many reasons why wealth should be limited, beyond the very obvious one that greed is not good. Extreme wealth has multiple negative effects, ones we often don’t think of. It has a corrosive effect on public policy (the rich have an undue influence on law making), is bad for the environment (promoting rampant consumption) and weakens democracy. Interestingly, even the wealthy don’t enjoy their good fortune. They suffer feelings of guilt, associate only with other rich people, are socially isolated and stressed trying to maintain their fortunes. The irony of extreme wealth is that beyond a certain point, money becomes useless. You can’t spend billions of dollars, only show your bank balance to other billionaires. Written in a plain, easy to understand style, Limitarianism mixes ethics and economics into a convincing argument on why limiting wealth is critical for the health of society and the world. Limitarianism, by Ingrid Robeyns. Published by Allen Lane. $55 Review by Chris Saliba The Great Divide: Australia's Housing Mess and How to Fix It: Quarterly Essay 92, by Alan Kohler13/12/2023
 Finance journalist Alan Kohler looks at Australia's current housing crisis
According to Alan Kohler Australia's housing crisis is some twenty years in the making and is so baked in it will take at least a decade to unravel. And that unravelling will require not the current policy drift, but firm action and consensus from the electorate. As it currently stands, the majority of the electorate either own outright or have a mortgage, meaning any change to the status quo, that is, lower prices, is against their financial interests. Alan Kohler takes two historical views, the longer and the more recent. Australian property in early settler days was pretty much a land grab. Land was often gifted in large slabs by the British Crown. Some simply squatted on land and claimed it as their own, without a murmur from government. Australia was considered terra nullius – it was free for the taking. The shorter historical view, starting around the early 2000s, illustrates how the seeds of the current crisis were sown. A mixture of tax breaks and increased immigration under the Howard Government was rocket fuel to house prices. Everyone was happy – until they weren't. Prices were increasing at a rate of knots; it was money on a loop. Even if you hadn't entered the market, there was cheerful news that once you did, a pot of gold awaited. The results of those twenty years of rampant price increases are now in. What has turned housing into such a wicked problem is how entrenched it has become. It will take years to build our way back to housing affordability. It will also require national focus, of which Kohler says there is little, if any. A brilliantly lucid essay that explains how we arrived at such a mess. The Great Divide: Australia's Housing Mess and How to Fix it: Quarterly Essay 92, by Alan Kohler. Published by Black Inc. $27.99 Review by Chris Saliba  What has happened to capitalism in the age of the internet?
Yanis Varoufakis is an interesting mix of lived experience and academic theory. He was the Greek Minister for Finance when Greek government debt needed renegotiating with creditors during the country's 2015 fiscal crisis. Since then he has written several books on economics, the latest being Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. It is written as a letter to his father, who was active in left-wing politics. The book centres around a question his father had asked him during the early days of the internet: will this new technology kill capitalism? The answer to that question is complicated, as you'd imagine. In essence, Varoufakis says that the internet has created a group of mega rent seekers. For example, Google Play and the Apple Store use third party creators to create products to put on their platforms. Google and Apple merely hoover up the rents from these poor workers – proles, as Varoufakis calls them – for allowing them to use their digital shop front. Worse still is the situation for the “serfs”, everyday users like you and me who give our data free to the big tech companies to monetise. In short, we've all made a Faustian pact with the internet. We've garnered all these digital free goodies, but we've had to sell our souls in the process. Technofeudalism is the story of concentrated power on steroids. The big tech companies offer the notion of “choice” - but there is none, really. It's either use their products or go without life's basic necessities such as banking, shopping, government and health services etc. Many authors have now tackled this subject, most notably Jaron Lanier and Shoshana Zuboff. Varoufakis offers an idiosyncratic history of capitalism, using Greek myths to get his point across. The result is a highly original yet contentious treatise on the state of the world's finances (much time is devoted to American debt and Chinese surpluses), written from an almost radical left-wing point of view. Many will find much to argue and wrestle with here, but also a range of thought provoking ideas to consider, coming from an original and unorthodox thinker. Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, by Yanis Varoufakis. Published by Jonathan Cape. $36.99. Review by Chris Saliba  An impassioned manifesto calling for fairness and equality for all.
Bernie Sanders has the distinction of being the longest serving independent senator in US congressional history. Being an independent politician clearly gives him the freedom to call it as he sees it. His grievances are fairly simple: American capitalism is off the charts, creating obscene inequalities in wealth. Large swathes of the country live in utter economic desperation – without healthcare and existing on starvation wages that have been stagnant for the last fifty years – while a miniscule section of the population have more money than they can ever hope to spend. By any standards, this is a societal bonfire awaiting a match. It's Okay to be Angry About Capitalism is more impassioned manifesto than economic critique. Readers worried about getting bogged down in statistics, data and national budgets, can relax. Sanders gives the meat and potatoes of vital issues confronting Americans. He tackles the inequities and inefficiencies of the healthcare system, the poorly performing education sector, the concentration of media ownership and the reasons why billionaires should not exist. Sanders examines the failures of the Democratic party, which has not done a good enough job of defending the rights of working class Americans. The Democrats have sided with the rich, rather than the poor. Furious working class Americans have deserted them in droves, and parked their votes with Republicans. Gross inequalities in wealth, according to Sanders, can go some way to explaining the success of the Republican Party, especially under Trump. Americans are fed up, but have nowhere to turn. The answers to these problems are all simple: tax the mega rich and stop giving tax breaks to behemoth corporations. And fix up campaign donation laws so American democracy can no longer be bought and traded. Should Australians read this book? If you want to see how bad things can get when wealth is concentrated and greed lauded. Reading this book will make you thankful for living in a country with free healthcare, compulsory voting, a well funded public broadcaster and fair elections, overseen by the independent Australian Electoral Commission. It's Okay to be Angry About Capitalism is a fiery, gutsy, passionate book that holds no punches. It's a reminder that the price of democracy, economic security and freedom is eternal vigilance. It's Okay to be Angry About Capitalism, by Bernie Sanders. Published by Allen Lane. $35  A major road project takes a belly flop.
Here's an extraordinary story of infrastructure planning gone awry, costing the taxpayer a billion dollars. The idea of an East-West road link had been kicked around policy circles for years and was finally taken up by Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu in 2011, just after his 2010 election win. Baillieu was seen as a weak, ineffectual premier, and his enthusiasm for the road project was lukewarm. Seeing his support as premier crumbling, he jumped ship before being pushed. His successor, Denis Napthine, wanted to appear a man of action and with a strong sense of mission. He took up the East West Link with gusto. So far, so good for the new Liberal Premier. Trouble was soon brewing, however. Locals who would be affected took umbrage – and then took up arms, or at least protest placards. There were court challenges and activists physically disrupting machinery, stopping works commencing. The Murdoch press portrayed the protesters as Luddites and greenie agitators. The Herald Sun covered the protests intensely, inadvertently helping the protesters' cause by keeping it relentlessly in the public eye. Enter the Labor party. With many an inner city seat at risk of succumbing to the Greens, the party moved in support of the protesters, even though there was much in principal support of the East-West Link within Labor. Finally, weeks out from an election, Daniel Andrews vowed to rip up any contracts that had been signed. Denis Napthine, despite this, committed the state to the project. Melbourne University academic James C. Murphy's main interest in the East-West Link story – or fiasco, as it is often gleefully referred to in this book – is to examine where power is located when it comes to decision making for major infrastructure projects. As he notes, public infrastructure is intensely political, as it involves public space and directly affects people's lives. His conclusion is that the East-West Link got up and running due to the influence and co-ordination of roads bureaucrat Ken Mathers. Mathers had three decades experience in roads bureaucracy, was well connected and skillfully orchestrated industry groups and other various boosters in favour of the project. Baillieu and Napthine appear as hollow men, holding power but not having any actual policy convictions. That the project was defeated appears to be almost random. The various protest groups that arose were not co-ordinated, more scattershot. But their vehemence and commitment won the day. The Making and the Unmaking of the East-West Link mixes theories of political science with a real life test case. Who holds power? How are major projects decided? Are community protests effective? Do faceless bureaucrats exert too much influence? These are some of the questions Murphy tries to answer, often with a sly sense of humour. The truth is governments can waste extraordinary amounts of money and we should probably pay more attention than we do. The Making and Unmaking of the East-West Link, by James C. Murphy. Published by Melbourne University Press. $34.99 Review by Chris Saliba  The story of how worker rights and wages have been slowly eroded over past decades.
Income inequality fell in Australia during the postwar period, and by 1979 inequality was at its lowest. Then neoliberal economics took hold, championed by leaders such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Economic liberalisation started under the Labor Hawke/Keating governments, and was accelerated under the Liberal Howard government, with its anti-union policies and increase in temporary foreign workers. Age journalist Ben Schneiders has broken major stories of employee underpayments involving some of the biggest names in business. While that reporting has rightly sent shockwaves through the community, it is the bigger picture of how we got here that is even more compelling. A whittling away of workers’ rights and the large-scale reduction in trade union membership has paved the way for systemic exploitation and underpayment. (Schneiders also exposes how some corrupt unions have colluded with big business to exploit their members.) Shareholder capitalism, demanding ever- bigger returns, continues to ruthlessly crush labour. As Schneiders shrewdly observes, we live in a democracy, but many a workplace is authoritarian. The work of restoring lost equality will take decades of activism and commitment. It’s hard to understate how essential Schneiders’ book is to our understanding of how worker rights and wages have been steadily eroded over decades by both Labor and Liberal governments. Hard Labour is a vital and illuminating contribution to the equality debate that deserves a wide readership. Hard Labour: Wage Theft in the Age of Inequality, by Ben Schneiders. Published by Scribe. $32.99 (Release date 18th October). This review by Chris Saliba first published at Books + Publishing.  Everything you wanted to know about banks, fintech companies and crypto currencies, but were too afraid to ask.
Brett Scott is a former banking insider turned campaigner. What he campaigns for is quite simple – and surprising. His book is called Cloudmoney, but could more accurately be titled "In Praise of Cash". We are all now well versed in concepts like “big data” and “surveillance capitalism”, where our every click online is collected and owned by big corporations. But we tend to forget that every tap we make with our credit card, every online purchase, is recorded and kept. Banks and increasingly, fintech companies like PayPal and Amazon, have extraordinary power, which is becoming more and more concentrated. How to fight this concentration of power? The answer lies in cash. Cash is anonymous and offline. Every cash transaction chips away at the powers of fintech companies. To pay in cash can be considered almost a revolutionary act. As fintech companies and banks consolidate their power and control over currencies, they try at every step to veer us away from cash transactions. Amazon has even campaigned against laws that would require retailers to accept cash. That is a simple summation of Cloudmoney. Brett Scott is an excellent explainer of the arcane world of money and finance. He starts with a brief history of exchange systems, through to banking and state issued money, and finishes with the mind boggling world of crypto currencies. The latter, with their ability to remain anonymous, offer some alternative to evading the tentacles of the fintech behemoth. However, Scott believes crypto is a complicated story, one yet to be fully played out. A excellent primer on the how money systems work, and how they have accrued too much power in the digital age. Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets, by Brett Scott. Published by Jonathan Cape. $35 Review by Chris Saliba  Economic commentator Satyajit Das gives some tough policy advice.
Satyajit Das is a former derivatives trader turned author. He is a familiar face on television chat panels and has written several well received books on global finance and economics. In Fortune's Fool: Australia's Choice (part of the “In the National Interest” series of long essays) Das gives a brief but concentrated overview of all aspects of the Australian economy. His analysis finds the old problem that Donald Horne addressed in The Lucky Country: we have relied too much on good fortune and failed to innovate our way to prosperity. Currently, according to Das, Australia relies too much on “houses and holes”. We have a perverse property market that encourages exorbitant prices and we rely too much for income on volatile commodity prices from our mining sector. To maintain our current lifestyle, we'll need to invest the country's income more wisely rather than promising tax cuts and encouraging consumer spending. Increasing or extending the GST will one day have to be confronted. Tackling climate change may even require a reduced standard of living. The tough lesson we must learn is that while reform is necessary, it doesn't always promise success. But not acting will ensure failure. Grim but fascinating reading. Forutne's Fool: Australia's Choices, by Satyajit Das. Published by Monash University Publishing. $19.95 Review by Chris Saliba |
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