"Uncle Sam Can't Count" by Burton and Anita Folsom (2014)

This was almost a good book. There is much to love about it, and until the last 70 pages, or so, this was also an informative book. That was before the authors unleashed their true agenda against Obamacare, and a few other things not in keeping with their agenda of promoting fracking as the private enterprise answer to government subsidies, even as the government is being asked to fund the Keystone pipeline.

I love history, and for the first 100 or so pages this book truly rocked with the stories of failed government attempts to build canals, planes, guns; even trade in furs during the early days of the Republic. It was wonderful to read, all factually based and backed up by history. That was before we got to the 20^th century and oil.

From the moment Rockefeller enters as a hero the book goes downhill. There is a lot to be said concerning the accomplishments of the world’s first billionaire. But at the bottom of those accomplishments are the land grabs, and drilling sideways into a competitor’s well. But that never gets mentioned. To the authors, he was a visionary.

The Great Depression is distilled into one bad decision at the end of President Hoover’s last year in office. The prosperity of the twenties is touted loudly, while ignoring the fact that the farm foreclosures and falling prices for agricultural produce were even then combining with the over production of automobiles by Ford, and the buying of stocks on margin, to create the biggest disaster in American economics until the “recession” of 2008.

In the world of these two authors the only successful government project was the Manhattan Project, which produced the first 2 atomic bombs. The fact that those bombs killed less people for more money never gets mentioned, although getting a smaller plane for more money was an evil when the government was subsidizing Langley in the race to build the first plane. If this seems to be a strange and unequal analogy, don’t blame me. It is the result of the inconsistency of the authors in attempting to make their case.

The TVA and the Hoover Dam are never mentioned at all in this book, even as the authors take careful aim at all of Roosevelt’s other Depression Era programs as ineffective. It’s pretty convenient to cherry pick the facts in order to obtain the conclusion you desire.

Presidents Reagan and Bush, who first opened up the doors for ethanol; which is one of the biggest frauds ever, are both mentioned before the ball is passed to President Obama, leaving the reader with the impression that he is responsible for the debacle of using food for fuel.

   

Ethanol saves neither fuel nor alleviates pollution. It simply wastes food and drives up the cost of everything. This is something on which the authors and I agree. The only difference is that I blame Reagan and Bush, who started it. If they think that Obama can end the farm and fuel subsidies on his own, then they are living in a dream world.

As I said, there is much to like about this book. I just happen to like my history served up plainly, without the agenda. The funny thing is that until they started hammering me with that agenda I was sort of seeing things in the same light.

"Mao's Great Famine" by Frank Dikotter

China has always been a fascinating subject for me. Their recorded history spans over 6,000 years. But the time period that has always interested me the most are the years between the Boxer Rebellion in 1903 and the Cultural Revolution of 1966. These years are filled with the story of a nation struggling to right itself after thousands of years spent living under fuedal warlords in a land too large to be Governed Centrally, given both the large distances and the limitations of communications technology at the time.

Before World War Two,China was engaged in an internal struggle to rid herself of the foreign powers that had literally carved her up into commercial zones. Politically, the country was constantly in upheaval, as the Nationalist forces struggled against the Communists forces for control of China's political destiny. Would the Nationalists prevail, or would the country go Communist? That question had to be put on hold as the Chinese people cast aside their internal differences to battle a common enemy; the Japanese agression of the 1930's and 1940's.

When the war ended, the Chinese, under Mao Tse Tung, forced Chiang Kai-Chek into exile on the island of Formosa, and established the Communist government we came to regard as "Red China" on the mainland. Growing up we were told in school all about the advances in literacy and agriculture, as well as industry, that were being made there under Communism. This was all done in an effort to teach us tolerance of other forms of government. The implication was that to be a Communist doesn't automatically make you the enemy. And China has evolved into a major player in every aspect of the world, both economically and industrially. But the path to get there was long and hard.

The abuses heaped deliberately upon the Soviet people pale in comparison to the arbitrary decisions that were made by Chairman Mao, affecting one quarter of the worlds population. The abuses and insanity of the Cultural Revolution are well documented, as in Ji Li Jiang's wonderful memoir "Red Scarf Girl." Having lived through that time here in America, I had some knowledge of something happening in China, through TV and news reports. But until recently I had never known that China suffered a massive famine between the years 1958 and 1962. "Mao's Great Famine" is the story of that period, officially called The Great Leap Forward.

It is unimaginable, to the average American, to live in a country which is so underdeveloped, that the Government would send operatives door to door to collect any metal, or tinware, that was in your home. This metal would then be taken to a collective, or community, furnace for smelting into steel. The result was often inferior "pig iron." Still though, you had to turn it all in to meet the quota. It didn't matter that it was no good. So you just passed it on. Multiply this by millions.

Now imagine having lived in an agricultural community of the same country, where there were quotas set on your production. It doesn't matter if it rained, or not, you still had to meet your quota. So, many farmers hid some of the food for their own families. Multiply this by millions.

This is the way the "Great Leap Forward" played itself out. Before it was over, millions of people had died of starvation. Millions of others had died from disease and overwork in inferior steel mills and other failed industrial efforts.

The economic system was utterly destroyed, replaced by a black market system trading in various state issued coupons. Many of these coupons were restricted to the area in which one lived, which in turn restricted an individuals ability to move about freely. In cases like that, black markets offered, for sale or exchange, other coupons. Cash actually lost it's purchasing power.

One of the major effects of all of this was the mass migration of farmers from the countryside into the cities. Forced to give their crops to the state, and then subsisting only on what the state allowed them to keep, was so dispiriting that many simply left the farms. The wages, and coupons, that could be earned in factories seemed like a much better idea. But upon arriving in the cities the average worker found himself underpaid, and often underfed, as the cities began to feel the pinch of the overcrowding, as well as the dwindling amount of food being produced. At that point, every one is forced to go home.

This is one of the best books you will find concerning the failed policies of the "Great leap Forward." Mr.Dikotter has done an excellent job in making the subject both informative and readable. Given the complexity of the material, this was not an easy thing to accomplish.

The book is comprehensive and well written. It is not designed to look down upon, nor to ridicule, the policies of the past in China. More than that, it serves as a spotlight on a very dark and often misunderstood period in modern Chinese history. The more that is written about China under Mao, the more one has to wonder, how did so many, allow so much, to go wrong for so long a time.