RGD: A scary look at what awaits

Anyone who has read this blog for more than 5 minutes knows that I have a great deal of respect – nay, admiration – for Vox Day. It was Vox Day, after all, who opened my eyes to the realities of American politics, which made my eventual conversion from "conservative" to libertarian possible.

I read his previous book, The Irrational Atheist, back in 2008. It was because of that exceptional book that I decided to take a chance on The Return of the Great Depression, notwithstanding my lack of economic knowledge.

The book is eminently readable, even for those lacking economics training. Vox was able to describe the economic mess in which we find ourselves, the steps that got us into that mess in the first place, and the likelihood that the steps currently being taken by our ruling class will exacerbate the situation, in terminology that wasn’t overwhelming. This book is understandable by ANYONE, regardless of economic background, prior study, or existing expertise. I consider this to be quite an accomplishment on Vox's part.

Some parts of the book were true eye-openers. Call me economically naïve, but I had NO idea that our economy was such a house of cards, the “cards” being our dependence on the issuance of new debt. Just as a shark cannot survive unless it is moving forward, our economy will collapse without the issuance of new debt. It finally made sense to me why the government bailed out the financial institutions in 2008, and why they made some of the other counter-intuitive decisions of the past two years.

Vox takes aim at the “blue skys and sunshine” financial “analysts” (read: stock pimps) that host the various investment shows. He points out the logical fallacies in their reasoning and explains why their pie-in-the-sky predictions for a short recession are way off the mark.

I came away from reading this book extremely concerned for the future. I am convinced that Vox is 100% right when he asserts that the path Keynesian economists are recommending will only make the economic contraction worse and will result in a lot of unnecessary pain for ordinary Americans.

This is a book I would heartily recommend to anyone concerned about our economic future.