Rogue Economics

In this thought-provoking and aggressively macabre book, economist Napoleoni (Terror, Incorporated: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks) details the greed and venality of corporations (and nations behaving like corporations) when money is at stake. The titular rogue economics is capitalism at its most vicious. You got your theft and your robbery on massive scales, sure. But you also got your fraud, your terrorism, your piracy, your money laundering. These work their way down to "We the People" in soul-killing things like subprime mortgage lending crises, fattening food additives, and the "two-incomes trap" that face middle-class families. Oh, and those hookers employed by dudes on international sex tours, too (see Willing, above). While the author doesn't exactly blame democracy, she sure does hammer home the point that democracies tend to encourage capitalism, which then bumps up against greed (headlines about the millions of missing dollars in Afghanistan come to mind). If your interest is piqued by Matthew Taibbi's political pieces for Rolling Stone, you'll dig this. Atmosphere: Toxic with a chance of acid rain. — Douglas Lord, "Books for Dudes," Booksmack! 9/1/11