Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Quoting the first 2 sentences of the book: "In the American system, citizens were taught that the transfer of political power accompanied elections, formal events when citizens made orderly choices about who shall govern. Very few Americans, therefore, understood that the transfer of power might also occur, more subtly, without elections." Unfortunately, Greider is right about most Americans' stunning ignorance about how they're really governed, although one could argue that more and more people are waking up to the fact that all is not as it seems on the surface. So far, so good - but then, in the next paragraph, without mentioning the Federal Reserve by name, he says: "It was part of the national government, yet deliberately set outside the electoral process, insulated from the control of mere politicians." Good propaganda must be mostly truth to work. As I write, this book has a rating of 4 1/2 stars out of 5. This is an indication that the majority of reviewers have bought into the well spun propaganda Greider delivers. The Federal Reserve is a 100% privately owned corporation, carefully set up to appear as though it is an arm of government. It was created solely for the benefit of it's shareholders, a significant proportion of which are foreign. Greider could have mentioned this extremely important fact at the outset. Instead he deliberately helps perpetuate the myth that "The Fed" is public. He spends the rest of the 700+ pages going into excruciating detail about The Fed's decisions and their direct effects on the economy, with a focus on the time of Volcker's reign. If that's what you're looking for, this is the book for you. If you're looking for true insight into The Fed, its origins, who it benefits, and how it directly controls the largest economy in the world (and indirectly many other economies through their privately owned central banks) at the expense of everyone else, then I'd suggest reading "The Creature from Jekyll Island". Why 1 star? I don't like propaganda deliberately designed to mislead people who are seeking truth about a subject which affects all of us. The few citizens that take the time to research a subject so important to all of us deserve better than to be distracted by true - but on the whole, irrelevant - information.