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Return to Prosperity: How America Can Regain Its Economic Superpower Status
"WE CAN'T TAX AND SPEND OUR WAY BACK TO THE GOOD TIMES."-- Arthur B. Laffer and Stephen MooreWhen Arthur B. Laffer spearheaded the theory of supply-side economics and became a member of President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board, he took his place as an economic icon. More recently, he joined with Stephen Moore and Peter J. Tanous to write The End of Prosperity -- a clarion call delineating what is wrong with current political approaches to America's present economic challenges. Steve Forbes himself described The End of Prosperity as "brilliantly insightful," saying "READ IT -- AND ACT!"Now Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore follow the rousing success of The End of Prosperity with a book even more vital to America and Americans, delivering a plan that shows how our country can regain its lost prosperity. With the economy flat on its back, unemployment at a twenty-five-year high, and the housing default crisis still worsening, is this even possible? But America can once again become the land of economic opportunity, and this brilliant new book tells us exactly how.While President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama may hail from different parties, their response to the crisis has been strikingly similar. The Bush-Obama plan is a failure that has produced nothing except a cascade of trillions of dollars of debt. Is the situation hopeless?No, say Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore resoundingly, the situation is not hopeless. A return to prosperity is still entirely possible...if the correct strategies are followed. In The End of Prosperity, the authors primarily discussed how lower taxes are essential to economic growth. Now, in Return to Prosperity, they detail the other essential putting government at all levels on a low-fat diet; emphasizing debt reduction and retirement; and bringing back the investor class in America, where every American can "own a piece of the rock."In a time where most of the proposed solutions are fraught with peril, the argument provides a refreshing counterbalance. The Return to Prosperity is a prescription that gives America the fundamental tools it needs in order to set about recovery. This book is an urgently needed road map to renewed prosperity, and it is vital reading for anyone who worries that the current economy is faltering, with no clear plan articulated for recovery.
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 9, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 29, 2020
A good sequel to Laffer and Moore’s previous book. Laffer and Moore give several proposals on how to rejuvenate the economy following the financial crisis. Among the proposals are tax cuts, cutting trade barriers, and reducing barriers to work. I can’t say this was as good as their first book, but it’s still a good read.
December 20, 2011
The author, Arthur B. Laffer, is recognized as the father of the "trickle-down" economic theories used by supply economics since President Reagan. His theory is simple, e.g., by reducing federal tax rates, government would leave more money in the market, which would bolster the economy, which would generate jobs and goods, which would increase total income, which would ultimately produce enough tax revenue to make up for the initial reduction in taxes.
I was initially suspicious as to whether the book would be one on economic theory, or one based on political ideology. The initial sections left me with the impression that Laffer, a self-proclaimed conservative and Libertarian, was simply going to use the book to repeat the many complaints against the Obama Administration, without recognizing the complicity of both recent Administrations and Congress, and without getting into any specifics on how American can regain its economic stability. I really was looking for a discussion on the economy, and was not looking for a book in which one political party lays all the blame for one or more issues on the opposing political party.
As an example, Laffer started his book with a discussion of Obama's energy policy. While every president since Eisenhower stated the need to reduce foreign oil imports, Laffer makes Obama and Energy Secretary Chu sound naive and ill informed for expressing the same desire. Laffer quotes Obama's inauguration and campaign speeches about his desire to "make American energy independent", and to "foster alternative fuels to create new American jobs". It seemed to me that Laffer either missed Obama's intention to support alternatives to our existing oil dependency, or distorted Obama's intention to mean that he proposed to immediately eliminate the foreign oil trade. If Laffer was correct, I would agree that Obama could be considered as uninformed and ignorant of basic economic benefits, and the Country would suffer. In fairness, it appears that Mr. Laffer wrote this book in 2009, early in the Obama Administration, to have it ready for release in 2010, and much of what he wrote was based on fears of Obama policy based on campaign rhetoric. But as I read the book at the end of 2011, three years after becoming President, Obama has not cut off foreign oil imports, nor has he ever talked about doing that. What Obama has hoped to do is spur alternate energy sources, in order to reduce foreign oil imports, or theoretically all but eliminate them at some point in the future. Mr. Laffer writes that this is still a bad idea because the nations we trade with use our dollars to in turn buy American products, keeping both economies going. But thinking about what our oil dollars fund in Saudi Arabia, the country who gave us the majority of 9/11 terrorists and exports extreme conservative Islam, starving that beast by reducing oil dollars doesn't sound like a bad idea. True, if we stopped importing Saudi or Venezuelian oil, other countries would step in and pick up the slack. But Obama's vision is to foster and develop alternative energy sources, even exporting that technology, and thereby reducing global oil demand. Idealistic, perhaps, but it's an entirely different picture than Laffer seemed to paint. And later, but still in the early chapters, Laffer states that Obama decided to persist in a policy of prevention of allowing off-shore oil drilling. But that isn't true either. In March, 2010, Obama lifted a longtime ban on offshore drilling and oil and gas exploration, saying it was crucial to U.S. energy security. Additionally, Laffer also took Obama to task for his "cap and trade" policy. But because he wrote the book so early in the Obama Presidency, he didn't account for the failure of the policy to gain support in the Senate, resulting in Obama's switch from the cap and trade policy and focusing instead on creating jobs and improving American competitiveness to offset climate change impacts. Other examples include, toward the very end of the book, Laffer classifying Obama as clueless for opposing a Free Trade Agreement with South Korea. Yet in late 2011, Obama signed three trade deals with Panama, Columbia, and South Korea. So, much of the book seemed like it would resemble political campaign adds which distort policy in order to gain political points from the uninformed, which was not my interest.
Happily, that wasn't the sustained theme of the book, and it became easy enough to weed out the politics and get back to the economic theory. The bulk of the book went more into Laffer's tax policies, and spreading blame for huge spending sprees among both political parties. Clearly, both George W. Bush and Barack Obama have opened the spigots of Federal spending, both attempting to "stimulate" the economy. Laffer then goes into details showing the downside of that policy on the present and long term state of the American economy. Laffer has an ability to make his theories easily understandable, at least on an elementary level, and provides numerous easy to comprehend examples clarifying his points. Ultimately, Laffer recommends adoption of a flat tax, something we're starting to hear more and more about. Given the poor state of the economy today, and the complexity of today's tax codes, Laffer may well have the right idea. He certainly makes a good case for his points of view. We're so far in the hole today, we don't seem to have much left to loose to implement many of his recommendations. Perhaps it's time to actually have an economist take a leadership role in our governmental policies instead of more lawyers and career politicians answering to the plethora of lobbyists on Capital Hill.
For an alternate point of view, one could try Jeffery Sachs book, "The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity". Sachs also presents ideas for a return to prosperity, however he states his ideas are more in keeping with a compassionate society. Sachs takes a contrary stance to Laffer, and emphasizes the need for the top 1% of wage earners in the U.S. to step up and pay more in taxes. Sachs makes the case that Laffer's supply side economics and tax cuts have been the basic policy since the 1980's, and has only resulted in increasing national debt, increased wealth of the top 1% of wage earners, and stagnation of the middle class.
Then there's President Clinton's 2011 Book "Back To Work", which also presents ideas on improving the economy. With all these ideas around, one can only hope that Congress will settle on a plan, and do more than simple bicker and blame.
I was initially suspicious as to whether the book would be one on economic theory, or one based on political ideology. The initial sections left me with the impression that Laffer, a self-proclaimed conservative and Libertarian, was simply going to use the book to repeat the many complaints against the Obama Administration, without recognizing the complicity of both recent Administrations and Congress, and without getting into any specifics on how American can regain its economic stability. I really was looking for a discussion on the economy, and was not looking for a book in which one political party lays all the blame for one or more issues on the opposing political party.
As an example, Laffer started his book with a discussion of Obama's energy policy. While every president since Eisenhower stated the need to reduce foreign oil imports, Laffer makes Obama and Energy Secretary Chu sound naive and ill informed for expressing the same desire. Laffer quotes Obama's inauguration and campaign speeches about his desire to "make American energy independent", and to "foster alternative fuels to create new American jobs". It seemed to me that Laffer either missed Obama's intention to support alternatives to our existing oil dependency, or distorted Obama's intention to mean that he proposed to immediately eliminate the foreign oil trade. If Laffer was correct, I would agree that Obama could be considered as uninformed and ignorant of basic economic benefits, and the Country would suffer. In fairness, it appears that Mr. Laffer wrote this book in 2009, early in the Obama Administration, to have it ready for release in 2010, and much of what he wrote was based on fears of Obama policy based on campaign rhetoric. But as I read the book at the end of 2011, three years after becoming President, Obama has not cut off foreign oil imports, nor has he ever talked about doing that. What Obama has hoped to do is spur alternate energy sources, in order to reduce foreign oil imports, or theoretically all but eliminate them at some point in the future. Mr. Laffer writes that this is still a bad idea because the nations we trade with use our dollars to in turn buy American products, keeping both economies going. But thinking about what our oil dollars fund in Saudi Arabia, the country who gave us the majority of 9/11 terrorists and exports extreme conservative Islam, starving that beast by reducing oil dollars doesn't sound like a bad idea. True, if we stopped importing Saudi or Venezuelian oil, other countries would step in and pick up the slack. But Obama's vision is to foster and develop alternative energy sources, even exporting that technology, and thereby reducing global oil demand. Idealistic, perhaps, but it's an entirely different picture than Laffer seemed to paint. And later, but still in the early chapters, Laffer states that Obama decided to persist in a policy of prevention of allowing off-shore oil drilling. But that isn't true either. In March, 2010, Obama lifted a longtime ban on offshore drilling and oil and gas exploration, saying it was crucial to U.S. energy security. Additionally, Laffer also took Obama to task for his "cap and trade" policy. But because he wrote the book so early in the Obama Presidency, he didn't account for the failure of the policy to gain support in the Senate, resulting in Obama's switch from the cap and trade policy and focusing instead on creating jobs and improving American competitiveness to offset climate change impacts. Other examples include, toward the very end of the book, Laffer classifying Obama as clueless for opposing a Free Trade Agreement with South Korea. Yet in late 2011, Obama signed three trade deals with Panama, Columbia, and South Korea. So, much of the book seemed like it would resemble political campaign adds which distort policy in order to gain political points from the uninformed, which was not my interest.
Happily, that wasn't the sustained theme of the book, and it became easy enough to weed out the politics and get back to the economic theory. The bulk of the book went more into Laffer's tax policies, and spreading blame for huge spending sprees among both political parties. Clearly, both George W. Bush and Barack Obama have opened the spigots of Federal spending, both attempting to "stimulate" the economy. Laffer then goes into details showing the downside of that policy on the present and long term state of the American economy. Laffer has an ability to make his theories easily understandable, at least on an elementary level, and provides numerous easy to comprehend examples clarifying his points. Ultimately, Laffer recommends adoption of a flat tax, something we're starting to hear more and more about. Given the poor state of the economy today, and the complexity of today's tax codes, Laffer may well have the right idea. He certainly makes a good case for his points of view. We're so far in the hole today, we don't seem to have much left to loose to implement many of his recommendations. Perhaps it's time to actually have an economist take a leadership role in our governmental policies instead of more lawyers and career politicians answering to the plethora of lobbyists on Capital Hill.
For an alternate point of view, one could try Jeffery Sachs book, "The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity". Sachs also presents ideas for a return to prosperity, however he states his ideas are more in keeping with a compassionate society. Sachs takes a contrary stance to Laffer, and emphasizes the need for the top 1% of wage earners in the U.S. to step up and pay more in taxes. Sachs makes the case that Laffer's supply side economics and tax cuts have been the basic policy since the 1980's, and has only resulted in increasing national debt, increased wealth of the top 1% of wage earners, and stagnation of the middle class.
Then there's President Clinton's 2011 Book "Back To Work", which also presents ideas on improving the economy. With all these ideas around, one can only hope that Congress will settle on a plan, and do more than simple bicker and blame.
July 9, 2011
Good read on an otherwise dry subject. Laffer gives good supporting historical references to support warnings and recommendations for future monetary policy. Book covers events as current as 2010 including the expansionist initiatives of the Obama administration from "cash for clunkers", "Tax the rich", healthcare, public debt, to various stimulus and redistributionist efforts. Works well as a reference book if you're not in it for the full read.
June 21, 2010
A contrary – but highly informed – view of taxes and economics
Prominent economist Arthur Laffer is a contrarian’s contrarian. He urges trade with North Korea and Cuba, dislikes unions, despises stimulus packages, loves the flat tax and espouses offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (note, though, that the book predates the oil spill catastrophe there). The inventor of the Laffer curve (which says, not without debate, that cutting tax rates for rich people ultimately produces more government revenue) offers evidence for each of his zingers, though he meanders at times, and his points are sure to raise hackles. He issues economic warnings with the intent that “you should be scared,” yet this isn’t a partisan book – Laffer’s informed insights, criticism and praise extend to both sides of the political aisle. He productively draws upon his own professional and personal experiences. When he writes that Americans are leaving high-tax states to move to low-tax states, he notes his own shift from California to Tennessee. Laffer is a supply-side conservative, but he voted for Bill Clinton, and he explains why. getAbstract, which recommends books but takes no political stands (the opinions in the Abstract are the author’s), suggests this analysis to policy makers and students of economics who welcome a curmudgeonly but deeply experienced perspective.
To learn more about this book, check out the following web page: http://www.getabstract.com/summary/13...
Prominent economist Arthur Laffer is a contrarian’s contrarian. He urges trade with North Korea and Cuba, dislikes unions, despises stimulus packages, loves the flat tax and espouses offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (note, though, that the book predates the oil spill catastrophe there). The inventor of the Laffer curve (which says, not without debate, that cutting tax rates for rich people ultimately produces more government revenue) offers evidence for each of his zingers, though he meanders at times, and his points are sure to raise hackles. He issues economic warnings with the intent that “you should be scared,” yet this isn’t a partisan book – Laffer’s informed insights, criticism and praise extend to both sides of the political aisle. He productively draws upon his own professional and personal experiences. When he writes that Americans are leaving high-tax states to move to low-tax states, he notes his own shift from California to Tennessee. Laffer is a supply-side conservative, but he voted for Bill Clinton, and he explains why. getAbstract, which recommends books but takes no political stands (the opinions in the Abstract are the author’s), suggests this analysis to policy makers and students of economics who welcome a curmudgeonly but deeply experienced perspective.
To learn more about this book, check out the following web page: http://www.getabstract.com/summary/13...
April 9, 2016
supply side economics and answer as in 80’s, Obama makes basic Econ101 mistakes, hasty is bad, stimulus Keynesian is panic decision, put politicians on commission live by law no ear marks line item veto, people respond to incentives, flat tax 13% simple fair flexible lowest rate on largest base less interest and charity and tax amnesty as states have, steady monetary policy free trade do no harm regulation, Hoover tariffs and depression, subsidized mortgages via fannie Freddie, unions out of public sector no min wage, move to countries/states to save taxes, $66T household assets 791 colleges, illegal to own gold in 33 for $20.67 then jump to $35 early 1934, repeal all financial legislation since 08, all legislators on social security and same systems, no fannie Freddie, limit deficits and unfunded liabilities cut spending, 08 was liquidity crisis as boiler blew up with tapping of subprime, bank reserves up 20 fold, inflation risk in future, nuclear power repeal excessive regs min wage Obamacare, short recessions ok.
Shelved as 'read-2010'
December 6, 2010I picked up this book at the recommendations of Dave Ramsey and Dan Miller. I love the author's well-defined credibility, and how he outlines the best way to control economic policy. It's almost comical that our current president, as much of a larger-than-life character as he truly is, knows absolutely nothing about economic policy. Art Laffer points this out in the very outset of his book, and I can't wait to read more.
Great quote from the book, IMHO (not the overall thesis, but a good quote): "An increased ability to budget will lead to an increased efficiency in the manner that the government spends the taxpayers' money." Duh!
Who would have thought that higher taxes on labor, trade, and profits would lead to lower levels of labor, trade, and profits? Obviously our current President did not read this book.
Great quote from the book, IMHO (not the overall thesis, but a good quote): "An increased ability to budget will lead to an increased efficiency in the manner that the government spends the taxpayers' money." Duh!
Who would have thought that higher taxes on labor, trade, and profits would lead to lower levels of labor, trade, and profits? Obviously our current President did not read this book.
February 21, 2012
Genius! Tax policy made simple. No small accomplishment there!
Art Laffer for Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers!
All Americans should read this book and finally begin to understand economics so that political candidates and special interests (of every variety and persuasion) cannot pull the wool over their eyes anymore.
Art Laffer for Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers!
All Americans should read this book and finally begin to understand economics so that political candidates and special interests (of every variety and persuasion) cannot pull the wool over their eyes anymore.
June 10, 2010
Dead on, smart economics information. I am not a big economics girl but I love the way that Art Laffer writes. He is a master at writing in a way that a layperson could grasp simple economics. His follow-up to this was just as good.
October 5, 2010
Very interesting book, not meant to be read when it's late and you can't keep your eyes open. If only our government could adopt some of his ideas.
November 7, 2014
It really is that easy.
July 8, 2015
Bad writing, but even worse content. Fortunately, the book is old enough that his load of crap has all been proven wrong.
October 9, 2010
I heard Dr. Laffer speak on the Dave Ramsey show and thought it would be interesting to read his most recent book. As I read the introduction I worried that the book would be too much of an econ book for me, however there were only a few parts that were over my head. I enjoyed the ideas in the book and was thrilled at the excellent writing. The fact that this book is recently published and deals with current economic issues was a big draw for me. I feel much more informed now!
October 12, 2011
What a wonderful thing it would be if every politician in the country would read this book. Then, let's get the President an all his admin to read it. While we're at it, let's give a copy to all the Wall Street protesters and have them read it together. I know it's a pipe dream but a fellow can hope. Mr. Laffer lays out a simple formula for economic salvation. Maybe the elections next year will result in positive changes.......
October 3, 2011
This is a great book for anyone who wants to know why we are in economic trouble and what to do about it. While Art Laffer is a Reaganite, he praises Clinton and blasts Bush 2 and lambasts Obama policies! If more would pay attention to this message we would see a return to prosperity. This is a great read for a book based on economic theory.
October 7, 2013
Good read from a quintessential supply side economist. It boils down to you get more taxes when more people are working, and more people will be employed when the entire tax rate structure is lowered. Tax something more and you get less of it, as it were. I suppose the proof is in the Reagan and Clinton years, something Obama should have studied instead of Saul Alinsky.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews