Monopoly Books

Why have you, Amazon.com, not printed an explanation as to the doubled pricing of this book? Your silence pertaining to this previously asked question, makes many, with good reason, wonder exactly what type of "business" you run. You owe us all, your paying customers, a response for this blatant price gauge!

Great book, unfortunately, Amazon for some bizarre reason has doubled the list price. You can order the book directly from the publisher for around $20. Who are you beholdened to Amazon?

Many times I listened and have many of
the taped conversations of the late, great
Sherman H. Skolnick, a dedicated toiler
for America's cause, on the Tom Valentine
Radio Free America show (not the show of the
same name now by Carto crony, Masonic nitwit
Rick Adams, a scam artist from Rhode Island!).

Anyone wanting to contact me at richsalzerat
yahooodotcom, I will provide my cassettes
tape list of all the Sherman Skolnick / Tom
Valentine tapes. Mr. Valentine met the para-
plegic Mr Skolnick in Chicago back in the '60's
when Tom was Sports Editor of the Chicago Sun
Times and later Tribune. The writings of Mr.
Skolnick belong in the library of all Ameri-
cans right next to those of the late Col. L.
Fletcher Prouty! And Tom's own great literary
writings!

Why is this book priced so above the cost? Amazon?

Unarguable facts. Amazon sell this at twice the price, and they sell Harry Potter at half the price. You see my friends, keeping people in ignorance is big business.

I have to take exception to Jon Shell's editorial comment about the author. It is totally irrelevant and disrespectful of the thoughtful and compelling treatment Mr. McArthur gives to Canada's airline industry.

However, that said, I actually had the opportunity to meet Mr. McArthur at a book signing. He has a very strong grip, an icy stare and a boyish shock of blond hair reminiscent of Robert Redford circa 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'. I suspect Mr. McArthur will go far in the entertainment industry.

I bought this book the first day out and read through it in about 3 days. I found it quite exceptional for its historical perspective, but not particularly insightful. The author spends the entire book trying very hard not to put any editorial spin on anything which doesn't really make it very readable, but becomes a great reference material down the line.

My initial thought when I finished reading it was that this book may become the Canadian equivalent of "Hard Landing", the book by Thomas Petzinger which has become the de-facto mass market textbook on the impact of US airline deregulation.

This book is definitely a must-have for industry professionals and hardcore airline affectionados, but a casual reader is probably better served to wait for the paperback or deep discount.

I don't know much about this book, but that Keith McArthur is one sexy dude. Did you see that jacket photo? Whoa...

Everyone claims to be an expert on airlines. Frankly-some of these so called "airline history" books are dead wrong. The Canadian saga has been going on for about as long as the Star Wars series, except here thousands of people's livelihoods and the economic wealth of a nation are at stake. Air Monopoly is balanced, well told and VERY interesting.

This was a great mystery -- kept me entertained all the way through. But I have one question for the author. She referred to the different colors of Monopoly playing pieces: "He sat in the chair that was usually his and placed two pieces on Go. Purple was his father's favorite. He took it for himself and gave his father the yellow." Isn't Monopoly played with the well-known "tokens" -- hat, dog, race car, etc.?

This is a good mystery which is very easy to read. My one dissapointment was Jesse Drake. I'm tired of reading about gorgeous women cops that all the fellow officers harass in some way. I still have to find one book about women on the force which weren't harassed in some ways by the male species. Very tiresome. Still, this book is worth a read.

A friend lent me this book, and thought I would enjoy the plot. I am, I admit, a lover of thrillers and read this in one day.

A strange killer is on the moves (pun intended), and a woman detective (Jessie Drake) must identify him before it is too late. Will Jessie save her sister's marriage, and will she find the Curare Killer before he strikes again... Romance can not be avoided, as in most thrillers, but it at least is plausible and believable. Of course, the inevitable happens, the plot does get a little predictable, nevertheless the suspense is there all the way. Definitely deserves five stars.

I ran across this book and decided to give it a shot even though I wasn't familiar with the author. I was not disappointed. The characters are wonderful and by the end of the book, you feel like you know them all as friends. There are nice twists throughout the book and it never bogs down. It's a great read. I highly recommend it.

An excellent book that explores the myth of telecommunications policy. A problem in telecommunications policy is that the regulatory approaches have been sufficiently long lived that those who regulate today were not around when the regulatory policy was established. We have lived so long with regulatory approach that we have lost site of regulatory policy. As we today address, should a VoIP phone be regulated like a Verizon POTS phone, the answer is normally "Yes" because "like things should be regulated the same." This articulates a regulatory approach devoid of comprehension as to why a Verizon POTS phone was ever regulated in the first place. Milton Mueller takes us there and explores through his dissection of Universal Service what first brought about these policies, who sought them, and what gain they thought might be achieved through regulation. Today's universal service (98% of all americans have phones) is a grand achievement, but it is a far cry from what AT&T meant by "universal service" in 1908.

In this crisply written mix of history and clear theory, Mueller retells the history of early competition in telephony -- and of the role of regulation in making the AT&T monopoly. The book brings to life a completely forgotten period, where telephones were like computer operating systems today -- competing yet incompatible. Not every phone could be called from every phone, and this fact, Mueller convincingly argues, pushed competition in telephone penetration.

The book also is convincing in its account of the reconstruction of the meaning of the word "universal service" which was brought about, Mueller argues, by AT&T revisionism in the 1970s. The original meaning was simply that any phone would be able to call any phone; the modern meaning (that some service subsidizes other service) was a construction of a late monopoly trying to defend itself.

The book suggests wonderful (if under developed) parallels with the story of competition in modern operating systems. And it offers some important skepticism about the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

A fascinating account of telephone competition in the early 1900s, when the competing telephone systems did not connect. Mueller's analysis of the experience of a fragmented telecommunications infrastructure--and the decision to put an end to it in the name of "universal service"--has important implications for Internet and telecom development today. John Crook

The contributions to this work are all excellent, well written articles by the most respected experts on the leading edge of antitrust analysis.

With all the various information available concerning the Microsoft monopoly, it was wonderful to find an objective source that followed the events before and during the Microsoft case, analyzed the monopolistic tendencies of the software market in general, and compared this information with previous monopolies. The best characteristic of this book is that it explains the events and legalities of the case in such a way that it is not at all difficult to understand.

Korman hits a home run with his portrait of the inventor Charles Goodyear and his self-destructive mania surrounding finding a way to make rubber a useful industrial product. The craziness continues when Goodyear claims the credit for the invention (and the royalties) as his own.

The book is a time-traveling glimpse into industrial revolutionary America and England and the swirling energy surrounding the changes happening at the time.

A must for ambitious business people and basement tinkerers!

The Goodyear Story: An Inventor's Obsession And The Struggle For A Rubber Monopoly by Richard Korman (Senior Editor, Engineering News-Record, McGraw-Hill) is the amazing and informative biography of Charles Goodyear, the man who in the 1830's began his efforts to create rubber -- a material, in his belief, which would forever alter the world and the course of human civilization. His dream cost so much that his family lived in poverty and he suffered in debtor's prison. Yet his dream was not only to make rubber, but also to reap the wealth of controlling its creation and distribution; when others tried to lay claim to the manufacture of his miracle, only a lawsuit as argued by the famous Daniel Webster could settle the dispute once and for all. The Goodyear Story is a fascinating, true-life tale of science, business, and the striving of human nature against great odds and adverse circumstances.

Thanks to an advance copy of "Monopoly Politics" I have had a chance to read and review a book that takes a much needed new look at a tired problem. Too many reformers have offered the same explanation and remedies for the ills of the political markets. Namely limit the money, control the money, track the money. But Dr. Miller dives straight into the heart of the problem, the lack of competition in the political markets. Hopefully this book will be the start of a new debate that addresses the real problem, so that effective reform can begin.

Conventional wisdom says that America needs tighter campaign finance rules to level the political playing field. A recent book suggests the opposite is true. Existing rules give enormous advantages to certain political players, and proposed campaign finance "reforms" would solidify their grip even further.

"Monopoly Politics" (Hoover Press, 1999; 157 pages), by James C. Miller III, describes a system so stacked in favor of congressional incumbents that challengers have little hope of defeating them in the voting booth.

More likely than not, the vast majority of congressional incumbents who run for re-election this year will win, and win big. In 1998, voters re-elected 98.3 percent of all incumbents who sought to remain in the U.S. House of Representatives. Three out of four of these incumbents won re-election with more than 60 percent of the vote. Believe it or not, that was fairly typical for a congressional election. Since 1950, incumbents seeking re-election to the House won 93 percent of the time. Senators fared nearly as well, winning 80 percent of their re-election bids.

In explaining these overwhelming percentages, Miller juxtaposes political markets with commercial markets. In the latter, anti-trust laws exist to prevent businesses from colluding to keep new competitors from entering the marketplace. But in the political marketplace, elected officials routinely engage in monopolistic practices with impunity. After all, Congress writes the election laws.

Miller, who once served as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and who was himself a challenger in two Senate primaries, believes incumbents often win re-election because they have access to the formidable resources of their political offices. For instance, incumbents routinely bombard their home districts with mass mailings at taxpayer expense. They have free use of the Capitol's television and radio studios. They use the appropriations process to lavish their districts with pork-barrel spending. They provide "constituent services" to the voters who will ultimately decide their political fates. Few challengers can easily overcome such advantages.

Federal election laws also provide congressional incumbents with a substantial edge. For example, the law allows incumbents to maintain multi-million-dollar "war chests" from one election cycle to the next. These discourage would-be challengers from entering the race. And because incumbents with large war chests are thought more likely to win re-election, many challengers find it difficult to raise money for their underdog campaigns.

Reform-minded readers will enjoy Miller's lengthy discourse on campaign finance reform. Although several reform proposals are competing for Congress' attention, most are based on the assumption that money has corrupted the political marketplace. Predictably, the leading reform proposals would further restrict a candidate's ability to raise or spend campaign money.

Miller advocates an entirely different point of view. He believes the political marketplace is suffering not from too much money, but from too little competition. While incumbents are generally well-known in their home districts, most challengers must spend an inordinate amount of time and money to introduce themselves to the electorate. Further restricting a congressional candidate's ability to raise or spend campaign money would only make it more difficult for challengers to become known in their districts.

"Monopoly Politics" offers 15 specific recommendations for increasing competition in the political marketplace. Among other things, Miller would eliminate the legal ceilings on campaign contributions and require campaigns to disclose their contributions fully. He would impose term limits, eliminate "pork" in the budget, prohibit war chests, and end the free use of Capitol television and radio studios.

Some of Miller's recommendations are more practical than others. (Indeed, fiscal conservatives have tried unsuccessfully for decades to purge wasteful pork projects from the federal budget.) But on the whole, Miller's recommendations would likely inject much-needed competition into the political marketplace. For that reason, expect incumbents to offer fierce resistance.

As interesting as Miller's book is, even more interesting have been the reactions to it. Inside the Washington Beltway, people nod in agreement with Miller's description of how politicians engage in anti-competitive behavior, as though that is the way the system is supposed to work. Outside the Beltway, people have trouble seeing what the controversy is all about. They could care less about competition among politicians. After all, aren't politicians pretty much the same? In fact, politicians aren't all the same. But if we don't change the system, we might never be sure.

(James Carter is an economist with the U.S. Senate. Patrick Chisholm is managing editor at KCI Communications, an investment newsletter publisher.)

Jeffrey Bauer really knows what he's talking about. All it takes is one trip to the clinic or hospital, and you know there's something drastically wrong with the delivery of health care in America. If you're insured, it's scary. If you're not insured, God help you!

Bauer offers a commonsense solution that will lower cost and increase service. And we know he's right. Since this book was originally written four years ago--although recently updated--much of what he's advocated has already (but slowly) begun to occur.

Every health care professional should read this book. It should be a required text in every allied health care provider school in the country. It should be a required text in every medical school in the country as well. But it won't be, for although it is not anti-doctor it challenges the status quo. And that always scares those on top.

An empowering book for those who want to see real change in health care.

If physicians are not already in fear of losing their medical monopoly it's because they have not been paying close attention. The greed of many (not all) doctors is the root cause, as they have lost their patient-centered focus in pursuit of huge finacial gains in the health care market.

I believe that tax-payers are now in the process of revolting, evidenced by proposed changes in federal regulations (Healthcare Finance Administration). Costs are unbelievably high and the country still has a large number of people who are uninsured. Healthcare in america is in serious trouble, and the physician empire is crumbling. I say, the sooner the better.

This book gives more insight into healthcare problems and solutions than any I have read. Please read this book and start trying to find ways to implement the proposed changes in your state law. I know from personal experience that the primary care offered by advanced practice nurses is as good as any offered by a physician. This book will give you the confidence and insight required to help usher in meaningful healthcare reform for the 21st century. Please read it, and pass it on to a friend.

Dr. Hazlett explicates the dilemmas of free enterprise and government regulation, as they apply to the evil cable mafias, in this witty book. If you get cable tv, you should read this.

Dr. Hazlett explicates the dilemmas of free enterprise and government regulation, as they apply to the evil cable mafias, in this witty book. If you get cable tv, you should read this.

This book is more timely today than when it first appeared. I cannot say it better than reviewers of the time:
"...Kreig deserves a place on the required reading list of any ethics class ... The book offers enough specific examples to stimulate class analysis for several semesters." (Journalism Quarterly)
"Anyone who has been a reporter will recognize the characters in this compelling book, whether or not they've worked for a chain. The arrogance, pretentiousness and downright cowardice so common to newspaper management appear here in bold relief." (John R. MacArthur, Publisher, Harper's Magazine)
"....a pretty chilling tale...very well reported." (Jonathan Alter, Senior Editor, Newsweek)
"...beg, borrow, buy or steal a copy of Spiked." (Willimantic Chronicle).
I agree! A must read!

Spiked provides an insider's account of the economics and politics that shape the newspaper industry -- excessive bending for profits, prizes and pacification. As indicated by the overwhelmingly positive response to this important book, this continues to be an enduring analysis of the most important trends in the news business, affecting the forces at work that shape our democracy.