NCF’s Top Ten Reading Selections for 2008
NCF’s mission is to drive the policy debate on the important emerging issues by formulating arguments, developing options, and influencing thinking in an effort to move the American business agenda forward. As part of that mission, we consulted with industry specialists and Chamber staff to select an annual list of top ten books by leading think tanks, business leaders, and policy experts. that both advance our agenda and challenge our thinking.
In conjunction with the 2008 Books That Drive the Debate, NCF launched a new program called the Authors’ Series in which where authors from the year’s book selections were invited to discuss their book or book-related topics in an open forum. For more details on this program, please click here.
Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders
by Jason Riley
Separating fact from myth in today’s heated immigration debate, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board contends that foreign workers play a vital role in keeping America prosperous; that maintaining an open-border policy is consistent with free-market economic principals; and that the arguments put forward by opponents of immigration ultimately don’t hold up to scrutiny.
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Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash
by Charles R. Morris
We are living in the most reckless financial environment in recent history. Arcane credit derivative bets are now well into the tens of trillions. According to Charles R. Morris, the astronomical leverage at investment banks and their hedge fund and private equity clients virtually guarantees massive disruption in global markets. The crash, when it comes, will have no firebreaks. A quarter century of free-market zealotry that extolled asset stripping, abusive lending, and hedge fund secrecy will come crashing down with it.
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Futurecast: How Superpowers, Populations, and Globalization Will Change the Way You Live and Work
by Robert J. Shapiro
As everyone’s lives across the world are become increasingly interconnected by globalization and new technologies quicken the pace of everything, the answer to that question depends on the fate and paths of the world’s major nations. In Futurecast, Robert Shapiro, former U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce and Chairman/Co-founder of Sonecon, looks into the future to tell us what our world will over the next dozen years. Though that time span seems brief, Shapiro foresees monumental changes caused by three historic new forces—globalization, the aging of societies, and the rise of America as a sole superpower with no near peer— will determine the paths of nations and the lives of countless millions.
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Who Killed Healthcare: America’s $2 Trillion Medical Problem and the Consumer-Driven Cure
by Regina Herzlinger
Consumer-driven healthcare means that we shop for our healthcre services just like we shop for a car, furniture, a handyman or a plumber. We try to get the best value for the dollar. We leave it up to the entrepreneurs to provide us with the best for the least. Competition brings down the cost of most everything, and healthcare costs are no exception. Regina Herzlinger makes an excellent argument for this in her book in a most passionate manner.
Putting Our House in Order: A Guide to Social Security and Health Care Reform
by George P. Shultz and John B. Shoven
Of all the issues swirling around the 2008 election, the staggering projected costs for the upkeep of America’s largest entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—loom with gathering intensity. Government revenues alone cannot solve the problem, but a solution must be found. In this book George P. Shultz and John B. Shoven take a practical—and optimistic—look at the issues at hand, offering an agenda for reform that will make these essential programs solvent.
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Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy
by Gwyneth Cravens
In this timely book, Gwyneth Cravens takes an informed and clarifying look at the myths, the fears, and the truth about nuclear energy. With concerns about catastrophic global warming mounting, it is vital that we examine all our energy options. Power to Save the World describes the efforts of one determined woman, Gwyneth Cravens, initially a skeptic about nuclear power, as she spends nearly a decade immersing herself in the subject.
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The Rise of Global Civil Society: Building Communities and Nations From the Bottom Up
by Don Eberly
The Rise of Global Civil Society is a report card on freedom. Eberly argues that the progress of freedom depends critically on the creation of civic cultures that promote democratic values. He shows that the key to spreading workable democracy lies in finding ways to harness the best of both the public and private sectors, relying on markets and on civil society to enlist the poor as partners in their own development.
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The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud**And those who are too fearful to do so
by Lawrence Solomon
Is The “Scientific Consensus” on Global Warming a Myth? Yes, says internationally renowned environmentalist author Lawrence Solomon who highlights the brave scientists—all leaders in their fields—who dispute the conventional wisdom of climate change alarmists (despite the threat to their careers).
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Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity
by William J. Baumol, Robert E. Litan, and Carl J. Schramm
Imagine this: a mere century ago, the purchasing power of an average American was one-tenth of what it is today. But what will it take to sustain that growth through the next century? And what can be said about economic growth to aspiring nations seeking higher standards of living for their citizens? In this important book, William J. Baumol, Robert E. Litan, and Carl J. Schramm contend that the answers to these questions lie within capitalist economies, though many observers make the mistake of believing that “capitalism” is of a single kind.
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The Post-American World
by Fareed Zakaria
One of our most distinguished thinkers argues that the “rise of the rest” is the great story of our time. “This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else.” So begins Fareed Zakaria’s important new work on the era we are now entering.
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For questions regarding this program, please contact us at (202) 463-5500 or ncfevents@uschamber.com.
