What I Think : Essays on Economics, Politics, and Life

by Stein, Herbert

• ISBN13: 9780844740973
• ISBN10: 0844740977
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-02-01
• Publisher: Natl Book Network

Summary

This witty, accessible volume offers personal observations and discourses about the state of the economy, the budget and taxes, history, and politics.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Part One Overview
What I Think	3	(14)
Reflections on an Early Libertarian	17	(9)
Brave New World Already?	26	(4)
Herb Stein's Unfamiliar Quotations	30	(7)
Part Two History
Eighty-One Years	37	(8)
Fifty Years of the Council of Economic Advisers	45	(43)
Washington Before the War	88	(22)
Inside Washington's Old Executive Office Building	110	(6)
Reading the Inaugurals	116	(6)
Looking Back to August 15, 1971	122	(4)
The Nixon I Knew	126	(5)
Part Three The State of the Economy
A Rich Country with Problems	131	(10)
The American Dream	141	(3)
The Debate over Income Inequality	144	(5)
Am I Better Off?	149	(4)
A Primer on Pay and Productivity	153	(5)
The CPI: Servant or Master?	158	(4)
Beware of Corporate Responsibility	162	(7)
Part Four Budget and Taxes
Wanted: A Fiscal Policy	169	(4)
Chairman Bill's Big Blue Book	173	(5)
The Uneasy Case for the Flat Tax	178	(7)
Straightening Out the Flat Tax	185	(5)
Confessions of a Tax Lover	190	(5)
Death and Taxes	195	(4)
I'll Be All Right	199	(3)
Who Pays for Privatizing Social Security?	202	(7)
Part Five Politics
A Cautionary Memo for JFK Republicans	209	(4)
On Presidential Republicans	213	(4)
Tips on Political Economics	217	(6)
Part Six Life
Golden Days	223	(3)
A Tourist at Home	226	(4)
Gertrude Stein---Republican	230	(5)
An Old Couch Potato's Lament	235	(4)
On Families and Values	239	(3)
The Watergun Hearings---Excerpts from Testimony of Herbert Stein before the House Select Committee on Domestic Disarmament	242	(4)
Talk, Talk, Talk...	246	(6)
Microwaveconomics	252	(5)
About the Author	257	(2)
Acknowledgments	259