In Hoodwinked, Perkins lets us in on his life as an Economic Hit man.  The book consists of two parts. In part one; he speaks about the problems in our Economy. He tells us about the views of Keyes and Friedman. He also talks about how some big companies and big wigs are controlling the third world countries. Also some of the rich people in the U.S. are doing the same. But most of us are being “Hoodwinked” and can’t see these things happening. This is what he calls: “Corporatocracy”, which means when the economy and politics are controlled by corporations.

In the second half, he throws out some solutions on fixing the economy. He speaks about fixing the broken system we have to save the world. He believes we could learn a lot from China. The way their economy took off was crazy. He also poses the point of taking care of out planet, and being greener.

Perkins speaks about Capitalism. We went over that a few sections ago.

I had no idea these huge companies were taking advantage of pretty much the whole world. It is very selfish that they do not care who they are hurting.

Hoodwinked

John Perkins

ISBN 9780307589941

April 14, 2014

             I did my book review on Mis-Measuring Our Lives, by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, and Jean-Paul Fitoussi. The book is about how the measure of GDP is not consistent enough to measure the well-being of a society.

            There are a few main points throughout the book. There are three chapters. In the first they tell us about why GDP is not measured as correctly as we think. It also lets us know how many things affect it. Chapter two speaks on quality of life. They touch on three approaches on how we currently measure the quality of life. The authors point out the differences, similarities, and weaknesses. Finally three tells us about Sustainable Development & Environment. The term “Green GDP” is brought up, which is ”an index of economic growth with environmental consequences of that growth factored into a country’s conventional GDP.”(Wikipedia)

            The insights that I read through the book related to unit 2. It tells about things like consumption, and the well-being of society. The thing I learned was the term Green GDP. I never knew it existed. I don’t wish anything else was included. I do find the whole topic of the book interesting. I would like to know why they decided to write a book about this. This book definitely changed my thought on how GDP is measured. It also made me think about how the smallest things are accounted for in GDP.

Authors: Joseph E. Stinglitz, Amartya Sen, Jean-Paul Fitoussi.

Publisher: The New Press

ISBN: 978-1-59558519-6

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_gross_domestic_product