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Review: The Storm, by Vince Cable
The Storm, by Vince Cable (ISBN: 978-1848870574)
In this book, Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, in case you didn't know) writes about the economic crisis that's hit the world in the past year. He talks about what led up to it, what the UK and global implications are, and various possible ways we can respond.
Since Vince has been publicly warning about this since at least 2003, and was against the Conservatives' demutualisation of the Building Societies in 1996 partly because of the risk of the sort of crisis we're in now, he's extremely well-qualified to say 'I told you so'. It's to his credit - and greatly to the book's benefit - that he doesn't do so. Instead, he takes an almost non-partisan stance when looking at the crisis. Yes, he's a Keynsian, and the man who's been shaping Lib Dem economic policy for the past few years was never going to write a book that made it look silly, but he also praises Gordon Brown where he thinks he did the right thing and, more importantly, makes it clear that the situation is far larger and more complex than can be solved by UK party politics.
I'm not an economist, although I studied it for a year as part of my Engineering degree, so up to a point I have to trust that what Vince says makes sense. Certainly, where he's talking about areas that I do know anything about, or where I can check with other sources, his arguments seem well-founded. He writes with clarity, and organises his arguments well; even where I wasn't familiar with the economics going in, I felt I had a reasonable understanding of what he was talking about. Even so, I would have liked a glossary of terms, just so that I could be more confident that I was understanding correctly what Vince was talking about.
The section on the interrelation of the Chinese and western economies was especially complex. I 'm pretty sure that I understand it, but I still felt I needed to sit down and draw diagrams to get my head round concepts like China exporting $400 billion of savings to countries like the UK and the US. I did make the effort, though, because I believe that this is one of the most important sections of the book; the reactions of China and India to the global economic crisis seem crucial to what happens next, so understanding what they may do and how it's likely to affect us is vital. I did raise a wry grin from his conclusion of the section: 'What is needed is for the Chinese communists to behave more like communists and spend Chinese savings on social goods like healthcare and pensions instead of insisting on the privatization of those services.'
If there's an area that I'd have liked more detail on, it's that of protectionism. Vince is strongly anti-protectionist, and I suspect his instincts are right here, but he does at times come close to regarding it as an article of faith that protectionism will just make things worse. He points to history, but that's of limited use without a clear analysis of the history, and an explanation of why it made things worse. I don't feel I got enough of that here.
All told, though, this is a superb book. You won't find a magic bullet to get us out of the crisis because - and I apologise for posting spoilers - Vince doesn't have one. He has suggestions for approaches that might work but, as he makes clear in the book, there are so many things that could happen from here on, and so many ways that the countries involved could react to them, that any detailed plan will have to be torn up and rewritten many times before we find our way out of the crisis. Nonetheless, what I feel this book does provide is enough information to assess the different solutions proposed, and I think that's as much as could be hoped for. After reading The Storm, I have a far better understanding of the problem, and a good feel for some of the issues that any proposed solutions must address.
The cover's a bit odd, though; it looks as though Vince is worried about getting shat on by a passing seagull rather than considering the possible economic meltdown of the world's economies.
Here's a link to the book on Amazon (which I believe also makes the Lib Dems money for the referral, so if that bothers you or you don't like Amazon on principle, the book's still pretty easy to find elsewhere).
In this book, Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, in case you didn't know) writes about the economic crisis that's hit the world in the past year. He talks about what led up to it, what the UK and global implications are, and various possible ways we can respond.
Since Vince has been publicly warning about this since at least 2003, and was against the Conservatives' demutualisation of the Building Societies in 1996 partly because of the risk of the sort of crisis we're in now, he's extremely well-qualified to say 'I told you so'. It's to his credit - and greatly to the book's benefit - that he doesn't do so. Instead, he takes an almost non-partisan stance when looking at the crisis. Yes, he's a Keynsian, and the man who's been shaping Lib Dem economic policy for the past few years was never going to write a book that made it look silly, but he also praises Gordon Brown where he thinks he did the right thing and, more importantly, makes it clear that the situation is far larger and more complex than can be solved by UK party politics.
I'm not an economist, although I studied it for a year as part of my Engineering degree, so up to a point I have to trust that what Vince says makes sense. Certainly, where he's talking about areas that I do know anything about, or where I can check with other sources, his arguments seem well-founded. He writes with clarity, and organises his arguments well; even where I wasn't familiar with the economics going in, I felt I had a reasonable understanding of what he was talking about. Even so, I would have liked a glossary of terms, just so that I could be more confident that I was understanding correctly what Vince was talking about.
The section on the interrelation of the Chinese and western economies was especially complex. I 'm pretty sure that I understand it, but I still felt I needed to sit down and draw diagrams to get my head round concepts like China exporting $400 billion of savings to countries like the UK and the US. I did make the effort, though, because I believe that this is one of the most important sections of the book; the reactions of China and India to the global economic crisis seem crucial to what happens next, so understanding what they may do and how it's likely to affect us is vital. I did raise a wry grin from his conclusion of the section: 'What is needed is for the Chinese communists to behave more like communists and spend Chinese savings on social goods like healthcare and pensions instead of insisting on the privatization of those services.'
If there's an area that I'd have liked more detail on, it's that of protectionism. Vince is strongly anti-protectionist, and I suspect his instincts are right here, but he does at times come close to regarding it as an article of faith that protectionism will just make things worse. He points to history, but that's of limited use without a clear analysis of the history, and an explanation of why it made things worse. I don't feel I got enough of that here.
All told, though, this is a superb book. You won't find a magic bullet to get us out of the crisis because - and I apologise for posting spoilers - Vince doesn't have one. He has suggestions for approaches that might work but, as he makes clear in the book, there are so many things that could happen from here on, and so many ways that the countries involved could react to them, that any detailed plan will have to be torn up and rewritten many times before we find our way out of the crisis. Nonetheless, what I feel this book does provide is enough information to assess the different solutions proposed, and I think that's as much as could be hoped for. After reading The Storm, I have a far better understanding of the problem, and a good feel for some of the issues that any proposed solutions must address.
The cover's a bit odd, though; it looks as though Vince is worried about getting shat on by a passing seagull rather than considering the possible economic meltdown of the world's economies.
Here's a link to the book on Amazon (which I believe also makes the Lib Dems money for the referral, so if that bothers you or you don't like Amazon on principle, the book's still pretty easy to find elsewhere).