Book Review: America's Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb by Peter Ferrara

Published Library Journal, June 15, 2011, under "Nonfiction, Economics."

Ferrara, Peter. America’s Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb: How the Looming Debt Crisis Threatens the American Dream—and How We Can Turn the Tide Before It’s Too Late. Broadside. Jun. 2011. c.448p. ISBN 9780062025777. $25.99. ECON


Beyond an economic warning, this is an ambitious roadmap to economic reform and recovery for America. Voluminous statistics, numerous sources, and substantive issues make the book extremely credible. Readers will find explanations of the 2008 financial crisis and proposals to improve the situation. They will also be disabused of media distortions and inconsistencies that mislead the public’s economic understanding. Ferrara (President Obama’s Tax Piracy)—director of the Institute for Policy Innovation, former Reagan White House Office of Policy Development member, and former associate deputy attorney general under the first President Bush—outlines the calamitous path America has traveled and proposes multiple reforms that need both liberals’ and conservatives’ attention to avoid detonating the bankruptcy bomb. The reforms repeatedly demonstrate how present policies hurt poor and low-income Americans; restrain economic growth; endanger health care, education, Social Security, pensions, and states; and create disincentives that cause increased welfare enrollment, crime, and counterproductive activities. A comparison with Chilean Social Security, for example, shows U.S. ineptitude. Ferrara’s plea: “Can we talk?” VERDICT: Enlightening for serious readers, politicians, and those concerned about America’s future.—Joanne B. Conrad, Geneseo, NY