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"Orange County," writes Mark Baldassare, "is a place that is widely known but largely misunderstood." That's especially true of the bankruptcy proceedings the California county was forced to initiate in late 1994 after risky investments led to a $1.64 billion dollar loss. Baldassare's close analysis of the situation reveals that the crisis cannot, as popularly imagined, be blamed solely on the actions of unchecked financial management. Although the county treasurer's investment strategy was "an accident waiting to happen," Baldassare points to a two-decade trend of voter initiatives to simultaneously minimize tax increases and control the allocation of state tax funds, along with Orange County's political fragmentation, as contributing factors. He also points out that, contrary to its reputation as a stronghold of wealthy conservatives, the county is primarily made up of middle-class suburbanites of moderate political temperament. In other words, Orange County is a lot like the rest of America, and what happened there can happen again. Although When Government Fails, with its historical data, statistics, and surveys, isn't always a lively read, it's a useful one for anybody who is concerned about the future viability of government at the community level. --Ron Hogan ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Zzzzzzzz
Although informative, the author needs almost 400 pages to say what could have easily been said in well under 100. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

What Price is Peace?
I agree 100% with the previous reviewer, about this book changing your life. This book, along with others like 'Man Made Famine' show the truth is worse than fiction. And pseudo liberals like Sting with their cheesy 'sponsor a child' stuff is NO GOOD.Makes us first world feels less guilty about the 'third world' (which means, the overexploited Non white world). And this books goes real deep, with the facts and quotes (from Banks, Multinations the power brokers) and leaves us with the question. What Price for Peace, am I prepared to allow say, Ghana develop it's Gold and Diamond mines knowing that if it does it put my Middle Class standard of living at risk? Really what is the price of peace.
serious reasonings.
Zeech

This book changed my life, shows what REALLY goes on ....
Must read for all students, taxpayers, inhabitants of 1st world countries. Shows how WB is corrupt and devastating down to its CORE! Before you turn on TV one more time, MUST read this.

Absolutely MUST READ for EVERY PERSON in first world!! MUST!
This is my #1 book recommendation! Mind-blowing! Expose on the corrupt, IMF/WorldBank/Ex-Im/multinational corporation/defence industry led ABUSE of environment and indiginous peoples world-wide. A MUST! for every single person in US and Europe, First World. ... Read more

Book Description

This book from the Centre for Economic Policy Research collects theoretical, applied and historical research on the welfare economics of public debt; how inappropriate debt management can lead to funding crises; capital levies; debt consolidation; U.S. public debt history; political influences on debt accumulation; trade-offs between indexation and maturity; and confidence effects in a stochastic rational expectations framework. ... Read more

Book Description

This book pulls together hundreds of money saving tips including savings on automobile expenses, clothing, communications expenses, energy costs, funeral expenses, gifts, health care, home furnishings, housing costs, insurance, vacation expenses, and much more.It is written in an easy-to-read style and the table of contents and index help the reader go directly to areas of interest. ... Read more

Book Description

There is a long-standing difference among public economists between those who think that collective choice must be formally acknowledged, and those who derive their policy recommendations from a social planning framework in which politics plays no role. The purpose of this book, now available in paperback, is to contribute to a meaningful dialogue between these two groups, in the belief that the future of both political economy and of normative public finance lies somewhere between the two approaches.

Some of the specific questions addressed in the book include: Does public finance need political economy? Should collective choice play a role in the standard of reference used in normative public finance? What is a ‘failure’ in a non-market or policy process? And what have we learned about the theory and practice of public finance from three decades of empirical research on public choice? The book also provides a practitioner’s view of the political economy of redistribution.

The distinguished list of authors, many of whom are pre-eminent in their fields, includes Robin Boadway, Geoffrey Brennan, Albert Breton, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, Walter Hettich, Gebhard Kirchgässner, Dennis Mueller, William Niskanen, Hirofumi Shibata, Eugene Smolensky, Heinrich Ursprung, Frans van Winden, Stanley Winer and Donald Wittman.

The importance of political economy to any understanding of why public policy evolves as it does is now widely accepted by public finance scholars and practitioners. This book goes a step further by considering the role of collective choice in defining what constitutes ‘good’ or ‘better’ policy. It will be an essential companion for all scholars of public finance and political economy. ... Read more

Book Description

State tax systems have generally not changed dramatically over the last 50 years. Yet, as the century comes to an end, those systems face profound challenges. Increased international trade, the advent of electronic commerce, evolving federal-state relations, and interstate competition are just some of the developments that will have a powerful influence on how states collect revenue. This book is a collection of essays from leading tax scholars on the future of state taxation. The authors address a wide variety of issues concerning the major sources of state tax revenue, and provide their insights as to what has worked in the past and what will or will not work in the future. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Excellent for law students and anyone interested in policy.
State taxes have exploded over the past decade, but most of us haven't even noticed. David Brunori has compiled some really incisive commentary on the future of state taxation. ... Read more

Book Description

In this user-friAndly set of training materials, David Osborne and Victor Colon Rivera give managers and employees advice on how they can apply the principles behind the reinvention revolution that is changing the way government works. Designed for use in federal, state, and local governments, this workbook includes exercises, brain teasers, and discussion items to create an interactive, involving learning environment.

The Reinventing Government Workbook is designed to help employees at all levels understand the basic changes that are taking place and how they can help contribute.

The Reinventing Government Facilitator Guide provides detailed, step-by-step instructions on making the training experience rewarding and memorable. It includes useful tips on designing the training program, instructions on using the workbook exercises, answers to frequently asked questions, and more.

... Read more

Book Description

This title respondsto the growing importance of performance measurement within political and administrative agendas. It looks at the effects of performance measurement on organizations, its risks and limitations and proposes new and positive ways in which measuring performance can be used. This is an excellent addition to the subject area, which is becoming more and more widely taught on management and administration courses worldwide. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

How safety nets smooth consumption without helping the poor
I rarely delve into detailed descriptions of the structural mechanics of poverty, so this is an inexpert forray into the literature, but I would like to briefly recommend Income & Influence a book of less than 100 pages that covers the last few decades of unemployment and welfare policy in Latin America and southern Asia. Focusing on the awkward nexus between national interest group politics and international interest group pressures, the authors explain deficiencies in the sparse safety nets spread to "smooth consumption patterns" in the economic classes that were hardest hit by the "shock therapy" transition to open markets. These safety nets, particularly unemployment benefits and pension reform, reached only the politically organized labor sectors that had been relatively well-off before the transition period - leaving behind the more profoundly impoverished, chronically unemployed masses, and protecting only a politically aggressive cross-section of the middle class. This is hardly new information, but the book is worth a glance for two reasons: (1) it's very short and clearly written, accessible to non-economists like myself, and (2) in the first chapter, it quickly describes several partially overlapping economic theories about the causal relationships between income disparities and free trade, in a refreshingly non-ideological and straight-forward way. Anyone who has ever tried to muddle through a Foreign Affairs article on the subject will find these pages (7-11) interesting, and the comparative analyses that follow seem enlightened and insightful. ... Read more