Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
In Empire of Debt, maverick financial writers Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin provide you with the first in-depth look at how the American character has shifted to accommodate its new imperial role; how we have abandoned the private virtues of personal liberty, economic freedom, and fiscal restraint; and how the government has gained control of public life and the economy.

Amazon.com Review:
Many Americans have resisted the notion that their country is an imperial power. The idea seems to contradict the values of the Republic and its Founding Fathers. But in Empire of Debt, prominent financial analysts Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin argue passionately that not only is the United States an empire, but it is also one whose end is coming soon. Bonner and Wiggin are the brains behind www.dailyreckoning.com, an iconoclastic and irreverent market advisory service that has long raised concerns about American indebtedness and warned of a looming dollar crisis. In Empire of Debt, a sequel to their earlier doom-and-gloom book Financial Reckoning Day, they elaborate on their argument that the U.S. economy is about to implode.

Bonner and Wiggin enumerate a long list of chronic ailments that imperil the American financial system--a massive trade deficit, soaring personal and government debt, a housing bubble, runaway military expenditures. These problems "hardly disturb the sleep of the imperial race," the authors write. "[But] all empires must pass away." Bonner and Wiggin argue that American imperial delusions are similar to the fantasies that fueled the dot-com market mania. They recommend readers buy gold as insurance in the event of a financial crisis. Empire of Debt flounders when discussing how America indebted itself; the authors blame the Federal Reserve Board's low interest rates but gloss over the fact that rates were slashed because the U.S. teetered on the brink of deflation in 2002 and 2003 (a topic they give more attention to in Financial Reckoning Day). As hardcore free-marketeers, Bonner and Wiggin also seem to long for the pre-welfare days of the 1920s but forget how that period's policies led to the Great Depression. That said, Empire of Debt contains many revelations that will open eyes. --Alex Roslin

Rating : - Seeing things as they really are rather than as we'd like them to be
A prognosis most Americans have not wanted to hear for decades (until now when sadly the disease can no longer be ignored). Philosophical but easy to read for anyone willing to expend a little thought/effort, and read with an open mind. Almost everone who reads it will find something offensive to their perceptions of the world we live in, but that's the point. Some might see this as gloom & doom but it's excellent at cutting through perceptions to expose realities; and perhaps more important how reality and perceptions so easily and stealthily diverged from one another.

I don't agree with every cause and effect or conclusion but overall Bonner is spot on. As a treatise to show the ill effects of blind trust, overreaching government, misleading press, ignoring history and human frailities - this would make excellent reading in HS or at least college where we want to teach that it's not just OK to challenge conventional wisdom and leaders, but that our long term freedoms rely on us doing so.