[mynegation]

Please have my upvote (like you need one). I will definitely include "the shock doctrine" into my "To read" list.

I wonder if there's an opportunity for "open source" credit ratings. Numbers like GDP, trade deficit or proficit, exchange rates, national debt etc are available and someone could creates a method that software or website could use to calculate all that into credit rating.

[jamesaguilar]

Bear in mind that there is a fair amount of criticism from many economists on the book's analysis. It may be worthwhile to include those on your reading list as well. Here are just a few: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine#Criticism

[olefoo]

Also remember that most economists are wrong. If you read any economist who cannot explain the works of John Maynard Keynes in lucid detail (regardless of whether they agree with him) you are dealing with someone who is an "authoritative fraud".

So pretty much the entire Chicago School.

[jamesaguilar]

I think you're making the classic mistake of assuming people who disagree with you are stupid. Specifically, it seems fantastically unlikely that the average Chicago school academic would be unable to explain in detail Keynes and his theses.

[olefoo]

Actually, in this case, it's not that I think they are stupid; merely that they have lost touch with reality. An economist who denies the role of government in macroeconomics for ideological reasons may be quite bright and may be able to construct quite fearsome explanations for his positions, but he is deliberately ignoring both the reality of the present and the lessons of history.

[jamesaguilar]

I doubt that you can find me an anarchist member of the Chicago school. They all recognize a role for government, the debate is over how large and where that role is. The people you are bothered by are a straw figment of your imagination.

[olefoo]

The deadliest anarchists wear silk suits and pocket squares and do more damage to more human lives with a fountain pen than a thousand men throwing molotov cocktails could even dream of.

[vukk]

I recommend reading Friedman's Free to Choose after reading The Shock Doctrine http://www.amazon.com/Free-Choose-Statement-Milton-Friedman/... (Friedman is the guy that Naomi Klein blames on the book)