The Waterkooler

The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrows Headlines

Why do the terrible events we see in the media always seem to lead to more of the same? Noted author and cultural behaviorist Loren Coleman explores how the media's over-saturated coverage of murders, suicides, and deadly tragedies makes an impact on our society.

This guy argues that our media obsession with violence breeds more of the same.

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In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

Libertarian Murray's Losing Ground laid the groundwork for controversial welfare reform proposals. His latest volume continues in the same vein, positing that government support has exacerbated dysfunctional underclass behavior, and offering a compromise to social democrats who call starve-the-beast policies cruel. In "The Plan," all the money currently used in transfer programs Murray doesn't deem universal (Social Security, agricultural subsidies, corporate welfare, as opposed to national defense, clean air, etc.) would be redirected into a new program that gives each citizen an annual $10,000 cash grant, beginning at age 21. The plan would slice one Gordian knot: everyone would be required to buy health insurance, insurers would have to treat the entire population as a single pool and changes in tort and licensing laws would enable low-cost clinics for minor problems. But Murray's purposes are larger: to enable the search for a vocation by making it easier to change jobs; to encourage marriage among low-income people; and to move social welfare support from bureaucracies back to Tocquevillian civil society—a nostalgic argument that deserves a more cyber-era analysis. His volume makes an intriguing contrast to 1999's left-meets-libertarian book The Stakeholder Society (unmentioned by Murray), which proposed $80,000 grants, financed by taxing the rich. Given Murray's track record—he coauthored The Bell Curve—and his think tank backing, expect much discussion of this book in print and on air. (Mar.)

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The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time

"Extreme poverty can be ended, not in the time of our grandchildren, but our time." Thus forecasts Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, whose twenty-five years of experience observing the world from many vantage points has helped him shed light on the most vital issues facing our planet: the causes of poverty, the role of rich-country policies, and the very real possibilities for a poverty-free future. Deemed "the most important economist in the world" by The New York Times Magazine and "the world's best-known economist" by Time magazine, Sachs brings his considerable expertise to bear in the landmark The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, his highly anticipated blueprint for world-wide economic success — a goal, he argues, we can reach in a mere twenty years.

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Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

The author of this book has been often deemed the smartest man on the planet. He has won every award imaginable to an economist. If he played golf, his name would be Tiger Woods. This is the one-year anniversary of the book's release and it is STILL a best-seller. Books on economics NEVER become best-sellers, much less for an entire YEAR! You may have seen the recent 20/20 special one-hour program focusing on the book, or the Good Morning America feature. One year after publication, this book is still getting attention. And for good reason. Highly recommended.

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South Park Conservatives, which reminds us what an uphill battle conservative politicians face in this country due to the incessant liberal agenda in the main stream press.

"Throughout 2004, economists wondered why the public remained grumpy about the Bush economy, whose growth rate matched any twelve-month period of the Clinton presidency. A July AP/Ipsos public Affairs survey, for example, found that 57 percent of the respondents throught that the economy had lost more jobs than it had gained over the previous six months, whin in fact it had added more than one million jobs. Headlines like the Chicago Tribune's, greeting news of a robust 4 percent economic growth during the fourth quarter of 2003 - "GDP Growth Disappoints: Job Worries Linger" - no doubt had something to do with public mystification."

Thank goodness for talk radio, bloggers, and FOX News!