Review: When Giants Fall by Michael Panzner

Posted by Ben

May 4, 2009

Americans have been at the front row of the economic collapse and can actually pinpoint the reverberations around the world like ripples in a pond. This book does exactly what it means to: tell the past present and future about how America is going to no longer lead the world economically. Sound a little to negative? Well Mr. Panzner also touts that by going through the bad there can be good…only by learning about the vehicle in which we have presently arrived.

General Overview: At the outset, this book takes on a very doom and gloom attitude, but having said that, it seemed pretty accurate. The paths in chapter 1 takes the reader on an initial road through the fall of currency, the weakening of our military, and the overall disrespect for our politicians. See, it is pretty bleak but nicely spot on.

Moving on to other methods of the global decline, we have the environment. According to this book, it is not the rate of population increasing, it is the rate at which that population consumes. I have to disagree with this in that population is a factor towards the rate of consumption but see the validity in the point he seeks. He backs up his point by saying that if China and India were to catch up to U.S. levels of consumption, the global population would be about 3 times what it is now. Thats for two countries, what about all of them? Think of a global population of about 72 billion. What kind of economy would that need to have viability as a planet? Scary huh?

Typically nowadays, many believe that no matter what happens more broadly speaking, it won’t have much impact on their lives.

Pros: Everything stated in this book is backed up by facts and statistics and paints a very real picture of what has and is going to happen to our economic world. You might think after finishing this book that it was WAY too negative, and that the author should have included more positive notes. The theory of economic inertia gets a little debunked and its made apparant that just because it hasn’t happened yet, it can still happen. The content is well organized, it has good readability and has relevant focus. Its just a dark topic…

Cons: There is a large part of me that thinks it really is easier to be a pessimist when things are crashing down around our heads. Thats not to say that this book was poorly done, on the contrary, but it seemed like an easier topic to pick. What I would have liked to see was more positive things to put into action besides “be vigilant,” and to get a second job. We all know that. I wanted more info on taking advantage of this situation aside from buying low and riding it out.

Summary: In the end, I wouldn’t give this to a friend who wanted to know about the economic collapse (it would merely scare them). But I would recommend to a fellow collector of financial knowledge due to the fact that the more dire points brought forth merit more discussion.