_Fifth Risk_, Michael Lewis
Feb. 10th, 2019 02:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutA friend recommended this to me / wanted my opinion.
Michael Lewis books are often somewhat rambling, disjointed explorations of a topic area, lacking in much of a unified thesis, much less a rhetorical structure. This is perhaps one of the best (worst?) examples of that tendency in his books.
Lewis talked to a bunch of people who worked at relatively high, non-political levels in various agencies under the Obama administration(s). Generally speaking, people in these positions have some chance of carrying over to a new administration, but no guarantee, especially when the party changes from one administration to the next. They are expected to, and often do a really great job of, preparing a transition plan and arranging to Not Lose Institutional Wisdom during these predictable transitions.
Some administrations do a really bad job at the transition. W.’s administration, for example, was quite chaotic and handled the transition poorly in general, partly because of the lawsuit and uncertainty, but also because of hostility to government embedded in Republican rhetoric and W.’s approach to things in general. However, the transition to the current administration really went unbelievably poorly, despite the Obama outgoing teams working very hard to try to make things hand off well. This isn’t really news and i don’t think it is actually controversial. Again, Republican rhetoric in opposition to big government has, in this administration, been generously admixed with a real What Can We Get For This mentality.
This book tells the backstory of several highly talented and interesting people, how they came to their positions, what they did in those positions, and how awful the transition process was, and their (legitimately) dire fears for the future safety of our country. It is alarming. Just because you create an accident prone environment, however, does not guarantee that accidents will actually happen. Sometimes, it takes a while. We’ve been lucky so far. I hope we keep being lucky. But when I see headlines about kill line speeds being increased, this book tells me what that means and why I should fear it. You might want to read this book too.
Michael Lewis books are often somewhat rambling, disjointed explorations of a topic area, lacking in much of a unified thesis, much less a rhetorical structure. This is perhaps one of the best (worst?) examples of that tendency in his books.
Lewis talked to a bunch of people who worked at relatively high, non-political levels in various agencies under the Obama administration(s). Generally speaking, people in these positions have some chance of carrying over to a new administration, but no guarantee, especially when the party changes from one administration to the next. They are expected to, and often do a really great job of, preparing a transition plan and arranging to Not Lose Institutional Wisdom during these predictable transitions.
Some administrations do a really bad job at the transition. W.’s administration, for example, was quite chaotic and handled the transition poorly in general, partly because of the lawsuit and uncertainty, but also because of hostility to government embedded in Republican rhetoric and W.’s approach to things in general. However, the transition to the current administration really went unbelievably poorly, despite the Obama outgoing teams working very hard to try to make things hand off well. This isn’t really news and i don’t think it is actually controversial. Again, Republican rhetoric in opposition to big government has, in this administration, been generously admixed with a real What Can We Get For This mentality.
This book tells the backstory of several highly talented and interesting people, how they came to their positions, what they did in those positions, and how awful the transition process was, and their (legitimately) dire fears for the future safety of our country. It is alarming. Just because you create an accident prone environment, however, does not guarantee that accidents will actually happen. Sometimes, it takes a while. We’ve been lucky so far. I hope we keep being lucky. But when I see headlines about kill line speeds being increased, this book tells me what that means and why I should fear it. You might want to read this book too.