Ticket Masters: The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped Review

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Ticket Masters: The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped ReviewThis is the first truly comprehensive look at the history of the billion dollar concert ticketing industry, and should deservedly be the first go-to book for anybody ever doing work on the subject.
I worked in the ticket industry for about 13 years, so I've seen most of the changes the author describes. Stub Hub, the now-ubiqutous ticket marketplace, used to call our office years ago and explain what a great idea they had about a national format - and we laughed, and laughed.
Most importantly, though, the stories Budnick and Baron tell happened the way they tell it. I can speak to their credibility, at least as far as their stories on Stub Hub, Tickets Now, and other ticket brokers.
No question they put in every bit of detail they could get their hands on. That is one of the flaws of the book, that they put in so much that it's sometimes difficult to tell what facts are most important, and where the reader's focus should really be. This book takes some work - it's not a beach read. You have to be prepared to pay attention, read things again, and then re-read. There is a lot of business discussion, and dollar figures, and other small details that require a lot of the reader's attention.
A big flaw is the lack of specific ticket prices. Only a few times do the authors actually say what a concert costs, and since the entire book is on the notion that the public is getting 'scalped,' it's hard to see exactly HOW, without seeing the increase in price.
I know that the Rolling Stones, for example, charged $60 for their best field seats for their 1997 tour - and $450 in 2005. Awful, right? But even though the Rolling Stones are a major part of the book, the authors never use any specific ticket prices - they talk about fan club prices, but not tickets. I wish the authors had used more specific price examples to both horrify and educate the reader about the much higher prices they are now paying. And, the impact of the Internet - where ticket broker prices suddenly became public knowledge - isn't highlighted quite well enough.
But as far as what the author's include, it really shows how distant the idea of concerts has gotten from the "old days" when it was about the music. Now, concerts are just one more product that companies provide as a way to get a captive audience that they can then sell other products too. It will make a reader very cynical. The stories about the Grateful Dead's mail-order ticket system, and Pearl Jam's lawsuit (although they aren't the heroes they presented themselves to be) against Ticketmaster are among the most interesting, well-detailed sections.
So, the book is very detailed and infomative, but often hard to follow and requires very close attention. But I can speak to the credibility of at least some of it, so I think the rest of it is equally accurate.Ticket Masters: The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped OverviewTicket Masters chronicles the as-yet-untold story of the modern concert industry, revealing the origins, development and ongoing strategies of companies such as Ticketmaster, Live Nation and StubHub and the efforts of numerous independent competitors. With over 100 exclusive interviews along with many previously unreleased documents, this character-driven book explores the actions and impact of the iconoclasts guiding these companies while folding in related tales of scalping syndicates, old-school music promoters and would-be Internet tycoons along with the bawdy business decisions of such world-renowned groups as the Grateful Dead, Pearl Jam and the Rolling Stones.Like no other previous book, Ticket Masters sheds light upon the complex relationships between artists, promoters, ticketing agents and the public. Whether it's Michael Cohl nabbing the Stones from Bill Graham, Ticketmaster's defeat of Pearl Jam or the silent efforts of music superstars to mark up their ticket prices for complicit websites, Budnick and Baron examine the pivotal developments that have shaped the industry as we know it.Yet, Ticket Masters is also a personal story for the millions who purchase tickets, as it addresses the often-asked (but unanswered) questions: How and why do concerts sell out so fast? Why do service fees vary on tickets to the same event? Why isn't Ticketmaster considered an illegal monopoly? Is it worth joining a band's fan club to qualify for a pre-sale? How do ticket broker websites like StubHub get all their tickets? And (deep breath), just how did ticket prices get so high, anyway?

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Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream Review

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Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream Review_Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement: From the Margins to the Mainstream_ (2009) by Leonard Zeskind provides an interesting history of the emerging white nationalist movement within the United States.
This book considers several important types of groups within the white nationalist movement. First, it should be noted that many of the individuals described are simply gangs of armed thugs with guns. As such they differ little from black, Hispanic, or Asian gangs, or other gangs, and thus the fact that they are white is irrelevant. The more legitimate faces of white nationalism are as follows:
Willis Carto (the respectable side of the movement) who used to operate on two fronts, a lobbying front through the Liberty Lobby and a more scholarly organization the Institute for Historical Review (which I think actually raises interesting questions about war and the assignment of war guilt).
William Pierce (a neo-Nazi who rejects conservativism completely for radical race revolution, sees the holocaust as not only historical fact but as justified in terms of a "new ethic" and calls for the creation of a secret Order to administer a system of white supremacy.
David Duke (a Klansman become "respectable" who advocates a gentler approach to white nationalism featuring open debate on issues, infiltration of politics through mainstream political parties, and separatism).
Pat Buchanan (a mainstream political commentator, a staunch ultra-conservative, and an advocate of isolationist policies and immigration reform).
Several other important figures, movements, and events are discussed in this book. These include issues such as the contrast between mainstreamers versus vaguardists (who advocate violent revolution) and white supremacy versus white separatism (which the author problematically maintains are the same thing). The book discusses the following individuals and groups: Wilmot Robertson, the Order, Gordon Kahl (an early tax-protester), the Posse Commitatus, Christian Identity, Bo Gritz (and the Populist Party - which sought to appeal to dispossessed farmers), the role of Pat Robertson (who forever disgraced himself by supporting Israel and calling for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez on American television), Randy Weaver (and the horrifying events at Ruby Ridge - though the author despicably maintains that the government was justified), the events at Waco, the rise of the militia movement (and opposition to the New World Order), Timothy McVeigh (and the Oklahoma City Bombing, including his accomplice Terry Nichols and "others unknown"), Eric Rudolph (and anti-abortion activism), the role of the Freemen and the Phineas Priesthood (Richard Kelly Hoskins), Mark Weber (and the IHR/Legion for the Survival of Freedom, which came into conflict with Willis Carto), Resistance records (and the role of the skinhead movement), the role of German reunification and the rise of Russia, Sam Francis (and his involvement in the paleoconservative cause), the authors of _The Bell Curve_, Samuel Huntington (a mainstream academic who espoused theories of white racial unity), the role of the Reform Party in the campaign of Pat Buchanan, the scare of Y2K and other millennial fears, the rise of 9/11 conspiracy theories, the role of anti-immigration, the decline of Carto and Pierce, and finally a look towards the future. The book further considers such issues as the role of segregationism in America, opposition to income tax, communism, and immigration, the role of isolationism and nationalism, the opposition to globalism and the New World Order, and the role of pro-gun rights. The book also explains such issues as the interpretation of the Constitution by militia groups who distinguish between a "sovereign" and a Fourteenth Ammendment "citizen", the role of Christian Identity and the "one seed" versus the "two seed" theories, the role of the Phineas Priesthood based on a biblical character who allegedly opposed race-mixing, and finally the fears of "human rights" watchdog groups that the internet would introduce kids to white nationalist ideas and the subsequent hysteria which ensued. The book ends by noting the role that white nationalism may come to play in the future as the white majority becomes further dispossessed and anti-immigrant activism continues, particularly in the light of the recent election of Barak Obama.
My main criticisms of the book are as follows. I feel that the author really does not face up to the fact that multi-culturalism and "diversity" are not working very well, or the fact that some people genuinely want to be left alone and want the government out of their lives, or to consider some of the harm caused by the New Left on society since the Sixties. Further, the author makes no attempt to show why black nationalism or Jewish nationalism are any different from white nationalism. Nor why the left wing white devil theory or the Marxist capitalist devil theory are legitimate but the right wing communist devil theory or Jew devil theory are not. Finally, it is apparent that the author cannot abide the fact that whites may simply want their own counter-culture or understand the motives of disaffected people who are drawn to that counter-culture.
Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream Overview

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Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon Review

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Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon ReviewI have long admired Gretchen Morgenson and cheered when she was awarded a Pulitzer. Perhaps this book in conjunction with her hard-hitting NY Times reporting will garner her another one. She deserves it. The authors echo my sentiments precisely in their introduction "...felt compelled to write this book because we are angry that the American economy was almost wrecked by a crowd of self-interested, politically influential and arrogant people who have not been held accountable for their actions." And the people who did it "...continue, even now, to hold sway in the corridors of Wall Street and Washington."
I have nothing against the vastly wealthy and sometimes - OK, frequently - dream wistfully of joining their ranks, but I do care about how this wealth is accumulated. Entrepreneurs who build companies, executives who take these companies to the next level and the one after that, highly talented and gifted persons - in arts and sports - who command premium remuneration all enrich society. Many financial titans, on the other hand, do not create wealth. They are unusually adept in extracting it for personal gain while simultaneously impoverishing society and holding it hostage. They operate on the principle that "My gain is mine and only mine. My loss is actually yours." And they know how to spread enough largesse that enablers like accountants, rating agencies and regulators fall into line and they buy off politicians with consummate skill. They try - increasingly ineffectively - to justify their existence by claiming that they perform crucial service by "allocating capital" and "increasing efficiency." They further claim that they should not be regulated because they can do a better job of regulating themselves. The fish is starting to stink pretty bad.
What makes this book a valuable read is that the authors explain exactly how this process works and they are not shy about naming names. For example, you learn how James Johnson, the erstwhile CEO of Fannie Mae built it into a colossus that gradually jettisoned all prudence in lending and vastly enriched himself and a bunch of cronies. He also suborned powerful legislators like Barney Frank, the powerful Massachusetts Democrat. And, lastly, he looked on and encouraged Wall Street firms to do the same and used that as justification to increase the scale of his own operations. And, Oh! I almost forgot, he also admonished fresh graduates to pursue their careers with "honesty and integrity". When Johnson left Fannie Mae, a senior executive recalled "...we always won, we took no prisoners and we faced little organized political opposition." He continued to be politically influential and was an adviser to the current president until forced to resign because it surfaced that he had received sweetheart loans from a leading purveyor of toxic financial junk.
Did you ever feel that "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" is the norm on Wall Street? Consider this: Stephen Friedman, former CEO of Goldman Sachs was a director of Fannie Mae when the directors improperly allowed company executives to set earnings targets that they could meet. Federal investigators concluded that "As a direct result, senior management reaped ongoing and extensive financial rewards through accounting manipulation." Johnson was then inducted to the board of Goldman Sachs - when Hank Paulson became CEO - and promptly made chair of the compensation committee. He dispensed some of the richest paychecks on Wall Street and these became the norm as other firms played catch-up. In fact, Johnson chaired the compensation committees of every board he sat on.
Angelo Mozilo, founder and CEO of Countrywide, was a good friend of Johnson's and used his methods to grow the cancer that was Countrywide. The company made it a policy to give sweetheart loans to persons in power - these VIP loans were informally known as Friends of Angelo loans. Richard Holbrooke got such a loan. So did Senators Chris Dodd, Kent Conrad and Barbara Boxer. So did Donna Shalala, former head of Health and Human Services and Alfonso Jackson, secretary of HUD. And Countrywide hired sons and daughters and relatives of the influential and made sure that they were not fired during mass layoffs. Do you think it is possible, just barely possible, that these policies are what enabled that tumor to grow so large without surgery even being considered?
There were people who tried to stem the disastrous tide such as Mark Kohodes the money manager who shared damaging information about NovaStar - a Countrywide clone - with the SEC to no avail. And Armando Falcon, the regulator who tried to rein in Fannie Mae and was bludgeoned for his pains. And William Brennan of the Atlanta Legal Aid who drafted tough anti-predatory-lending legislation and then had it go nowhere.
This book will make you well informed. It will also make you sad because not much has changed in the system and the same players are still active. Can someone please tell me why we "respect" these CEOs instead of crossing the street when we see them coming our way?
Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon OverviewThe New York Times's Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist reveals how the financial meltdown emerged from the toxic interplay of Washington, Wall Street, and corrupt mortgage lenders.In Reckless Endangerment, Gretchen Morgenson, the star business columnist of The New York Times, exposes how the watchdogs who were supposed to protect the country from financial harm were actually complicit in the actions that finally blew up the American economy. Drawing on previously untapped sources and building on original research from coauthor Joshua Rosner—who himself raised early warnings with the public and investors, and kept detailed records—Morgenson connects the dots that led to this fiasco. Morgenson and Rosner draw back the curtain on Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance giant that grew, with the support of the Clinton administration, through the 1990s, becoming a major opponent of government oversight even as it was benefiting from public subsidies. They expose the role played not only by Fannie Mae executives but also by enablers at Countrywide Financial, Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve, HUD, Congress, the FDIC, and the biggest players on Wall Street, to show how greed, aggression, and fear led countless officials to ignore warning signs of an imminent disaster. Character-rich and definitive in its analysis, this is the one account of the financial crisis you must read.

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