Useful Idiots or Monetary Policy Strategy

Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First (Harper Perennial Series)

Author: Mona Charen

Meet the "Useful Idiots" Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson, Madeleine Albright, Katie Couric, Jane Fonda, Martin Sheen, and all the other liberals who were -- and are -- always willing to blame America first and defend its enemies as simply "misunderstood."

Now that the Cold War has been won, these liberals, amazingly, are proud to claim credit for the victory -- conveniently forgetting their apologies for the Communists and their spluttering attacks on Cold Warriors like Ronald Reagan.

But nationally syndicated columnist Mona Charen isn't about to let them rewrite history. From politicians and professors to entertainers and journalists, she exposes the useful idiots for all the world to see in this arresting New York Times bestseller.

I prayed that such a book would be written but doubted anything so wonderfully readable and instructive at the same time would come along. But here is Mona Charen's great explication of the central conflict of our times.—National Review

Publishers Weekly

Syndicated columnist and CNN commentator Charen offers a moral indictment of those public figures-politicians, entertainers and professors-who, she says, stubbornly refused to see communism for what it was: a brutal, dictatorial death machine. Throughout the Cold War, some public figures and activists cheered the Communist movement and berated America for its capitalist ways. Famous actors traveled to Cuba to smoke a cigar with their favorite dictator; posters of Che Guevara, Castro's military leader, adorned college dorms during the '60s; the Soviet Union was praised and defended for its social progress. Charen particularly singles out the media as having played a significant role in distributing tendentious if not false accounts of world events. One example tells of Katie Couric's visit to Cuba in 1992. Upon her return, according to Charen, Couric raved about Cuba's "terrific health-care system," but uttered not a word about the men and women detained in Cuban prisons. The author highlights the kind of historical revisionism and self-hatred that marked some of America's most noted public figures and warns that the lessons learned from communism are just as relevant today. The tragedy of September 11, Charen says, has produced a cadre of left-leaning pundits who wasted no time in blaming America for the violence perpetrated by terrorism. Charen is operating as a polemicist here, and some readers will object to her tarring all liberals with the same brush. But there is a strong market for conservative polemics today, and many readers will cheer Charen on. (Mar. 1) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Table of Contents:

	Introduction to the Perennial Edition
	Introduction: None Dare Call It Victory	1
Ch. 1	The Brief Interlude of Unanimity on Communism	11
Ch. 2	The Consensus Unravels	23
Ch. 3	The Bloodbath	55
Ch. 4	The Mother of All Communists: American Liberals and Soviet Russia	77
Ch. 5	Fear and Trembling	119
Ch. 6	Each New Communist Is Different	171
Ch. 7	Post-Communist Blues	231
	Epilogue	259
	Notes	265
	Acknowledgments	287
	Index	291

Go to: Nicht Behaltene Versprechungen: Armut und Der Verrat der Entwicklung der Dritten Welt

Monetary Policy Strategy

Author: Frederic S Mishkin

This book by a leading authority on monetary policy offers a unique view of the subject from the perspectives of both scholar and practitioner. Frederic Mishkin is not only an academic expert in the field but also has been a high-level policymaker. He is especially well positioned to discuss the changes in the conduct of monetary policy in recent years, in particular the turn to inflation targeting. Monetary Policy Strategy describes his work over the last ten years, offering published papers, new introductory material, and a summing up, "Everything You Wanted to Know about Monetary Policy Strategy, But Were Afraid to Ask," which reflects on what we have learned about monetary policy over the last thirty years.

Mishkin blends theory, empirical evidence, and extensive case studies of monetary policy in advanced and emerging market and transition economies. Throughout, his focus is on these key areas: the importance of price stability and a nominal anchor; fiscal and financial preconditions for achieving price stability; central bank independence as an additional precondition; central bank accountability; the rationale for inflation targeting; the optimal inflation target; central bank transparency and communication; and the role of asset prices in monetary policy.