Novel: The Invisible Heart

Novel: The Invisible Heart
Author: Russel Roberts
Rating: 1 of 5
Genre: Economic fiction

Short synopsis: I hate read the back half, when it became clear there was never going to be a real dialogue.

Such promise! A high school economics teacher meets up with a high school English teacher. They slowly fall in love, while talking Milton and Friedman. (Was that witty? I don't think so, but I did it anyhow.)

Problem: This book is maybe 75% lecture from the economist. He has a PhD and is 30, while the English teacher has a bachelors and is 25. So, of course he wins every argument until he realizes this isn't a good way to get into her pants and starts reading poetry.

I'm not so much annoyed by his switching to poetry, as that his ideas never have a serious challenge. The lack of challenge means this is just wankery.

Its also a crappy love story.

Longer synopsis, with spoilers:
This book is a failure on so many levels. The quote on the back is from none other than Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, and is "a page turning well-written love story that also teaches an impress amount of good economics".

I hate disagreeing with Friedman. Hell, I hate disagreeing with the entire class of Nobel laureates. As a whole, they are wise.

Because so much of the book is the protagonist explaining his world view and so little real critique of it ... I feel the need to cleanse myself by doing it.

Protagonist: HHS destroys other charities with its one size fits all approach. We should use private charities, so we can get people what they actually need on a case by case basis. This has the added incentive of letting the giver feel like they are helping.

Response: I'm not sure where to begin. This line of reasoning suggests there are no private charities, and there are literally thousands. They often do work HHS can't or won't, sure.
HHS is also not some uniform behemoth, as WIC, Social Security, and Medicair/Medicaid all work entirely different, for different people, and do different things. That is, what they do for you is dependent on need.
Additionally, new research since this book was written suggests a minimum basic income -- which Hayek was a fan of -- may be the way to end poverty. Its a single solution, but it may prove itself to solve what other solutions cannot.
Government will be slow to adopt, in part because we want government to be slow to change.
There's more about this that offends me, but that'll do for now.

Protagonist: The internet is great because it is free of government intervention!
Response: The government literally built it. Do some research on how the internet works.

Protagonist: We'll never run out of oil, because we'll find something else first!
Response: This may be true, but we'll also destroy the world through earthquakes before we finish it. But, you can't know that -- you were writing in 2000. You say you are pro enviromental regulation because pollution affects those who don't sign up for it, but come on. We keep finding new ways to pollute that we cannot regulate fast enough, so think about this some more.

That's not nearly all, but I, also, respond to incentives and have mitigated my rage sufficiently that I don't feel so dirty.