I have a review of Pity the Billionaire by Thomas Frank, one of the few left-wing writers I believe conservatives can read with pleasure. He is old fashioned, so old-fashioned indeed that most American leftists would not call him left-wing. He has no time for the culture wars, which still stir the passions of so many on the right and left (and not only in the US). Instead he has concentrated on why ordinary working and middle class Americans do so badly when Wall Street is thriving and have to bail it out when it fails. Since 2008 events have justified him with a vengeance.
He is also a dazzling writer: honest, sardonic, scornful and literate – worth one thousand Michael Moores. Here he is writing with justifiable astonishment about the Tea Party’s
reaction to the greatest banking crisis since 1929.
‘To rage so violently against financial supervision is, admittedly, a peculiar way of responding to a severe downturn brought on by a largely unsupervised financial sector.
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