18 out of 18 people found this review helpful.
Hurrah for capitalism
Date of Review: Sep 21, 2001
The Bottom Line: Intelligent, below the belt humor that rarely misses its mark.
I knew I was a P.J. O'Rourke fan when I read his book "Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut." I relate to the follies of a liberal youth.
This book offered examples of good and bad capitalism, my favorite line of which (referring to bad capitalism) goes something like, "Albania bears the distinction of the only country ever to be destroyed by a pyramid scheme." He continues that Albanians were not naive to the dangers of pyramid schemes, as they had swept Eastern Europe, but rather thought that with profits as good as they were making, they had to be the victimizers.
His analysis of Hong Kong ("even cleaning ladies have a cell phone and a plan to get rich") and Russia ("In the old days, the soda pop tasted like soap, the soap lathered like toilet paper, the toilet paper could be used to sand furniture, the furniture was as comfortable as a pile of canned goods, the canned goods had the flavor of a Solzhenitsyn novel, and a Solzhenitsyn novel got you arrested if you owned one.") are devastatingly funny.
Perhaps this book is not for everyone. O'Rourke is not one to pull any punches, but for someone with an open mind and a mildly twisted sense of humor, it is an entertaining and informative journey through economic policies at their best and worst.
