Unlike Paul Craig Roberts, no demagogic references to Marx, but then also no singling out of the financial capitalists, no melancholy about lost national power and on top of that actual interest in the perversity of capital flows from poor to rich nations. The kind of centralization (merger and acquisition), corporate restructuring, regressive taxation and anti labor policy which followed profits falling and share prices stagnating in the 1970s--very well described here by Irwin--brings to (my) mind Grossman's long chapter on counter-tendencies to falling profitability, an analysis which built on the foundations of JS Mill and Marx. But what I liked best is how he captures with numbers the problem of aspirational lifestyles. Irwin is pessimistic but I don't agree with him that even in principle global downturn is avoidable. Rakesh