Rating: 
Summary: Required reading for honest liberals
Review: I admit that I'm a conservative, but that does not prevent me from inviting every thinking, truth-seeking liberal to read this book. It simply exposes the folly of knee-jerk liberalism. The strongest chapters are about how valuable CAPITALISM is in giving us the highest standard of living in the world. (Even our poorest citizens have one or two color TV sets!) Stossel leads with his chin into a lot of controversial subjects (and often pays a dear price) but his experience in seeing and reporting "what works and what doesn't" makes this a valuable book. I'm going to make sure all of my close friends, as well as all of my liberal acquaintances, read my copy of "Give Me a Break." It's honest and simply presented.
Rating: 
Summary: enlightening
Review: I have read the Constitution thoroughly several times (for high school and college government classes, and for my own curiousity). It outlines that the Federal government has the power to print money and protect our borders. Somewhere along the way, that same government awarded itself more power, and is now encroaching into every part of our lives... our homes, our workplaces, our personal relationships. And neither major political party is going to do anything about it. In concert with this, a handful of lawyers (not all, but some) have taken our liberties and turned them against us in the name of "protecting the little guy." This trend, too, is completely counter to what our founding fathers envisioned. While I don't agree with every opinion in his book (isn't that the mark of a good book--to make us THINK, or ACT???), I am grateful for it.
Rating:
Summary: A Journalist's View of "Give Me a Break"
Review: Book Review: "Give Me a Break" by John Stossel
By Laurel As a pioneering consumer reporter, for 15 years John Stossel aired a thousand stories on scams, product dangers and frauds. His work prompted government investigations, led to the creation of consumer protection departments and (not so coincidentally) earned him numerous broadcast reporting awards. But then something curious happened: As he writes in "Give Me a Break" (HarperCollins, 2004), "the more I watched the regulators work, the more it seemed the real beneficiaries of the regulations were entrenched businesses, unions, and the regulators themselves."
Stossel's tale of his subsequent transformation to skeptic of liberalism and media pariah may not change many minds in the media. He is co-anchor of the 20/20 show on ABC, long disdained by leftist reporters as a right-wing bastion. If Stossel's brand of grassroots reporting led him to arrive at ideas generally accepted by modern economists, the vast herd of reporters are little more than ministers of propaganda or secretaries who write down quotes from politicians, regulators, "experts," "victims" and advocates. Such reporters are far less likely to come into contact with real people trying to run real businesses, and therefore less likely to develop a susceptibility to economic insights. That Stossel is labeled as a journalistic curiosity, even a pariah, testifies to the amazing economic illiteracy prevailing in newsrooms.
The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz once wrote a lengthy feature about Stossel entitled "The Jaded Crusader," quoting Sidney Wolfe of Ralph Nader's Public Citizen group calling Stossel "a menace." The example of hate mail reprinted in the book is appalling. These attempts to demonize Stossel would almost be funny if the ideas of his critics -- that all risk is intolerable, that corporations are evil, that consumers need more government protection -- were not still so much the media's unconscious bias. The fog is thick and good reporting is scarce.
Stossel confesses his own role in contributing to the hysteria over risk and profits: "For most of my career, I was part of the problem. I reported on statistically insignificant threats -- poisonous lawn chemicals, exploding coffeemakers. Crusading lawyers and environmental activists got me to do stories frightening people about secondhand smoke and suggesting that Hartz Mountain flea collars were killing kittens and puppies. I took the "safety" lawyers and environmentalists at their word. They were the good guys out to serve the public. By contrast, business was run by men in suits who would do just about anything to get rich. It took me too long to realize that the activists have selfish agendas, too."
"If you leave people alone, they will, without planning or intervention, create the system that benefits everyone most," Stossel writes. "This is because in a free market, every exchange is voluntary. You're always trading something you have for something you want more. It's a win-win proposition. Otherwise, why would anyone trade?
A revolutionary idea -- 200 years ago, when Adam Smith wrote it. In 21st-century America, it's news.
Rating:
Summary: Simple, well thought out book
Review: I thought this book highlighted just about everything that is wrong with government. I did not agree with all his positions including euthanasia and I am unsure on the drug issue, but he hit it right on the head by stating that government is way over grown, over taxes, and over spends. Great book.
Rating:
Summary: Okay, Give Him a Break
Review: This is a well written book that follows the career of a very well known name in News. John writes from his perspective and from his career. We follow his rise in the media from CBS to ABC to being an answer man who has faced down crooks from all walks of life. He has a lot of irony in his book when he discusses how attempts at news actually cause someone to lose a job or ruins a great business due to regulations restricting a job or company that the regulations were originally intended to help that person. He feels he has gone from hero who exposed the small time huxters, to a goat due to tackling what he sees as waste and beauracracy. His book is a compelling arguement that needs to be viewed objectively by readers. Some feel he has been bought by big business, yet Stossel is not afraid to expose corruption, he only wants to see people to have the freedom they need to acquire the wealth that has exemplified America as a nation.
Rating: 
Summary: Pompus
Review: John Stossel should go to work for the Fox News channel because this book, and his short stories on 20/20 only give out the information he chooses to give out and never tell the complete story. It is hypocritical to criticize the "liberal media" when he IS the media! If he doesn't like the media then he doesn't like himself. I saw him on Bill O'Reilly. It was like John's "coming out" party as a conservative. It was as if O'Reilly was Satan and Stossel was signing his soul over. He looked very ashamed and he should be. The guy is a goof ball.
Rating:
Summary: Do yourself a favor. Read this Book!
Review: This book is a wonderful blend of entertainment and commentary. A welcome dose of good old common sense. Stossel tells it like it is without apology and most importantly, without preferrence to one group or party over another. Read with an open mind. You'll have a blast and you'll learn a thing or two in the process.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but repeats everything he's already told us on 20/20
Review: John Stossel's "Give Me a Break" segments on 20/20 have been completing my Friday nights for many years now. So, buying Stossel's book seemed like a good way to complement the 20/20 broadcasts I've seen over the years. However, much of the book is repetitive of those previous broadcasts. Stossel's reciting of the Federal Emergency Management Association and its frequent coverage of his beach home, as well as his discussion of the abuse of the Americans with Disabilities Act, appear to be verbatim to the "Give Me a Break" broadcasts from years ago. No new information there. The book does, however, tell us about the reactions that some of Stossel's broadcasts have generated, most entertainingly, the one of Erin Brockovich after Stossel's segment pointed out that she was not the great heroine Hollywood made her out to be. Those were interesting and entertaining to read. Stossel's book does a good job of reiterating the dangers of government waste, excess regulation and of a free-spirited group of trial lawyers. Stossel would have done better to also provide a better vision of how a restrained government would benefit the people. I have always agreed with Stossel over the years; for someone like me, who has watched the "Give Me a Break" segments, the book is merely preaching to the choir. However, Stossel's book would be a very good primer for a liberal loved-one, whom Stossel fans would love to enlighten and convert. Overall, the book is well-written, its points well-argued, and its content a quick-read. In spite of it's repetitiveness of the broadcasts, Stossel fans will undoubtedly enjoy reading "Give Me a Break".
Rating:
Summary: Clear thinking and an Important Voice...
Review: Stossel, who I've loved for years and years on 20/20 and for his specials, gives us: John Stossel the extended Remix. Parts of the book read like a recap from his specials--the chapter on Greed is almost verbatim from his special "Greed." Nevertheless, he is a fascinating and entertaining read. Some of his ideas are a bit too simplisitic. Others are dead on. He smashes the left--as they had done to him. I was disappointed that he did not take on the right more often. He disagreed with them on many points--particularly social policy--but does not slam the Bennetts, the Limbaughs, etc. That is probably because he needs some allies (and Ralph Nader is not his friend any longer, but it was a bit disengenous. Nevertheless, the book is thought provoking. I, for one, am glad he is on my TV every week. We need his voice, even if it it too often is a lone one in the wilderness.
Rating:
Summary: An Entertaining, Informed and Opinionated Book
Review: If you watch 20/20, you know who John Stossel is and probably tune in to the program in large part because of him. Stossel has been a reporter for 30 years, going after big corporations, exposing rip-offs and chasing down con-artists in order to hoist them on their own petards. His crusade has continued, but his targets are a bit different now. Instead of big business, he goes after big government, which, forming an unholy trinity with lawyers and --- oh, the humanity! --- reporters, hamstrings the free market that makes our lives better. GIVE ME A BREAK is, in part, the story of how the scales fell from Stossel's eyes. That account alone makes for fascinating reading. After 30 years of investigative reporting, one would expect Stossel to have a ton of interesting stories to tell. He does, and while he doesn't relate all of them here, readers undoubtedly get their money's worth. There's the one about the doctor who specialized in diagnosing environmental illness (all of her patients, of course, were so afflicted), the abortion doctors who would provide that service whether the patient felt she needed it or not (Stossel's urine was supplied for the pregnancy test) and the exploding BIC pens...remember how panicked everyone was over that? Stossel demonstrates that, statistically, your odds of a BIC pen exploding were smaller than drowning in your bathtub (or in anyone else's), being killed by a baseball or even being electrocuted by a lightning strike! There is a fabulous chapter entitled "Junk Science and Junk Reporting" that, with Stossel's passion for careful research and penchant for irreverence, dissembles popularly held myths regarding crack babies, Vitamin C and a bunch of other "scientific" myths that we generally accept as gospel without thinking about them. That's the entire point of Stossel's reporting: to think. This agenda, not surprisingly, has made a number of people angry. What is surprising, at least to Stossel, is that a number of his colleagues in the liberal media are now shunning him. When he was a bright, energetic young corporation slayer, Stossel was regarded as a good guy, a hero by his colleagues. This has changed; socialists don't believe in free markets. Stossel does, however, and GIVE ME A BREAK, in addition to being a fascinating and entertaining read, is also a ringing, vibrant defense of free markets and free people. Stossel is not a conservative by any thoughtful definition, but he is a capitalist and this book unabashedly enumerates the benefits that flow from such a system, benefits that inure even to the least fortunate of us and that are all too often simply accepted as a natural consequence of right. Whether you've been inviting Stossel into your living room every week on 20/20 or have only a passing familiarity with his work, you'll find reading GIVE ME A BREAK as entertaining as a conversation with an informed, opinionated friend with whom you may find yourself disagreeing, but who you'll never find boring. Highly recommended. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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