Rating: 
Summary: A Long Huffy Rant............
Review: 1. This book certainly addresses an important issue, but the approach Arrianna Huffington takes pushes the edges of over-statement and exaggeration. This may make for humorous writing as she takes shots at capitalism, but it truly undermines her credibility. I had to translate her statements because they were often heavy-handed and rarely polite. She seemed to be trying to achieve an emotional response from her readers rather than an intellectual one. It's a WWF response that avoids subtlety.2. Huffington's tactics remind me of the outraged man-hater who shouts, "All men are pigs!" However, in this book she shouts, "All corporate type are money grubbing, greedy swine!". This broad-brushed approach makes for tedious reading. Yes, she did a boat-load of research for the book, and I appreciate that, but it doesn't offset the acid-spitting outrage that she displays. She's angry. Ok, there's nothing wrong with being angry and I will admit that corporate scandal is something worthy of being angry over. However, at times I wanted to ask her to "calm down...count to ten...take a deep breath.... Relax, OK, now tell me what's wrong AND more importantly, how we should fix it." 3. This leads to my next point... because Huffington complains throughout the book, there is little space devoted to constructive suggestions. That is, she offers virtually no solutions. The only thing she mentions which could be interpreted as a solution is her request that more people participate in democracy - that is, more people need to get out and vote. That's all she really offers in the book from a positive standpoint. She doesn't suggest what laws would be good to pass, or what laws would be good to get rid of, or how strong moral laws are to be created. 4. Now, regarding capitalism as a whole, it would have been helpful if she spent a chapter explaining the positives and negatives of "free markets" compared to markets that are government owned and government funded. This would have provided some serious credibility and more of a scholarly approach. All of this analysis goes to say that I was sorely disappointed in the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant!!!
Review: A brilliant punch in the gut to the fatcats who run our corporations, our government and the wheel-greasers who keep their unholy alliance spinning so nicely. PIGS made me laugh, but it also made me want to cry at how royally the average American is getty screwed by the guys who run the show. This book is a "must-read" for anyone who wants to know how the power game is really played.
Rating:
Summary: Are CEOs inherently evil?
Review: According to Arianna Huffington they are. Pigs At The Trough uses the same well-publicized facts that has been on TV, radio, and in newspapers over and over again to keep attention and righteous anger of the reader. Almost every chapter repeats the size of the bonuses, stock-options, salaries or other perks that well-known corporate crooks like Ken Lay, Dennis Kozlowski, Sam Waksall and others received before their demise. Along with the prices of their homes, yachts, private jets and descriptions of the lavish parties, this "rubbing of reader's face" in their wealth is supposed to get Average Joe pretty angry about the capitalist system and dishonesty of those in the corner offices. Most of Arianna's vitriol is directed at CEOs in general(!) for their hefty compensation packages. That takes away from the good stuff in the book where she documents abuses of power, stiffing and misleading of employees and shareholders, [poor] accounting and inappropriate influence that CEOs have over boards and compensation committees. In fact, she seems more outraged that CEOs earning tremendously higher salaries than nine-to-fivers than over the crimes of some of the CEOs. Arianna's rants about compensation of CEOs not being totally tied to the performance of the companies they are leading, but completely ignores events that corporate heads have no control over - stock market's booms and recessions, general economic conditions and external influences like wars or economic effect of 9/11. Arianna also takes a swipe at Bush's administration (he is from a rich family and a former executive, so why not slam him too?) for alleged, but never proven complicity in corporate scandals. With the one-sidedness that is seen all the way throughout the book Arianna gleefully calls Enron's Ken Lay "Kenny Boy" as Bush addressed him once, but never mentions corporate reform by the same Bush Administration that put an end to the brief era of corporate Wild West. This book is an exercise in playing to the "hate the rich" crowd rather than fair and impartial analysis of the issues of corporate responsibility, lobbying power, and executive compensation.
Rating: 
Summary: Good job, but repetitive in style and tone
Review: Ariana Huffington does a very good job of reviewing the corporate excesses characterizing the debacles behind Enron, WorldCom and the like. This is thus a valuable resource. There is little that I did not find in good dailies or on the web, but she does write and package the information well. I did find it repetitive in tone and style--in particular, for me the quizzes got old and lost their charm after the first couple of appearances in the book. I respect Ms. Huffington though and what she is striving for in her public works. Keep it up!
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and on the money
Review: Arianna Huffington articulates the basic thoughts that many of us already knew we had; the rich get much richer at the expense of people that have to go to work every day. The funny thing is this - I have worked many years for big companies and as I read the book, it dawned on me that she has only barely scratched the surface. Fact is, I don't think she has actually seen some of the folks she writes about in action. I have lived through quite a few of these folks as well as future "lion's of business" in the making. The only criticism I have about this book is that it presents an excellent post mortem on the greed and avarice that permeates boardrooms but it doesn't really outline how common people can effect change in our society and in companies to prevent this kind of malfeasance. Further, while touching upon government duplicity, I would have liked to have seen more depth given to the subject of how our government facilitated and even created circumstances for this to happen. Overall, this is an excellent book that should be part of the core curriculum of any business ethics class. Unfortunately, my fear is that history will repeat itself and many future up and coming business elite will read this only after they are booted from the boardroom, at the expense of working people with families that have to clean up their mess. As always Arianna Huffington approaches the most malignant in our society with wit, humor and an irreverence that makes the book worth reading even if you don't agree with her. I agree with her completely.
Rating:
Summary: No-nonsense truth from a no-nonsense woman
Review: Arianna Huffington is a rare treasure...a political pundit who states the truth without sugar coating it. She is brilliant,insightful, and she has a great sense of humor. Her writing adds some exciting life and laughter to very serious issues.
This book is a must read for capitalist pigs and those that hate them.
Rating: 
Summary: Hell hath no fury like a Greek goddess' scorn
Review: Arianna Huffington is sending pigs to the slaugher in her latest book. No one is spared in her intrepid indictment of the corporate cronies who have brought our economy to its knees. It is a tableau of today's corporate landscape which is replete with avaricious CEOs who have advanced into stratospheric levels of unfathomable wealth. With her characteristic wit and candor, Arianna has revealed her victims' ostentatious lifestyles and the cowardly schemes they employed to finance their way of life. She is a woman who is not a puppet of a political party and therefore panders to no one. This book is great for laissez-faire fans who think the market will regulate itself and that corporations need no oversight.
Rating:
Summary: Fighting Then, Fighting Now
Review: Arianna Huffington journeyed to America with her mother while in her early twenties, hoping to realize the American dream. An articulate debate champion with a Master's from Cambridge University, Huffington was fortunate enough to realize that dream and live the good life. Unlike some who have made it, however, she identifies with the people rather than the aristocracy. Her passion for fairness is manifested on every page of this masterful work, in which she dissects corporate greed in America and argues for justice. Huffington provides chapter and verse when it comes to exposing corporate corruption, taking on Lay, Koslowski, and an entire pantheon of CEO greedmongers. Her penchant for research and knowledge of economics serve her well as she examines some of America's leading corporations, detailing how and when they went wrong and how the general citizenry has suffered as a result. Since Huffington wrote her book she has been diligently continuing her pursuit of economic justice. As a candidate for governor in the current California Recall she has served the public interest by identifying Arnold Schwarzenegger for who he really is rather than what he purports to be. She pointed out his meeting with Kenneth Lay of Enron. When questioned about her comment, The Terminator pled memory loss. Huffington also has used her star power and current candidacy to reveal just how and why California's Governor Gray Davis has been used as a scapegoat by being blamed for an energy crisis and subsequent debt disaster he sought to prevent. Meanwhile the champion of California deregulation, former Governor Pete Wilson, masterminds the campaign of Arnold, who is committing himself to reform and terminating California's economic problems. Arianna will devote much time between now and the election to this disparity. Her book skillfully reveals her game plan for economic justice.
Rating: 
Summary: An empty populist polemic
Review: Arianna Huffington proves in this book that anyone can write a book today if they are outrageous enough in their attack, regardless whether they have anything new to say. Her book is a compendium of facts and figures well-known to anyone who regularly reads Business Week, Fortune, and other business press --- sadly, her work lacks even one original piece of research or one new fact that she herself dug up. This is clearly a book written entirely from Lexis, Nexis, and Google searches. Aside from the lack of original research, Ms. Huffington's style grates on one's nerves. Her writing attempts to be overly cute, but comes across with all the clever cynicism of a high school sophomore. She excells at moronic, cliched name-calling (beginning with the title itself), as if her sticks and stones will somehow solve the much deeper problems in corporate governance and auditing about which she clearly knows little except the most superficial of information. Her so-called quizzes embedded throughout the book were equally immature. Far better that she should leave her pitiful attempts at humor of that sort to people like Al Franken, Molly Ivins, Dennis Miller, or Michael Moore who actually are funny and have the intellectual breadth and cultural repertoire to actually pull off real satire. I suffered my way through the entire book mostly out of disbelief that a woman whom the press consistently dubs as intelligent could write such a shallow, childish, ineffectual work about a truly serious set of problems in our modern capitalist system. Having read this book, I see that her depth of knowledge and her persistent literary grandstanding through empty name-calling made her at least as good a candidate for governor in California as Arnold. They make the perfect pair for a state in which shallow superficiality reigns supreme. This book is the perfect purchase for readers with high school educations who have never seen a copy of Business Week or read the business section of the New York Times. For everyone else, I suggest you spend your money elsewhere (spend it on a serious book like The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, or Paul Krugman'sThe Great Unraveling).
Rating:
Summary: An empty populist polemic
Review: Arianna Huffington proves in this book that anyone can write a book today if they are outrageous enough in their attack, regardless whether they have anything new to say. Her book is a compendium of facts and figures well-known to anyone who regularly reads Business Week, Fortune, and other business press --- sadly, her work lacks even one original piece of research or one new fact that she herself dug up. This is clearly a book written entirely from Lexis, Nexis, and Google searches. Aside from the lack of original research, Ms. Huffington's style grates on one's nerves. Her writing attempts to be overly cute, but comes across with all the clever cynicism of a high school sophomore. She excells at moronic, cliched name-calling (beginning with the title itself), as if her sticks and stones will somehow solve the much deeper problems in corporate governance and auditing about which she clearly knows little except the most superficial of information. Her so-called quizzes embedded throughout the book were equally immature. Far better that she should leave her pitiful attempts at humor of that sort to people like Al Franken, Molly Ivins, Dennis Miller, or Michael Moore who actually are funny and have the intellectual breadth and cultural repertoire to actually pull off real satire. I suffered my way through the entire book mostly out of disbelief that a woman whom the press consistently dubs as intelligent could write such a shallow, childish, ineffectual work about a truly serious set of problems in our modern capitalist system. Having read this book, I see that her depth of knowledge and her persistent literary grandstanding through empty name-calling made her at least as good a candidate for governor in California as Arnold. They make the perfect pair for a state in which shallow superficiality reigns supreme. This book is the perfect purchase for readers with high school educations who have never seen a copy of Business Week or read the business section of the New York Times. For everyone else, I suggest you spend your money elsewhere (spend it on a serious book like The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, or Paul Krugman'sThe Great Unraveling).
| 
