Act of Congress
How America's Essential Institution Works, and How It Doesn't
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Act of Congress
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Narrated by:
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Matthew Josdal
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By:
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Robert G. Kaiser
About this listen
An eye-opening account of how Congress today really works - and doesn’t - that follows the dramatic journey of the sweeping financial reform bill enacted in response to the Great Crash of 2008. The founding fathers expected Congress to be the most important branch of government and gave it the most power. When Congress is broken - as its justifiably dismal approval ratings suggest - so is our democracy. Here, Robert G. Kaiser, whose long and distinguished career at The Washington Post has made him as keen and knowledgeable an observer of Congress as we have, takes us behind the sound bites to expose the protocols, players, and politics of the House and Senate - revealing both the triumphs of the system and (more often) its fundamental flaws. Act of Congress tells the story of the Dodd-Frank Act, named for the two men who made it possible: Congressman Barney Frank, brilliant and sometimes abrasive, who mastered the details of financial reform, and Senator Chris Dodd, who worked patiently for months to fulfill his vision of a Senate that could still work on a bipartisan basis. Both Frank and Dodd collaborated with Kaiser throughout their legislative efforts and allowed their staffs to share every step of the drafting and deal making that produced the 1,500-page law that transformed America’s financial sector. Kaiser explains how lobbying affects a bill - or fails to. We follow staff members more influential than most senators and congressmen. We see how Congress members protect their own turf, often without regard for what might best serve the country - more eager to court television cameras than legislate on complicated issues about which many of them remain ignorant. Kaiser shows how ferocious partisanship regularly overwhelms all other considerations, though occasionally individual integrity prevails. Act of Congress, as entertaining as it is enlightening, is an indispensable guide to a vital piece of our political system desperately in need of reform.
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-
Story4 out of 5 stars 267
Based on 18 months of reporting, Woodward's 17th book The Price of Politics is an intimate, documented examination of how President Obama and the highest profile Republican and Democratic leaders in the United States Congress attempted to restore the American economy and improve the federal government's fiscal condition over three and one half years. The Price of Politics addresses the key issue of the presidential and congressional campaigns: the condition of the American economy.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Making the Sausage
- By Graham on 10-18-12
By: Bob Woodward
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The New Deal
- A Modern History
- By: Michael Hiltzik
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 19 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
As America struggles with an economic debacle akin to the Great Depression, nothing could be timelier than an authoritative account of the New Deal, masterfully written by Michael Hiltzik, author of the acclaimed history of the Hoover Dam, Colossus.
In this richly peopled, vividly rendered narrative, Hiltzik describes how the urgent short-term relief measures of Franklin Roosevelt’s Hundred Days evolved into a transformative concept of the federal role in American life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Another Excellent New Deal History
- By R.S. on 12-19-11
By: Michael Hiltzik
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The Quiet Man
- The Indispensable Presidency of George H.W. Bush
- By: John H. Sununu
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4 out of 5 stars 48
In this unique insider account, John H. Sununu pays tribute to his former boss - an intelligent, thoughtful, modest leader - and his overlooked accomplishments. Though George H. W. Bush is remembered for orchestrating one of the largest and most successful military campaigns in history - the Gulf War - Sununu argues that conventional wisdom misses many of Bush's other great achievements.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding Biograpy
- By Warren Brookes on 07-25-15
By: John H. Sununu
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Confidence Men
- Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President
- By: Ron Suskind
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 333
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 266
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Story4 out of 5 stars 266
The hidden history of Wall Street and the White House comes down to a single American concept: confidence. Both centers of power, New York and Washington, learned how to manufacture it - until August 2007, when that confidence began to crumble. Ron Suskind here tells the story of what happened next, as Wall Street struggled to save itself while a man with little experience and soaring rhetoric emerged from obscurity to usher in "a new era of responsibility".
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4 out of 5 stars
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Insightful, but...
- By Ray on 10-29-11
By: Ron Suskind
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Overhaul
- An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry
- By: Steven Rattner
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
This first real look inside Team Obama mixes political warfare and big-business shakeups in equal proportions, and comes from a uniquely informed source. Steve Rattner is not just the man brought in by the president to save the auto industry, he is a former New York Times financial reporter who also earned a place among the top tier of Wall Street's most informed investment bankers and corporate experts.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Overhaul - A Memoir
- By Roy on 12-05-10
By: Steven Rattner
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Nothing to Fear
- FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America
- By: Adam Cohen
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 111
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4 out of 5 stars 60
Nothing to Fear brings to life a fulcrum moment in American history - the tense, feverish first 100 days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency, when he and his inner circle completely reinvented the role of the federal government.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Important contribution
- By R.S. on 03-05-09
By: Adam Cohen
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Coolidge: An American Enigma
- By: Robert Sobel
- Narrated by: Charles Bice
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 131
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Story4 out of 5 stars 130
Sobel instead exposes the real Coolidge, whose legacy as the most Jeffersonian of all twentieth-century presidents still reverberates today. Sobel delves into the record to show how Coolidge cut taxes four times, had a budget surplus every year in office, and cut the national debt by a third in a period of unprecedented economic growth.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Book Exciting As It's Subject!!!
- By Ted on 08-28-12
By: Robert Sobel
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America's Bank
- The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve
- By: Roger Lowenstein
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 413
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 360
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 356
A tour de force of historical reportage, America’s Bank illuminates the tumultuous era and remarkable personalities that spurred the unlikely birth of America’s modern central bank, the Federal Reserve. Today, the Fed is the bedrock of the financial landscape, yet the fight to create it was so protracted and divisive that it seems a small miracle that it was ever established. For nearly a century, America, alone among developed nations, refused to consider any central or organizing agency in its financial system.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Important and Intriguing
- By Jean on 11-02-15
By: Roger Lowenstein
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Collision 2012
- Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America
- By: Dan Balz
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 39
Four years ago, a bright young presidential candidate named Barack Obama campaigned on a theme of hope and change, and made history. Today, he finds himself in another bitter, divisive presidential race but without the buzzwords. Instead, an embattled president struggles with a dysfunctionally divided Congress, a controversial healthcare bill, a decade-long war, and a stagnant economy.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating. Couldn't stop listening.
- By Gregory E Benoit on 07-24-16
By: Dan Balz
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Volcker
- The Triumph of Persistence
- By: William L. Silber
- Narrated by: Ross Douglas
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
Over the course of nearly half a century, five American presidents - three Democrats and two Republicans - have relied on the financial acumen, and the integrity, of Paul A. Volcker. During his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, when he battled the Great Inflation of the 1970s, Volcker did nothing less than restore the reputation of an American financial system on the verge of collapse.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Required Reading for 2022 Economy
- By Marc Uknis on 11-19-22
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The Alchemists
- Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire
- By: Neil Irwin
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 81
Neil Irwin’s The Alchemists is a gripping account of the most intense exercise in economic crisis management we’ve ever seen, a poker game in which the stakes have run into the trillions of dollars. The book begins in, of all places, Stockholm, Sweden, in the 17th century, where central banking had its rocky birth, and then progresses through a brisk but dazzling tutorial on how the central banker came to exert such vast influence over our world, from its troubled beginnings to the age of Greenspan, bringing the listener into the present with a marvelous handle on how these figures and institutions became what they are.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Couldn't Listen to this narrator
- By Donald on 07-23-13
By: Neil Irwin
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The Forgotten Man
- By: Amity Shlaes
- Narrated by: Terence Aselford
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,113
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 714
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 716
It's difficult today to imagine how America survived the Great Depression. Only through the stories of the common people who struggled during that era can we really understand how the nation endured. In The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression. Rejecting the old emphasis on the New Deal, she turns to the neglected and moving stories of individual Americans, and shows how they helped establish the steadfast character we developed as a nation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a story of forgotten times
- By Debb Robinson on 10-11-07
By: Amity Shlaes
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Bush
- By: Jean Edward Smith
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 25 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 248
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 223
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 220
In Bush, Jean Edward Smith demonstrates that it was not Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or Condoleezza Rice, but President Bush himself who took personal control of foreign policy. Bush drew on his deep religious conviction that important foreign-policy decisions were simply a matter of good versus evil. Domestically, he overreacted to 9/11 and endangered Americans' civil liberties.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Delusions of Competence
- By Rick on 11-18-16
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The Great American Stick Up
- Greedy Bankers and the Politicians Who Love Them
- By: Robert Scheer
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
Instead of going where other journalists have gone in search of this story - the board rooms and trading floors of the big Wall Street firms - Scheer goes back to Washington, D.C., a veritable crime scene, beginning in the 1980s, where the captains of the finance industry, their lobbyists and allies among leading politicians destroyed an American regulatory system that had been functioning effectively since the era of the New Deal.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A great telling of an unfortunate part of history
- By Trace on 10-27-20
By: Robert Scheer
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Bought and Paid For
- The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street
- By: Charles Gasparino
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
According to business reporter Charles Gasparino, President Obama is faking his outrage at Wall Street, and his calls for new policies to rein in banks that are "too big to fail" are just pabulum. In reality, Obama has climbed into bed with Wall Street CEOs, giving them what they want so they will support his liberal, big-government agenda.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Revealing and Convincing
- By Walter on 10-24-11
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Adults in the Room
- My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment
- By: Yanis Varoufakis
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 20 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 348
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 310
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 308
What happens when you take on the establishment? In Adults in the Room, renowned economist and former finance minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis gives the full, blistering account of his momentous clash with the mightiest economic and political forces on earth.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very interesting but listen with caution.
- By Dimitris on 10-08-19
By: Yanis Varoufakis
What listeners say about Act of Congress
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Paul
- 10-03-19
Can be improved
The book intended to narrate the tedious and exciting process leading to the Dodd-Frank Act. Entitled, Act of Congress, this book can be improved by deeper legal explanation of the milestones and processes in the life of a bill.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 02-22-21
Interesting but overwhelming
Has its moments, but the sum of those moments somehow manages to be unbearingly boring and overwhelming.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- A&K Schneider
- 10-21-17
insightful, and eye opening.
Narrator is adequate. story is compelling. content is insightful. a must read for any future politician.
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2 people found this helpful