Red Alert

How China's Growing Prosperity Threatens the American Way of Life

By: Stephen Leeb, Gregory Dorsey

Narrated by: Brian Bascle

"I would caution readers to dismiss Stephen Leeb's warnings only at their peril." -- Thomas Kaplan, chairman, Tigris Financial Group

The American Dream is close to being replaced by a living nightmare:

• Key commodities that are essential to our daily lives and that are widely believed to be abundant are running critically short. Even worse, the Chinese are doing what they can to monopolize the world's dwindling resources.
• The U.S. is now largely dependent on our greatest economic rival for rare earth elements as well as a host of other minerals-all of which are absolutely essential to the development of alternative energies and are critically important for our defense industry, computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices.
  
• While America has been fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, China has focused its substantial muscle on securing vital commodities from these and other lands to upgrade its infrastructure and industrial strength to meet the resource challenge head-on.
• China has wrapped itself in the green flag of combating climate change while systematically discouraging other nations from adopting similar policies in a bid to gain time to achieve its plans.
  

Red Alert is a provocative and frightening look at the growing political, economic, and social power of China and the threat that nation poses to the Western world. It lays out how the Chinese are strategizing to overtake the United States as the world's premier economic power-and details how our failure to respond quickly will result in a permanently lower standard of living for Americans.
Peppered with startling statistics, charts, and evidence of how China continues to expand its economic reach, Red Alert is both controversial and powerful in its scope.

Scary!

The last book I read was Mao : The Unknown Story, this is almost as scary. I recommend you listen to it. Would have been nice to have a few more facts about Chinas current finantial situation, but I guess this book is focusing on the long term 5/10/20 years.

Resource scarcity, energy, infrastr. and economics

Any additional comments?

It's nice to see a book from the economics perspective that deals and takes seriously issues like peak oil and other resource-scarcity, with a healthy dose of actual numbers (ie the hopelessness) of energy-infrastructure rebuilding and so forth. For me, this background was more interesting than the

Very interesting

I'm an idiot to numbers... But this book goes beyond that and the message is so powerful that makes it very clear for anyone

8 Hours to Make Only One Great Point

The argument that China is seeking to control many natural resources and commodities is a great and original argument for main stream media. But that???s it. What can be summarized in one single sentence is expanded to fill a whopping 7 hours and 40 minutes of repetition and monotony. Who knew copper was so important and that China can use near complete control of the market to punish its enemies? I did after about the first hour and then again and again at least once an hour after.

Excellent Book

If you could sum up Red Alert in three words, what would they be?

China seeks a global monopoly in rare earth minerals to secure economic hegemony.

What was most disappointing about Stephen Leeb and Gregory Dorsey ’s story?

The book could be better organized. As well, much of its stems from research by Australian and US academics in the field of strategic trade theory. Although their logic appears sound, at first blush, they are not examining the deep economic costs and risks of China's position.

Did Brian Bascle do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

Yes

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It was a drawn out magazine article not a book.