Book Review: The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis
The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Along with lawyers, and used car salesmen, among the most maligned professions has to include a hugely ranging swath of work done by those who can generically be described as a ‘government worker’. They are an easy target, often taking shots not just from the public they serve, who too often have little understanding what they do. But also from a newly elected new boss, a politician replacing the old boss.
Ronald Reagan joked in 1986, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Now President Trump almost daily attacks against his imagined ‘Deep State’ and his own Justice Department and the FBI.
And it’s in that context that I found The Fifth Risk to be at the same time uplifting and distressing.
The book is tremendously uplifting through the stories it shares from a wide variety of ‘government workers’ who work to “save the citizens from the things that might kill them”, such as eating unsafe food, or stepping out into the path of a tornado. People who use science, and data, and expertise for the benefit of all.
And the book is terribly distressing as it recounts the initial unpreparedness, disinterest, and then selfish interest with which these vital government roles have been handled, or mis-handled by the Trump administration.
Those government workers, they work for us, paid for by us. The results of their work, be it weather forecasts, public health and safety data, a piece of chicken that’s safe to eat, or a dose of medicine safe to use, that’s our too.
Until the new bosses take it away to serve a political goal or for financial benefit. Honestly, do we all REALLY need access to records of consumer complaints against financial institutions? Former Congressman and Trump’s pick to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Mike Mulvaney doesn’t think you do, and wants to take it down. One example of many of public data that has been removed from public access or is similarly threatened.
“There was a rift in American life that was now coursing through American government. It wasn’t between Democrats and Republicans. It was between the people who were in it for the mission, and the people who were in it for the money.”
This was a very fast, engaging, and informative read for me, and I recommend it to all. And once you have, thank a government worker for what they do. They deserve it.