Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

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

Rate this book
"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
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.

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

8 people are currently reading
55 people want to read

About the author

Stephen Leeb

27 books11 followers
Stephen Leeb is a money manager and investment adviser. For more than 45 years he has been guiding investors via newsletters, books, blogs, and appearances on financial news networks including CNN, Fox News, NPR and Bloomberg TV.
Currently he edits the investment letter The Complete Investor, which he founded in 2003. Within its first year of publication, it won an award for editorial excellence from the Newsletter and Electronic Publishers Foundation, winning the award again in 2005.He also is owner and chief investment officer of Leeb Capital Management (LCM), a New York-based wealth management firm.
Leeb is the author of nine books on finance, investing, and geopolitical trends, starting with “Getting in on the Ground Floor” (1986) through his most recent, “China’s Rise and the New Age of Gold” (2020).
He has been called one of the country's foremost financial experts by Business journalist Charles Gasparino and one of the greatest long term strategists of his generation by American billionaire businessman Thomas Kaplan which can be summarized by Kaplan's statement and foreword in Leeb's 2012 release of Red Alert saying "I would caution readers to dismiss Stephen Leeb's warnings only at their peril."
Leeb is married to Donna Leeb, also an author, and lives in New York City, New York.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
17 (27%)
4 stars
29 (46%)
3 stars
12 (19%)
2 stars
3 (4%)
1 star
1 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
Profile Image for Ray Tan.
3 reviews8 followers
May 7, 2013
This book is mainly talking about the steps China has take to obtain precious metal resources for future renewable energy usage. According to the author Stephen Leeb, the officials in China thinks far ahead, and in this case, the officials felt that non-renewable energies like oil and natural gas will be scarce, thus there is a need to build up future renewable energies like solar power, hydroelectric power and most importantly, wind energy. It also critic the administration style of the Chinese and how it is effective in acquiring these precious metal resources.
1,481 reviews21 followers
April 13, 2012
America is in a race with China that will go a long way toward determining our future quality of life. Few Americans know that this race is underway.

World supplies are growing very tight of certain key minerals (sometimes called strategic minerals) that are absolutely vital for the smooth running of a 21st century economy. Names like neodymium, europium, indium and niobium may sound very boring, but you can't run a high-tech economy without them. China has spent years, and a lot of money around the world, getting its hands on every bit of such materials that it can find. China is doing it not just to keep their economy growing, but because, one day, the supply will run out, and they want to be in the driver's seat.

For a number of other, equally important, minerals, of which America imports all of its supply, the world's biggest supplier is China. The American attitude is that technology will save the day. How is that going to happen if China decides that some vital mineral will be much less available?

Estimates put the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at nearly $3 trillion. Even a portion of that money would have been much better spent on renewable energy, especially solar energy. China is the world leader in making solar panels, and their lead widens every day. How can America have any hope of catching up when federal investments are in the hundreds of millions of dollars (at the most), and China's investments are in the billions of dollars?

Everyone has seen pictures of acres and acres of electronic equipment dumped all over China. The methods to extract the metals inside may be low-tech and toxic, but even a small amount of gold, for instance, per monitor, multiplied by millions of monitors, is a substantial amount of gold that China can use elsewhere.

America can not depend on new sources of oil to power its economy, because the authors assert that "peak oil" has arrived. It is the point at which the era of "easy" oil extraction has ended, and any new discoveries will be harder and harder to extract ("Drill, baby, drill" is simplistic, at best).

This is a fascinating and very important book. It is very much worth reading for all Americans, and especially for all members of Congress.
Profile Image for John.
269 reviews8 followers
July 15, 2015
The 2009 stimulus package was bad not because it increased debt but because it did not create investment in new growth industries.
If the US econ is to have a bright future we need to invest right away in new industries that address our most pressing problem of resource scarcity. And we can't allow the jobs that result from this investment to be offshored to foreign countries where land & labor cost are lower. As we have seen repeatedly during the last 30 years with China, the consequences would essentially be a gift to China with little benefit to ourselves.
Recent studies indicate that we are preparing for further losses in our standard of living, & to some extent we have begun to accept to live with a slow fall, but we doubt that a sudden & massive drop in incomes would be accepted.
Increased amounts of carbon dioxide would actually increase the world's food supply. Increased plant growth has gone hand & hand with higher carbon dioxide levels. In short, ,there is no evidence whatsoever that global warming has interfered with increased food production.
Profile Image for Kale Manatee.
2 reviews2 followers
August 29, 2012
I'm a little biased, because this book confirms my own beliefs about what China is doing and doing well. If nothing else, I think more people need to be aware of fact that we can't build renewable energy producing equipment without what's left of the dino bones, and whoever gets to those resources first will be the one to have power (electric) for the future. If you haven't built your renewable infrastructure by then - it's time to practice flint knapping.
Profile Image for Yousef Hani.
15 reviews3 followers
August 26, 2013
The American Dream is close to being replaced by a living nightmare!

It's a scary book as it predicts a very gloomy future where everything is in the hands of the Chinese!

It scientifically states that it's just a matter of time that the Chinese will control everything in this world, economically, politically & socially.
Profile Image for Carlos Xavier.
142 reviews
August 2, 2015
Very compelling book into things I can't control anything about. Still very interesting about what kind of future we are working our way into. And how China is going to kick all of our asses... Better start learning mandarin, punk.
Profile Image for Fairus.
69 reviews2 followers
August 15, 2012
Sustained growth cannot come from consumer buying, but creation of new efficiencies.perfectly summarizes the book, what China is all about.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.