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Incentives: The Holy Water of Free Enterprise
A book of pure unadulterated fun, filled with laugh out loud moments. It is an uproarious, entertaining comical story of the hypocrisy which permeates public policy today.
294 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2020
5 people are currently reading
14 people want to read
About the author
George Franklin
4 books8 followersGeorge Franklin is a lawyer and former Vice President of Worldwide Government Relations for Kellogg Company. He has held numerous positions in and out of government including Member of the Industry Sector Advisory Committee on Consumer Goods of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Member of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Advisory Committee, Chairman of both the State Affairs Committee and the Washington Representatives Group of the Grocery Manufacturers of America and Chairman of the American Frozen Food Institute.
In addition to having testified before Congress as the representative of the food industry, he has served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Western Michigan University and had his own weekly radio segment called “Ask the Lobbyist.” He is also President of Franklin Public Affairs LLC.
In 2014 George published his first book “Raisin Bran and Other Cereal Wars”. A go-to source for anyone interested in learning more about the complex and stimulating confluence of business, law, lobbying, and politics “Cereal Wars” provides unique insights into the widely misunderstood role of corporate government relations and how it affects public policy.
In 2018 George was a Democratic candidate for Michigan's 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House. While he lost the primary, he survived to write about it with humor and insight in his tell-all book “So You Think You Want to Run for Congress”-published in 2019. A book which is now becoming part of the political science curriculum at numerous colleges and universities resulting George being asked to speak.
In 2020 he published his first novel “Incentives: The Holy Water of Free Enterprise” which was widely considered a crafty, entertaining and humorous look at the world of economic development and the hypocrisy which permeates public policy today.
You can learn more about George on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-fr...) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/georgefrankl...). Visit https://www.georgefranklinauthor.com/ for more details.
In addition to having testified before Congress as the representative of the food industry, he has served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Western Michigan University and had his own weekly radio segment called “Ask the Lobbyist.” He is also President of Franklin Public Affairs LLC.
In 2014 George published his first book “Raisin Bran and Other Cereal Wars”. A go-to source for anyone interested in learning more about the complex and stimulating confluence of business, law, lobbying, and politics “Cereal Wars” provides unique insights into the widely misunderstood role of corporate government relations and how it affects public policy.
In 2018 George was a Democratic candidate for Michigan's 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House. While he lost the primary, he survived to write about it with humor and insight in his tell-all book “So You Think You Want to Run for Congress”-published in 2019. A book which is now becoming part of the political science curriculum at numerous colleges and universities resulting George being asked to speak.
In 2020 he published his first novel “Incentives: The Holy Water of Free Enterprise” which was widely considered a crafty, entertaining and humorous look at the world of economic development and the hypocrisy which permeates public policy today.
You can learn more about George on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-fr...) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/georgefrankl...). Visit https://www.georgefranklinauthor.com/ for more details.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 12, 2022
Humorous and satirical, Incentives offers an overview of America’s heartland, bigoted and obsessed with capitalism.
In this book we get to follow a few characters, from a disillusioned businessman to drug dealers and bribed politicians, with one common point; they all want to succeed. Despite having different backgrounds and sets of skills, their stories somehow manage to intermingle into one big plot. The author, George Franklin, delivers a sharp satire on corruption, political games, greed and the free enterprise embedded in the American system and no one is spared.
Incentives was a quick and entertaining read thanks to the author’s witty writing. The book was fast paced and the chapters were fairly short, written in a simple yet effective way. I particularly enjoyed the slightly sarcastic and dark style of the author. Overall, it was an easy and amusing read.
However, there were many points that troubled me during my reading of Incentives. For one, I found that the satirical aspect of the story was unfortunately a bit overdone from time to time, and even lacked some subtlety. It also seemed like the author relied a bit too much on vulgar stereotypes to appear comical. Another point that bothered me was that sometimes the dialogues resembled the narration a bit too much and didn’t really convey the personalities of the characters. At times I even felt like some of these lines didn’t really fit the character speaking them, because the style of the dialogues and that of the narration were so close. I also found the storyline a bit repetitive at times, since the characters’ stories resembled each other so much.
In other words, it is fair to say that I did not particularly enjoy the book, although it was rather amusing, its negative sides weighed more heavily in the balance.
All in all, Incentives was a rather fun read but not one that struck me, which is why I chose to rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. The storyline, although amusing, wasn’t overly exciting and to be honest, I never really found myself particularly eager to flip through the book. Besides, I was a bit disappointed by the somewhat vulgar tones often present and by the lack of nuance and subtleness.
I also noticed a few spelling errors, which didn’t impact my reading too much, but explain why I could not give the book a very good rating.
In a nutshell, I didn’t particularly enjoy the book, but I think it could appeal to some readers. Those who enjoy a quick and easy read, dark humor and generally like a bit of satire could probably have a good time reading Incentives. It offers a light subject while also dabbling in real societal and political issues, which will certainly interest some people.
However, this book would not be suitable for a young audience since the author uses quite a lot of profanity, and there’s also a slightly sexual theme running through the book
In this book we get to follow a few characters, from a disillusioned businessman to drug dealers and bribed politicians, with one common point; they all want to succeed. Despite having different backgrounds and sets of skills, their stories somehow manage to intermingle into one big plot. The author, George Franklin, delivers a sharp satire on corruption, political games, greed and the free enterprise embedded in the American system and no one is spared.
Incentives was a quick and entertaining read thanks to the author’s witty writing. The book was fast paced and the chapters were fairly short, written in a simple yet effective way. I particularly enjoyed the slightly sarcastic and dark style of the author. Overall, it was an easy and amusing read.
However, there were many points that troubled me during my reading of Incentives. For one, I found that the satirical aspect of the story was unfortunately a bit overdone from time to time, and even lacked some subtlety. It also seemed like the author relied a bit too much on vulgar stereotypes to appear comical. Another point that bothered me was that sometimes the dialogues resembled the narration a bit too much and didn’t really convey the personalities of the characters. At times I even felt like some of these lines didn’t really fit the character speaking them, because the style of the dialogues and that of the narration were so close. I also found the storyline a bit repetitive at times, since the characters’ stories resembled each other so much.
In other words, it is fair to say that I did not particularly enjoy the book, although it was rather amusing, its negative sides weighed more heavily in the balance.
All in all, Incentives was a rather fun read but not one that struck me, which is why I chose to rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. The storyline, although amusing, wasn’t overly exciting and to be honest, I never really found myself particularly eager to flip through the book. Besides, I was a bit disappointed by the somewhat vulgar tones often present and by the lack of nuance and subtleness.
I also noticed a few spelling errors, which didn’t impact my reading too much, but explain why I could not give the book a very good rating.
In a nutshell, I didn’t particularly enjoy the book, but I think it could appeal to some readers. Those who enjoy a quick and easy read, dark humor and generally like a bit of satire could probably have a good time reading Incentives. It offers a light subject while also dabbling in real societal and political issues, which will certainly interest some people.
However, this book would not be suitable for a young audience since the author uses quite a lot of profanity, and there’s also a slightly sexual theme running through the book
December 25, 2020
In¢entives is a fun read. Satire and farce abound! Every paragraph seems to add even more to the absurdity, until you start to think, “Maybe this isn’t all too absurd.” Then, you sadly realize In¢entives has plenty of pokes at what likely really occurs in the world of economic development and government. An excellent parody.
October 31, 2021
Reads like a Janet Evanovich novel and I would like the character key to see if I made the correct associations. The irony is remarkable!
November 9, 2023
Ironic stories of greed.
Fun to read a lighthearted and hilarious treatise of all the clowns feeding at the public troughs and suggestions as to how so many voters are swindled.
Fun to read a lighthearted and hilarious treatise of all the clowns feeding at the public troughs and suggestions as to how so many voters are swindled.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews