From Administrative Authorisation to Private Law: A Comparative Perspective of the Developin... Book

I know that this book looks like it would be mind-numbingly boring but it is actually a great read and only takes a few hours. If all of the stories weren't frustratingly true then this could be comedy. This book makes a journey through government regulation that is supposed to save us from ourselves but instead makes government the masters of us, shackled by either bureaucratic stupidity or power trips. For example, in NYC the city government sold two buildings, abandoned after being gutted by fire and sitting for years, to a Catholic charity for $1 each, after which the church spent over $500,000 renovating the buildings and turning it into a shelter that would take 64 homeless men off the street, give them a clean room and job training so that they can re-enter society as productive members. After two years a building inspector told them that because the building code requires all renovated multi-story buildings to have an elevator, they must either install one (at a cost of $100,000 to them) or shut the building down. Not having the money to do that, the building was shut down and the men put back on the street. This short book does a perfect job of showing us why we have to regain control of a tyrannical government.