Bill Poje’s The Byzantine Pineapple (Part I) with Corporation X is comprised of two disparate books: one political and the other about his book and film projects.
In the first (Byzantine Pineapple), Poje, who holds an MBA, outlines what he believes is wrong with America’s “socioeconomic legal political” system. He criticizes the norm of political administrations whose “first rule…is to keep power as long as possible,” the inequity of laws enriching “those at the top,” and a “Byzantine” layering of impossibly complex regulations. He also decries the “inherent flaws of needs-based social welfare programs” and the problems with a national budget based on assumptions concerning factors like the annual inflation rate. Among his solutions are a flat tax comprised of designated subrates to control funding for each government department and provide money for the health care and income of each citizen.
Poje purposely couches his problems and solutions in “simplistic” terms that “common people” will understand. Unfortunately, this approach leads to over-generalization. For instance, he states that U.S. laws have “basically made all citizens illegal,” a statement woefully lacking in the support necessary to make it believable.
In the second book (Corporation X), Poje describes his completed books and book and movie proposals and explains why potential investors should have confidence in them. In particular, he gives the business plan for Painless, an action/crime film, and seeks to demonstrate by his critiques of other films (Ben Hur, Sea of Trees, etc.) why he would be a successful writer and producer. These critiques, except for one, are aimed at future shareholders and are comprised, largely, of analyses of data obtained from websites like Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb.
As such, Corporation X is unlikely to interest any but potential investors. Meanwhile, The Byzantine Pineapple would reinforce the ideas of like thinkers but needs far more documentation to interest most readers. Overall, it’s hard to imagine an appropriate audience for this work combining two wildly diverse topics.
