Strangely prophetic

Book review: The Eagle Has Crashed

On the first Tuesday of each month, I publish a review of a book by a not-so-famous Ohio author.

Ted Lacksonen, The Eagle Has Crashed (2011)

Out of print, Kindle edition $6.99

I met Ted Lacksonen at a vendor’s table during the Libertarian Party of Ohio convention in 2012. He was selling this novel at the same time as I was promoting my book Governing Ourselves. I knew from the outset that he had an unusually sharp mind. I decided to read The Eagle Has Crashed again earlier this year and wondered how he would see his book in view of today’s political and economic situation. I will never know, since I turned up his obituary in my effort to find him.

About the book

The Eagle Has Crashed is set in what for us is the very near future: 2029-2031. He wrote in his author’s note that he wanted to set it about twenty years from its writing, so he could avoid mentioning people then active in state and national politics. The story begins with the failure of a family-owned factory, followed by a small regional airline. The national debt has reached $37 trillion, and a worried Federal Reserve refuses to fund it any further, leading to economic collapse. The federal government begins to lose control of the nation as states begin to ignore Washington, with several of them seceding (but don’t expect a Civil War response this time – the author was a realist).

The author has taken great care to base his book on some highly sophisticated economic projections, which he presents several episodes of a podcast called “Eaglenomics.” The economists who consulted with him expected entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare programs) to spin the debt out of control. He had no way then of anticipating the decisions by Presidents Biden and Trump to dole out billions in direct cash payments to Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic or the cost of continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan another decade. Nor could he have anticipated the political polarization we are experiencing today.

Mr. Lacksonen took care in developing his characters, drawing heavily on his knowledge of our state and the highly practical nature of its people. The foundry owners were good family people who cared about their employees, and clearly showed disappointment when the employees decided to unionize. He also presented the small Ohio secessionist movement as a ragtag militia of farmers and business owners desperate to survive in a harsh economic climate, rather than as a broad-based political movement.

The plot is believable, but you won’t guess the ending.

This is not light poolside reading. It is a meaty analysis of the dangers facing our country resulting from a sovereign debt that now exceeds the gross national product. In the author’s note, Mr. Lacksonen wrote that he had to make the fictional account less extreme than reality “because truth is frequently difficult to believe.” The national debt, in fact, has already reached the $37 trillion he anticipated for 2029. He continues,

While many Americans are worried about our national debt problem, there are many who fail to appreciate either the severity of the problem or the risk we are taking if the debt issue isn’t addressed thoroughly — and soon. If this novel scares a few people, it will have served its purpose, and been worth the thousands of hours that went into its creation.

I have been fortunate to live in America during some of the “sports car” years. It would be unconscionable for me to sit by and watch my generation give my young son a worn-out, broken-down jalopy. Unfortunately, that’s where we’re headed…

The Eagle Has Crashed is a story I hope remains fiction — forever.

The reader will get an education in the economics of the national debt. My only criticism, and the reason I did not give the book a fifth buckeye, is that the book is a bit too didactic. However, it is still a story well worth reading, and one the reader might find strangely prophetic.

About the author

Ted A. Lacksonen

Ted Lacksonen (1968-2024) was a highly intelligent man with many interests. During his career, he was a project manager for a steel fabricator, a structural designer, an attorney, and a real estate agent. He lived in Florida, Ohio, and Arizona. He died in August 2024 much too young, leaving his wife and 13-year-old son.

Ted Lacksonen’s LinkedIn page and obituary.

Faithful Citizen with Harold Thomas consists of the musings of a mainline Protestant, libertarian Boomer who tries to keep up with the news while remaining true to his faith and the principles of the American Founders. Harold is an author and retired business analyst with degrees in political science and foreign service living in Columbus, Ohio.

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