The Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Life
Not so much a book as a series of essays, with insight to how an economist (at least one economist) approaches things. The arguments he uses are not always convincing but he's not pretending to answer everything, and it's easy to grasp--the sort of thing that you can read late at night, or get a page while you're waiting for a green light.
The Shack
The main character is flat, the writing is weak, you could cut the first couple of chapters without losing anything interesting...I put the book down several times, and kept picking up later whenever I got too curious about why is this on the best sellers list? It's because of the way the writer sees God, and God is not what you expected.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
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3 comments:
Sometimes I read through a best seller wondering "Why is it on the list?", and when I finish, I still don't know. Dan Brown, I'm talking to you.
How 'USA' specific is the economics book? I'd consider picking it up, but discussions of 401Ks, IRAs, Roth funds, and such all don't pertain much to my Canadian situation (or at least assuming an equivalence would be hazardous).
Some of the examples he gives are from the US, but applicable everywhere. For instance, he mentions that the elder Bush wanted to reduce the interest rate to make housing more affordable for young couples. The author points out that a lower interest rate also hurts other people; he would have liked to see some justification as to why we should harm those people to benefit the young homeowners. Or at least the politicians should show some awareness that "lower the interest rate" is not just a magic wand without a cost.
The sots of questions he covers are "how do theater owners decide to set the prices of tickets and popcorn", "why do concert promoters sell tickets at $26 when they could still sell out the venue at $50" and "how do you find out how much an item is worth to someone who doesn't have a reason to tell you the truth about it?"
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