False Economy

Author: Alan Beattie
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101046899
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Book Description
A "provocative...persuasive" (The New York Times) book that examines countries' economic destinies. In False Economy, Alan Beattie weaves together the economic choices, political choices, economic history, and human stories, that determine whether governments and countries remain rich or poor. He also addresses larger questions about why they make the choices they do, and what those mean for the future of our global economy. But despite the heady subject matter, False Economy is a lively and lucid book that engagingly and thought-provokingly examines macroeconomics, economic topics, and the fault lines and successes that can make or break a culture or induce a global depression. Along the way, readers will discover why Africa doesn't grow cocaine, why our asparagus comes from Peru, why our keyboard spells QWERTY, and why giant pandas are living on borrowed time.

False Alarm

Author: Bjorn Lomborg
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541647483
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Book Description
An “essential” (Times UK) and “meticulously researched” (Forbes) book by “the skeptical environmentalist” argues that panic over climate change is causing more harm than good Hurricanes batter our coasts. Wildfires rage across the American West. Glaciers collapse in the Artic. Politicians, activists, and the media espouse a common message: climate change is destroying the planet, and we must take drastic action immediately to stop it. Children panic about their future, and adults wonder if it is even ethical to bring new life into the world. Enough, argues bestselling author Bjorn Lomborg. Climate change is real, but it's not the apocalyptic threat that we've been told it is. Projections of Earth's imminent demise are based on bad science and even worse economics. In panic, world leaders have committed to wildly expensive but largely ineffective policies that hamper growth and crowd out more pressing investments in human capital, from immunization to education. False Alarm will convince you that everything you think about climate change is wrong -- and points the way toward making the world a vastly better, if slightly warmer, place for us all.

Economic Facts and Fallacies

Author: Thomas Sowell
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465026303
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Book Description
Thomas Sowell “both surprises and overturns received wisdom” in this indispensable examination of widespread economic fallacies (The Economist) Economic Facts and Fallacies exposes some of the most popular fallacies about economic issues-and does so in a lively manner and without requiring any prior knowledge of economics by the reader. These include many beliefs widely disseminated in the media and by politicians, such as mistaken ideas about urban problems, income differences, male-female economic differences, as well as economics fallacies about academia, about race, and about Third World countries. One of the themes of Economic Facts and Fallacies is that fallacies are not simply crazy ideas but in fact have a certain plausibility that gives them their staying power-and makes careful examination of their flaws both necessary and important, as well as sometimes humorous. Written in the easy-to-follow style of the author's Basic Economics, this latest book is able to go into greater depth, with real world examples, on specific issues.

Summary of False Economy – [Review Keypoints and Take-aways]

Author: PenZen Summaries
Publisher: by Mocktime Publication
ISBN:
Category : Study Aids
Languages : en
Pages : 16

Book Description
The summary of False Economy – A Surprising Economic History of the World presented here include a short review of the book at the start followed by quick overview of main points and a list of important take-aways at the end of the summary. The Summary of A new point of view is presented in the book "False Economy" , which examines the ways in which and the reasons for which certain nations of the world have become economic powerhouses while others have ended up as financial disasters. You'll see that destiny doesn't bind nations' hands in any way. Rather, the choices they make will determine whether they are successful or unsuccessful economically. False Economy summary includes the key points and important takeaways from the book False Economy by Alan Beattie. Disclaimer: 1. This summary is meant to preview and not to substitute the original book. 2. We recommend, for in-depth study purchase the excellent original book. 3. In this summary key points are rewritten and recreated and no part/text is directly taken or copied from original book. 4. If original author/publisher wants us to remove this summary, please contact us at [email protected].

The Deficit Myth

Author: Stephanie Kelton
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1541736206
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Book Description
A New York Times Bestseller The leading thinker and most visible public advocate of modern monetary theory -- the freshest and most important idea about economics in decades -- delivers a radically different, bold, new understanding for how to build a just and prosperous society. Stephanie Kelton's brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure. Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country. Kelton busts through the myths that prevent us from taking action: that the federal government should budget like a household, that deficits will harm the next generation, crowd out private investment, and undermine long-term growth, and that entitlements are propelling us toward a grave fiscal crisis. MMT, as Kelton shows, shifts the terrain from narrow budgetary questions to one of broader economic and social benefits. With its important new ways of understanding money, taxes, and the critical role of deficit spending, MMT redefines how to responsibly use our resources so that we can maximize our potential as a society. MMT gives us the power to imagine a new politics and a new economy and move from a narrative of scarcity to one of opportunity.

Narrative Economics

Author: Robert J. Shiller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691212074
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Book Description
From Nobel Prize–winning economist and New York Times bestselling author Robert Shiller, a groundbreaking account of how stories help drive economic events—and why financial panics can spread like epidemic viruses Stories people tell—about financial confidence or panic, housing booms, or Bitcoin—can go viral and powerfully affect economies, but such narratives have traditionally been ignored in economics and finance because they seem anecdotal and unscientific. In this groundbreaking book, Robert Shiller explains why we ignore these stories at our peril—and how we can begin to take them seriously. Using a rich array of examples and data, Shiller argues that studying popular stories that influence individual and collective economic behavior—what he calls "narrative economics"—may vastly improve our ability to predict, prepare for, and lessen the damage of financial crises and other major economic events. The result is nothing less than a new way to think about the economy, economic change, and economics. In a new preface, Shiller reflects on some of the challenges facing narrative economics, discusses the connection between disease epidemics and economic epidemics, and suggests why epidemiology may hold lessons for fighting economic contagions.

The Growth Delusion

Author: David Pilling
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 052557252X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
A provocative critique of the pieties and fallacies of our obsession with economic growth We live in a society in which a priesthood of economists, wielding impenetrable mathematical formulas, set the framework for public debate. Ultimately, it is the perceived health of the economy which determines how much we can spend on our schools, highways, and defense; economists decide how much unemployment is acceptable and whether it is right to print money or bail out profligate banks. The backlash we are currently witnessing suggests that people are turning against the experts and their faulty understanding of our lives. Despite decades of steady economic growth, many citizens feel more pessimistic than ever, and are voting for candidates who voice undisguised contempt for the technocratic elite. For too long, economics has relied on a language which fails to resonate with people's actual experience, and we are now living with the consequences. In this powerful, incisive book, David Pilling reveals the hidden biases of economic orthodoxy and explores the alternatives to GDP, from measures of wealth, equality, and sustainability to measures of subjective wellbeing. Authoritative, provocative, and eye-opening, The Growth Delusion offers witty and unexpected insights into how our society can respond to the needs of real people instead of pursuing growth at any cost.

Debunking Economics

Author: Steve Keen
Publisher: Zed Books
ISBN: 9781856499927
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Book Description
What is the score card for economics at the start of the new millennium? While there are many different schools of economic thought, it is the neo-classical school, with its alleged understanding and simplistic advocacy of the market, that has become equated in the public mind with economics. This book shows that virtually every aspect of conventional neo-classical economics' thinking is intellectually unsound. Steve Keen draws on an impressive array of advanced critical thinking. He constitutes a profound critique of the principle concepts, theories, and methodologies of the mainstream discipline. Keen raises grave doubts about economics' pretensions to established scientific status and its reliability as a guide to understanding the real world of economic life and its policy-making.

Tackling Britain’s False Economy

Author: J. Mills
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230372155
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Book Description
The book analyses the failings of the British economy over the last two hundred years. It concludes that the main cause of its relatively poor performance has been inappropriate monetary and exchange rate policies. The damage these have done, especially to British manufacturing, has made the whole economy uncompetitive. Based on this analysis, the book then sets out an economic strategy designed to achieve much faster economic growth and a return to full employment, while containing inflation at acceptably low levels.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Author: John Perkins
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN: 1576755126
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 430

Book Description
Perkins, a former chief economist at a Boston strategic-consulting firm, confesses he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business.