Posted on 08/25/2010 5:11:47 AM PDT by petercooper
Hi FReepers, Anyone have any titles on Economics at the macro level which are easy to understand? I have a relative in need. Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams?
“Basic Economics” by Thomas Sowell.
Thomas Sowell, “Basic Economics” and “Applied Economics.” Milton Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom” is a good read, too, although dated.
Basic Economics
Applied Economics
Thomas Sowell
Both well written and accessable.
Get my book, its easy to understand and has a section on economics that explains capitalism. It also gets into the need for God in the free market. I have been a free market capitalist my entire life and written so a teenager could understand. Capitalist plug.
Pray for America
Harry S Dent’s The Great Depression Ahead
and bray’s book...
Go to Amazon and look up both these guys. They both have soem great books out there!
Do the right Thing: The People’s Economist Speaks, William Walters and
Basic economics, Thomas sowell
Here's an oldie but goodie...Milton Friedman explains why capitalism works (video)
Thomas Woods’ “Meltdown” for a good analysis of what has happened recently with our economic situation.
For a good analysis of the backbone of our economic system, “Creature from Jekyll Island” by Griffin is required. It analyzes the Federal Reserve (a clever term for our Central Bank) and central-banking vs. banking. This book completely opened my eyes to what is happening economically in the Western world. It also filled in a massive “missing piece” that I discovered in my years of studying the history of global statism since the mid-19th century.
Along with that, Murray Rothbard’s “Case Against the Fed.”
Ludwing von Mises’ “The Anti-Capitalist Mentality” is excellent.
Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson” is excellent. A lot of free-marketers who support 100% open and free trade and offshoring of manufacturing/labor refer to this work a lot. But if you read this book, you’ll notice that the “sweater manufacturing” sector that he uses as his case for this argument includes the fact that it is only one very specific industry (not an entire strata of industry like “programming” or “IT”) and that he admits that even letting one specific industry be taken over by another country that can produce more cheaply may affect the people who were in that industry for up to three generations.
Sowell’s “Basic Economics” is excellent. I didn’t find his “Applied Economics” as valuable.
Milton Friedman’s works on Capitalism (”Free to Choose” and “Capitalism and Freedom”) are excellent. However, you will probably notice a huge disconnect between his support of Capitalism as the most democratic of economic systems and his support of central banking, which is the socialist version of banking. This is because he was throughout his life a Monetarist, which means controlling economic sways through monetary policy. Toward the end of his career, he began to intimate that Monetarism may only work if we put a Constitutional Amendment in place that would limit the amount of money that could be printed to a certain percentage of GDP. While I was hopeful at this change, I was disappointed that he still had so much faith in Central Management (Socialist economics). Couldn’t he see that if the government wanted to increase the amount of newly printed money next year, and they had to abide by the “percentage of GDP rule,” all the government has to do is increase spending by X% THIS year in the budget. Because government spending is 1/3 of GDP, if they increase “spending,” voila, they increase GDP and expand the money supply.
Something to keep in mind: Woods and Rothbard are of the Ludwig von Mises school of economics, which is the Austrian school. I used to believe the Monetarists had the best grasp on what is happening until I started studying the Austrians. I am now convinced they have the best grasp on what is happening economically and politically and why.
Eric Hoffer
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2006/10/walter_williams.html
Download and then burn as a CD, and give as a gift.
after getting the basics down, there are great youtube videos re: the road to serfdom
with some basic econ, understanding the ‘road’ should turn even maxine waters around - alas, you can lead them but you can’t make them drink
Still can’t beat Uncle Milton’s “Free to Choose”.
The one thing that Liberals NEVER mention is how truly de humanizing their plan for America is.
Have you ever read or spoken to a person who moved here from just the kind of totalitarian system the Liberals are so intent on duplicating for us?
To a man, none of them praises the system they had in their homeland. Usually, their complaints about real and chronic material scarcity, censorship, lack of mobility, lack of educational opportunities, indifferent medical attention, etc., are accompanied by (explicit or not) expressions of just how stunted their sense of self worth had become and how spiritually and socially debilitating the totalitarian system had been
http://openlibrary.org/works/OL1097148W/Principles_of_political_economy_and_taxation
Principles of political economy and taxation
By David Ricardo
“economics in one easy lesson” - Hazlitt
good explanations, easy read.
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