Book Report for Todd Buchholz’s “New Ideas from Dead Economists

Economics is the study of choice and the consequences that come from said choices. Ever since the 18th century, economists have continued to argue about theories that could improve society to the greatest extent. Two great economists, Adam Smith and Karl Marx, proved to develop opposing ideologies that would soon become the foundation of the two most popular political philosophies. Even though they voiced opposing views, Smith and Marx have truly made the greatest impact on contemporary economic theory in the United States because without them, our capitalist economy would not be what it is today.

When I first looked into finding this book I didn’t think much of it as I just thought it was just another type of text book or some sort. I was thinking that this would be some kind of auto biography or something I would not be interested in. In fact after reading this book I was stunned by the different views and aspects of economics that was explain and I would had never thought about them in that sort of way. This book covers a lot about we discussed in class. This book explains different examples of economic concepts that may be used in our daily lives. They

They explained that: “Changes in incentives influence human behavior in predictable ways”. The main point of this concept is that the more attractive an option is the more likely an individual to choose it. Another point that they also focused on was the fact that if a particular product more costly, the more unappealing it will become to the consumer. They used examples such as employees will worker harder if they feel that they will be greatly rewarded or a student will study material that they feel will be on an

READ: Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science, Charles Wheeland, W.W. Norton, 2003. Completely- cover to cover.

“Economics is not an exact science. It's a combination of an art and elements of science. And that's almost the first and last lesson to be learned about economics: that in my judgment, we are not converging toward exactitude, but we're improving our data bases and our ways of reasoning about them” (Paul,1). Despite Paul Samuelson’s accomplishments, his life growing up was not as ideal as a child would like. Paul was born in Gary, Indiana on May 15, 1915 to parents Frank and Ella Samuelson. Frank Samuelson was a pharmacist, who had financial difficulties after WWI. Thus, the family was forced to move to Chicago, Illinois. Enrolling at the early age of 16 to the University of Chicago, on his first day of college he claimed he was “Born as an

The novel is written during the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a financial crisis that happened worldwide around the united states. It was a huge unemployment and ended in mechanical preparations and constructions. It happened before the New Era, a period of low unemployment when there was a great difference of income with general prosperity. The Great Depression began in “Black Tuesday” in October 29, 1929. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell very nearly 23 percent and the market lost 8 billion dollars and 9 billion dollars in quality. By 1933, when the Great Depression came to its nadir, by most accounts 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and about a large portion of the nation's banks failed. Despite the fact that the alleviation and change measures set up by President Franklin D. Roosevelt helped decrease the most extremely bad

DiLorenzo, an economic historian, is often questioned about his ethics and credibility to write such a critical book. There are different branches within the historical field of study. The economy plays into society and government today, as it plays a major role in our history. The economy is a substantial part of the human societal existence, and therefore is studied in depth as any other aspect of history would be. Some argue that an economist should not write a book that focuses on the critique of an important historical figure. However, the economy is an aspect of history, therefore an economic historian is well equipped and qualified to write a book of this nature.

It was not all just the hard facts about economics with various graphs and statistics, but actually engaged the reader. Each chapter would have what would seem like ridiculous examples of economics, such as “Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms”, or “How Is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?”, but within their explanations, the reader could come to their own conclusions. The Distinguished Gentleman had an interesting character development, where the con-man within the group of conning Congressmen suddenly becomes one of the better people, one with integrity and actually wants to see things get

By reading your book I like to think that I now have a better outlook on our current economic situation and also the events that have lead up to where we are today. With that said one chapter I really liked and focused on in your book was actually Chapter 2 The Buildup: 1999 to 2007. This chapter focused heavily on the some economic policies that helped fling the United States into the Great Recession. I have always believed that in order to better the future you must reflect upon the past and notice what you did wrong. This chapter provides four policies that nose-dived our economy to where it is today. While many people, and I also, believe that lower interest rates are a good thing, but when they actually just manipulate people into believing that once they can afford things that they really cannot obtain such as houses, vehicles, and recreational items. This with the combination of lowering the credit standards caused the household debt levels to skyrocket all across America. Secondly, even though we have talked about Social Security in class before I am still astonished by how much it

Freakonomics was one of the best novels that I have ever read! I am truly amazed at how Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner compared their study and research to the economy that we live in today. Out of all of the chapters in Freakonomics, Chapter 3: Conventional Wisdom, is the one that stood out the most. This particular topic relates to the world in many different ways.

While this book has a title that sounds like a course required to take to be a stock broker on Wall Street, it is nothing from a boring lecture on the economic patterns of the world. Levitt uses stories he has experienced from a military man selling bagels (Ch1) to a drug dealer with a business degree (Ch3). These stories are used for audience relation to their own life situations and how they dealt with them, to show that economics work in the same way.

Adam Smith born the year 1723 was thought to be one of the world’s greatest economists. In Fact he was known as the father of economy. He was also known by the way he thought and the way he wrote about the country's economy and in this paper I will explain the way he described and the way he thought of the economy and why his thoughts have carried on for the last two hundred years.

The book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner consists of a series of essays in which a journalist and an economist work collectively to find, by applying everyday economic principles, how the world truly works, which reveals some fascinating truths about the world. Some background history of the authors, Steven D. Levitt interviewed Stephen J. Dubner for New York Times Magazine and this is where they initially met and became good friends. With them having similar ideals about the world in an economic lens, they decided to write this book for other enthusiasts that wanted to analyze the world as an economist.

Since the early days of the United States, the Founding Fathers and other brilliant minds sought ways to understand and make sense of the inner workings of society and the economic market. Out of the many thinkers and developers of that time period, perhaps none made so great an impact on American society as the Scottish contemporary philosopher and political economist, Adam Smith—who is most known for his influential work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, By the early nineteenth century, other streams of economic theory emerged from various individuals who were also influenced by the ideas of Smith. Some of these individuals included David Ricardo, Karl Marx and later John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman—each of whom contributed their own ideas on economic activity. However, it was Smith’s ideas on capitalism and his laissez-faire approach to free markets that have transcended other economic theories and continue to impact American economic thought to this day.

Some of the most compelling topics that I learned in this topic only came into focus at the end of the course. Economics is a very large and complex study and reflecting on this subject, piece by piece, requires some patience and ability to put the pieces together. The relationships between simple choices, such as supply and demand, drives all economic and commercial exchange but only through the lens of economic models that attempt to layout this system by combing mathematical principles and psycho-social evaluation. All in all, this was very interesting introduction to some of the complex drivers that propel society.