Foxes and Hedgehogs

Inequality Reexamined by Amartya Sen My rating: 4 of 5 stars The most basic idea, that one person's equality is another's inequality, is explored in detail. Sen illuminates many of the flaws in standard economic thinking, and how the philosophical underpinnings of economics guide and distort economic reasoning. View all my reviews

Valuing Wall Street by Andrew Smithers My rating: 5 of 5 stars The material was simple enough to digest, and certainly believable. It also provided good insights on the real behavior of investors, i.e. most investors are not long-term investors and the perils of retiring during a down period. The book also provides a good benchmark for when to invest, although the fact that I rode the market up on its fallacious valuation has not harmed me, since I transferred my portfolio to bonds before the market started heading down. View all my reviews

The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies by Scott E. Page My rating: 4 of 5 stars Generally, I found the book most engaging for understanding perception, heuristics and decision making, although this did not seem to be the primary premise of the book. As for the writing, it was a bit long-winded, using analogies to make points, even though the concepts themselves are readily accessible without elucidation. As to its purported focus, it provides academic, empirical, and statistical support for diversity, not necessarily racial or ethnic, with the premise being that diversity of viewpoint within groups is powerful, so much so that it trumps individual excellence. View all my reviews

Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich by Kevin Phillips My rating: 5 of 5 stars I found Phillips writing of wealth and democracy illuminating, not because I was unaware of the degree to which wealth controls the government, but how it has changed over the years, and the degree to which war profiteering creates wealth. Reading this book, one can't help but notice that the past is repeating, and what it is repeating is ugly, corrupt, and wrong-headed. As for others' criticisms that times are better for everyone, and that everyone does better when we all do better, that allowing egregious accumulation of wealth allows society to grow, well that is nonsense. I'm not an economics professional, although a member of an international economics honors society and a regular reader of economics books, but my own research indicates that such ideas, justifying gross inequality and the invisible hand, are false. View all my reviews

The Economics of Innocent Fraud: Truth for Our Time by John Kenneth Galbraith My rating: 5 of 5 stars A very short read, but insightful and extremely compact. Galbraith lays out in overview a critique of the concepts taught in finance and economics, which are in reality, false, and that many of the high-minded ideas bandied about regarding management, financial, corporate and governmental, are simply self-serving beliefs with little merit. A few: - Shareholder control of corporations - Executive pay - Separation of public and private View all my reviews

The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith My rating: 5 of 5 stars Galbraith's assessment of the 1950's economic scene, the populace's choices, and the then current reasons for the post-war boom, are particularly relevant to our choices today: Affluenza, the decaying environment, decreases in social services, worker rights, materialism, etc. I disdain economic dogma, the economic beliefs that are so commonly bandied about, and seemingly plausible, but generally unproven and with little merit. Economics abounds with such things, and Galbraith's insights then are wholly relevant now, both as a critique of the current administration's policies, and as a guidepost for a better future. View all my reviews

The Return of Depression Economics by Paul Krugman My rating: 5 of 5 stars As usual, Krugman highlights the problem with dogmatic approaches to economics. He also illuminates some aspects of our own concern about inflation. Rather than worry about inflation, our current economic and financial guardians might need to look more at the possibility of deflation created during an economic downturn when lack of demand meets excess capacity. View all my reviews