A gentle, clear, and accessible hornbook that should crowd out many other general texts.
In just a few easy lessons, economics journalist Wheelan can teach the most innocent reader to think like an economist.
In an effortless, sprightly manner, Wheelan takes us from basic concepts to the most current economic difficulties. Old Man Malthus was wrong, we now know (there’s plenty to eat), but the once-dismal science still has direct application to our present-day lives. The amoral marketplace is not a zero-sum game, but sometimes the market, like French democracy, doesn’t quite work right. That’s why Honda Civics lose head-on confrontations with Ford Explorers. Can you explain why Israel’s gross domestic product is twice that of Saudi Arabia? Maximizing utility, incentive, and human capital may have something to do with it, and so may public policy, as the author demonstrates. He intelligibly bares consequential concepts like “adverse selection,” “deadweight loss,” “asymmetry of information,” and “purchasing power parity”; he nicely explains the difference between fiscal and monetary policy and the Fed’s job, as well as why it matters. Just how economic depression and virulent inflation wreak havoc is made clear. He tells us why the role of our government is largely helpful. (Are you really able to get bin Laden on your own?) Of course, when it comes to government intervention, there are cons along with the pros. (Health care, for example.) Are you discomfited by the policies of the World Bank or the activities of the IMF? Keep reading. You will probably be convinced that on the whole and in the long run globalization is a good thing. (Whether historical forces will work against it and bring on a worldwide depression is yet to be seen). The workings of the financial markets are made simple. Meanwhile, Wheelan’s investment advice, conforming to the immutable laws of economics, is patently sane: save, invest, diversify for the long run, and eschew get-rich-quick schemes.
A gentle, clear, and accessible hornbook that should crowd out many other general texts.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-393-04982-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
Madrick looks into the vast vessel that is the US economy and pronounces it half emptyand draining. In reiterating the declinist view of America's future, the veteran financial journalist zeroes in on the problems presumably caused by the sluggish pace of domestic economic growth (2.3% per annum) and stagnant state of productivity improvements (about 1%) since 1973. Prior to that year, annual gains in GDP averaged 3.4% and productivity forged ahead at a 2% rate. This more measured pace of economic advance has curtailed the nation's capacity to meet its social/welfare commitments, to remain competitive in key commercial/industrial markets throughout the world, and to keep personal income and living standards on an upward track. Further, he points out, inflation-adjusted losses in the domestic output of goods and services from 1973 to 1993 aggregated $12 trillion. To put the impact of contemporary shortfalls in clearer perspective, Madrick offers a brisk overview of the postCivil War era, when US business and wages were expanding at a healthy clip, thanks in large measure to the economies of scale achieved by mass production and mass merchandising. These, he asserts, not only helped fragment once-homogeneous outlets but also intensified mercantile rivalries and made it appreciably easier for start-up enterprises to enter hitherto closed markets. Despite the convulsive shift in its fortunes, the author warns, the American populace remains unwarrantedly optimistic about the shape of things to come. Brief allusions to higher taxes, shared sacrifice, income maintenance, and deficit reduction apart, Madrick makes no attempt to consider ways out of the socioeconomic fix in which he perceives the US. Withal, the author insists, the citizenry had best put paid to any comforting notion that self-reliance, rugged individualism, and other classic virtues guarantee ever brighter tomorrows. A credible worst-case evaluation of what slower economic growth has and could cost the American polity if the nation fails to regain its historic momentum.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-43623-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An intelligible and generally absorbing rundown on how one of the world's best known but least understood financial institutions came to possibly terminal grief. In telling what he stresses is a story whose conclusion may not be known for some years, Economist correspondent Raphael makes a fine job of recounting how the underwriting collective known as Lloyd's of London became a major force in international insurance markets. He goes on to delineate the crucial role played by so- called Namesindividuals who put up capital in hopes of realizing handsome, tax-sheltered returns and assume unlimited personal liability for losses incurred by their syndicates. The author also inventories the financial wreckage left in the wake of epic storms (Andrew, Betsy, Hugo, et al.) and such man-made disasters as fire aboard an offshore oil rig. Withal, nothing prepared Names or their brokers for the havoc wreaked by obligations resulting from asbestosis and pollution-abatement claims in the US. These multibillion-dollar liabilities bankrupted hundreds of once affluent individuals. While the resultant litigation exposed a wealth of sleazy deficiencies at Lloyd's (inadequate or nonexistent disclosure of risks, overly venturesome underwriting, lack of accountability, self-dealing, and in some cases outright fraud), Crown courts have done precious little to provide surcease for Names whose lives are in ruins. Nor, despite a belated effort to professionalize a freewheeling enterprise based on trust or at least confidence, is there any assurance that Lloyd's can survive in anything like its present form. In chronicling the unresolved juridical conflicts between those with nothing left to lose and an institution whose blunders have made it an embarrassment to the UK establishment, Raphael offers more detail than may suit the taste of North American readers. On the whole, however, he provides a clear briefing on a financial fiasco whose consequences could prove earthshaking for insurers and insured alike. (12-page photo insert)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1995
ISBN: 1-56858-056-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
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