Basic Economics

Here are some books that pop bubbles, but must be read with humility to avoid becoming its own new bubble, as the world is complex and contains contradictions: Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma Ayn Rand's the Fountainhead Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics Julian Jaynes's the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind Iain McGilchrist's the Master and his Emmisary Varlam Sharlamov's the Kolyma Tales Jacques Ellul's Propaganda: the Formation of Men's Attitudes (or alternatively Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death)

From chapter 17 of Basic Economics: “Economic decisions made through the marketplace are not always better than decisions that governments can make. Much depends on whether those market transactions accurately reflect both the costs and the benefits which result. Under some conditions, they do not. When someone buys a table or a tractor, the question as to whether it is worth what it cost is answered by the actions of the purchaser who made the decision to buy it. However, when an electric utility company buys coal to burn to generate electricity, a significant part of the cost of the electricity-generating process is paid by people who breathe the smoke that results from the burning of the coal and whose homes and cars are dirtied by the soot. Cleaning, repainting and medical costs paid by these people are not taken into account in the marketplace, because these people do not participate in the transactions between the coal producer and the utility company.…

The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli The 48 Rules of Power - Robert Greene Fooled By Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big - Scott Adams Basic Economics - Thomas Sowell The World Is Flat - Thomas L. Friedman The Penguin History of the World: Sixth Edition - J. M. Roberts and Odd Arne Westad

Thomas Sowell - he has many great books about economical principles - "Basic Economics" itself is extremely educational, and is regularly updated with examples of recent History.

> If anyone has read any and has feedback/notes, I'm looking forward to hearing them! The wisdom of insecurity: very very good if you are at all interested in the matters it explores Zero to one: the whole genre of business wisdom books is crap IMHO, but at least this one is short Basic economics (Thomas Sowell): total must read

Great thread. 2019 was the first time in about 7-8 years I made reading for pleasure a tertiary priority ((school+career)work/sleep/exercise+socializing+(NEW!)reading) and I got through about 20 books of varying length and difficulty, so here are the next 20 in my queue: - Infinite Jest (already started, will likely finish in early Jan. I love it so far.) - Quantum Computing Since Democritus (started in November as my nonfiction read, but took a break; I think I want to finish IJ first. Scott is an excellent writer and I was really enjoying this) - Building Microservices - The Code Book - How Cars Work (I want to turn the projection of a car in my brain from a black box to a gray box this year, and I don't mean by purchasing a Cybertruck) - To Kill a Mockingbird…

Non-fiction: - Factfulness by Hans Rosling - The War on Science by Shawn Otto - Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell - A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson - The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan - The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier Fiction: - And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie - The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson - The Magicians by Lev Grossman The non-fiction books were all incredible and highly recommended. I especially appreciate The War on Science as it is highly relevant in today's polarized and emotional political climate. The fiction books were good, for the most part. However, The Magicians might be the worst book I have ever read, not limited to fiction or fantasy. For more on that, ask. I managed to read significantly more books this year due to joining an at-work book club, which has been very nice.

Sowell's Basic Economics is the easiest to read one I have seen, and for the math phobic it has no equations. Another really good, if idiosyncratic, book is David Friedman's Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life. Also Thomas Sowell's Knowledge and Decisions covers roughly the same ground as Hayek's Use of Knowledge in Society, but is newer and more readable.

This should be required reading everywhere.

Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt: http://jim.com/econ/, http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/Economics_in_one_lesson.pdf Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell Applied Economics by Thomas Sowell Free to Choose by Milton Friedman (video series, too) Use of Knowledge in Society by Hayek (short, non-technical paper which is full of brilliant insights): http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html Not a book, but the Econtalk podcast is fantastic: http://www.econtalk.org/

Here's another vote for Basic Economics. It's a great (and fairly thorough) overview, written in a down-to-earth manner. Lots of real-life examples are used to explain basic economic principles, making this subject understandable and even enjoyable (for me, at least). Here is a direct link to it on Amazon (reviewers here gave it high ratings as well): http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-3rd-Ed-Economy/dp/0465... (http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-3rd-Ed-Economy/dp/0465002609)

Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell

Not much else to add except I would recommend picking up two books as well. 1. A standard price theory text that will give you the basic tools of economists. 2. A book that provides real-world applications illustrating how these tools are used. (I agree - Basic Economics by Sowell is a great place to start.)

Current econ PhD student here. Sowell is great. There's a 3rd edition out now. http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-3rd-Ed-Economy/dp/0465... (http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-3rd-Ed-Economy/dp/0465002609/)

I second this recommendation. I learned a lot about economics from this book...and felt my liberal latte-drinking hippy self shifting a good deal towards the right :).

If you are asking for introductory economics +1 for "Basic Economics" by Sowell and "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman (Sowell is one of Friedman's proteges). PBS made "Free to Choose" into a series back in the 1980s. You can find all the episodes on YouTube.

I highly recommend Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. The title is not very imaginative but I found it a great place to start before looking at more complicated concepts. http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-2nd-Ed-Citizens/dp/046... (http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-2nd-Ed-Citizens/dp/0465081452/ref=sip_rech_dp_10)