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Title: Hidden Order : Economics of Everyday Life, The by David D. Friedman ISBN: 0-88730-885-6 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 27 August, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.73 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Hidden Order: An AP Microeconomics Student's Perspective
Comment: This book was easy to read, helpful, and gave interesting and unique examples for common economic theories. This is a great book to use in an AP class! Paired with our economics textbook, this reading explained the phenomena that we read about in the textbook.
Rating: 1
Summary: Hidden Agenda
Comment: I was really excited to read this book. I particularly liked the idea of applying economic theory to everyday problems. However, someplace into chapter three I began to realize that there were major flaws with many of the examples, not to mention the poor, often quite opaque writing style. As I continued, a pattern emerged of sloppy logic that always resulted in unsubstantiated libertarian conclusions about gun control, taxes, public policing, marriage, etc. In fact, the writing is so outrageous that I quite enjoyed finishing the book as an exercise in political satire. This book is perfect for every militia-man's bunker book shelf, or for anyone who is just curious how ill-conceived and ridiculous the right-wing economic dogma really is. This is one of the worst books I have ever read.
Rating: 1
Summary: Buyer Be Wary
Comment: This is one of those books I thought I was really going to like. It has that attitude--you know--where you think you're going to end up knowing true stuff about interesting aspects of everyday economic life that ordinary people are always misinformed about. Not!
I had to stop reading after three chapters, well four actually, as I skipped to Chapter 17 which was supposedly going to make the potato subsidy analysis more realistic (a promise unfulfilled as far as I could tell).
This may be the worst book on economics, or the worst book period, I have attempted to read in a while. Why is it so bad? Let me count the ways.
For starters, the writing is terrible. Try this "sentence": "SO if 10% more income is enough to let me buy what I bought last year, THEN 10% more income would make me better off than I was last year, SO some smaller increase in income would make me as well off as I was last year, SO prices have increased by less than 10%." [capitalizations not in original] If that resonates with you, you may like the book.
Blatant errors come quickly: in the very first pair of graphs, one is wrong.
Perhaps there is an clue early on that the reader should be wary of taking any of this book seriously. When discussing the economics of reselling textbooks in Chapter 2, Friedman says, "In more realistic cases the answer is more complicated." That should be a label tacked on every analysis I've looked at in the book.
The analyses are often misleading at best and completely in error at worst. If you get this book, make sure you first understand indifference curves, as the book relies on them but does not explain them. One is tempted to think the lack of explanation is purposeful, as the measure they represent is an imaginary quantity: utils; and the difference between two sets of utils (i.e., two indifference curves) in any given analysis could be inconsequential (or not). Secondly, and very importantly, make sure you precisely label and put representative numbers on each graph's axes--again something that Friedman does not do (one wonders why). Finally, don't buy into any results unless you're pretty sure all relevant factors are considered.
Chapter 3 begins the graphical analyses and muddled methodology is soon apparent as Friedman purports to prove changes in house prices in either direction always make you better off! Label the axes appropriately, assign representative numbers along each, apply a percentage for selling costs for the sell-and-buy-another-house option budget lines, draw everything correctly, and you will see that his analysis and conclusion are erroneous.
This book is probably a good read for zealous adherents of conservative/libertarian economic philosophy who will find ammunition for preconceived notions and not care if the quality of analysis is good or bad--it sounds good. I don't know who else might want to slog through this. Instead, if you are somewhat literate in economic theory, try Keen's Debunking Economics for better logic, deeper insight, and more realistic economics.
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Title: Armchair Economist: Economics And Everyday Experience by Steven Landsburg ISBN: 0029177766 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters. by David D. Friedman ISBN: 0691090092 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Economics of Life: From Baseball to Affermative Action to Immigration, How Real-World Issues Affect Our Everyday Life by Gary Stanley Becker, Guity Nashat Becker, Guity Nashat ISBN: 0070067090 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Trade Pub. Date: 01 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan ISBN: 0393324869 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt ISBN: 0517548232 Publisher: Three Rivers Press Pub. Date: 14 December, 1988 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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