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Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?
With so much happening so suddenly, what are you reading to make sense of the Economy and markets.
- SigmundA 6y agoNot having much luck myself, I don't think anyone knows how to make sense of it. Its either going to be worse than the great depression or no big deal. Have been scanning HN a lot for anything related to the economy and found little except for this post.
- rjtavares 6y agoAt this point I don't think anyone credible believes it will be no big deal.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 6y agoThe Bitcoin Whitepaper. [1] [1] https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
- ohiovr 6y agoThe fed used to provide a safe environment for someone to play the music for the game musical chairs. But now they just make their own music.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- eel 6y agoI'm keeping an eye on initial jobless claims and BLS unemployment statistics. I'm concerned that it's a cascading effort as fewer workers means less spending means less earnings means fewer workers and the cycle continues. Obviously the government has levers to try to ease the pain (lower interest rates, pass stimulus bills), but it's not yet clear how sufficient these levers will be.
- mrleinad 6y agoYeah, that's a recession. But we'll probably see a lot of helicopter money going forward, and some sort of global New Deal in many countries after the virus is gone.
- econcon 6y agoI read many books and came to realization that I don't understand how economy around me is going to turnout. Yes, I know few things about economy but whatever I know has no predictive power. So I kept it aside, I bought a piece of land and now I setup hydro and solar pvs, to generate my own power. I am growing my own food (mostly potatoes, tomatoes, beans, raising few hens for eggs) and I've shelter, that's pretty much all I need. So now I don't care about economy going down or smth, yes I might lose money which is in economy but it isn't going to affect my livelihood.
- stackzero 6y agoI'm interested in pointers on this in general, not just wrt the current climate.
- Kaibeezy 6y agoThe Normal Economy Is Never Coming Back - https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/09/unemployment-coronavirus-pandemic-normal-economy-is-never-coming-back/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/09/unemployment-coronaviru...
- tareqak 6y agoPosted on HN under https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22857491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22857491 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22839462 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22839462 .
- danesparza 6y agoIndeed. This reminds me of what I've read about WWI -- and the fall of several monarchies. We don't have many monarchies now -- but the old world order is changing.
- pHde 6y agohttps://voxeu.org/ https://voxeu.org/ for "research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists".
- rjtavares 6y agoSome podcast recommendations: -Freakonomics (https://freakonomics.com/ https://freakonomics.com/) has been making some good episodes about different aspects of the current crisis. The latest episode is about the food supply market, the one before is about the $2 trillion aid package. -Planet Money (https://www.npr.org/sections/money/ https://www.npr.org/sections/money/), which was created in 2008 to help make sense of the finantial crisis, is obviously focused on the crisis. Expect 20-30 minute episodes about economic topics in the news (some of the latest episodes include "The Big Small Business Rescue" and "The Economics Of Hospital Beds")
- mrleinad 6y agoLiving in Argentina, the political landscape has far more impact on the economy than in most other countries. What I read here are: - Newspaper titles (only read the content if something is really interesting) - Twitter, following a few key people, both with a political and economical background - Discuss with friends about economy topics I know there's much noise in all that, but same as with politics, I don't think you'll be able to fully make sense of the economy unless you dive deep into it for many years, and even then you'll only get a partial view on many things.
- tareqak 6y agoI’ve only read the odd HN posts and AP news articles. That being said, there might be interesting things on these places that were part of an article about how more and more people were resorting to getting financial advice from online sources. https://www.reddit.com/r/Frugal/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Frugal/ https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/ https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/ https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/ https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/ https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/ https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/ Oh, this was the article https://qz.com/1707479/reddit-has-become-a-guide-to-personal-finance/ https://qz.com/1707479/reddit-has-become-a-guide-to-personal... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22478854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22478854). Then there are the recent HN posts to Lyn Alden’s work: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=lynalden.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=lynalden.com .
- vmurthy 6y agoIt helps to know what "making sense" means to you? If it means "Will my job be safe for the next 12 months", the reading will be different. If it means "What 10-15 stocks are poised to give me great returns in the next 5 years", the reading will be different (this would be sector reports, 10-Ks etc) If it means "how can I ensure that another economic shock won't destroy my wealth or plans for FIRE", the reading will be different. FWIW, I am finishing up a book called "Contagion" [0] (not the fiction one ) and should start reading "Pale Rider" [1] about the 1918 pandemic. I've found that history offers guidance and opens your mind to possibilities thus offering solace. [0] https://www.amazon.in/Rules-Contagion-Outbreaks-Infectious-Diseases-ebook/dp/B07JLSHT7M/ref=sr_1_1?crid=130ZNCJX4G38D&dchild=1&keywords=the+rules+of+contagion+why+things+spread+-+and+why+they+stop&qid=1586859470&sprefix=contagion+why%2Caps%2C229&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.in/Rules-Contagion-Outbreaks-Infectious-D... [1] https://www.amazon.in/Pale-Rider-Spanish-Changed-World-ebook/dp/B01GH07CG6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=329SBG2GB38NH&dchild=1&keywords=1918+flu&qid=1586859519&sprefix=1918%2Caps%2C405&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.in/Pale-Rider-Spanish-Changed-World-ebook...
- selimthegrim 6y agoFor a second I thought you were mentioning Pale Horse, Pale Rider
- DyslexicAtheist 6y agoNassim N. Taleb, author of BlackSwan books. His thinking about risk/probability is timeless. Frequently publishes links to his papers and debunks the BS-peddlers on his twitter: https://twitter.com/nntaleb https://twitter.com/nntaleb
- BaronSamedi 6y agoI liked Taleb's "The Black Swan" but find his Twitter persona grating. He displays an attitude of, "anyone who doesn't agree with me is dumb". I think the opposite is needed now. Complex and difficult issues are better approached with humility, and a frank and open discussion of uncertainty.
- sergiosgc 6y agoI don't mind arrogance on public personas[^] who are very good at what they do. Think Steve Jobs arrogance. Think José Mourinho "I'm the special one" in 2004. I read it as putting your (reputational) neck on the line. "I'm so sure of this assertion that I'm risking my reputation here.". Taleb is one such brilliant mind. The downside to arrogance is that it will tank your reputation if you fail. This may be too early in History, and too politically charged to use as an example, but think Trump. [^] on personal interactions, though, I find arrogance a repellent trait.
- barrenko 6y agoHe's only arrogant to people covertly arrogant.
- was8309 6y agoSorry, are you referring to Kaleb or Trump? thanks
- BaronSamedi 6y agoA perhaps more important downside to arrogance is that hubris leads to blindness. One can be so blinded by the light of one's own brilliance that one fails to see beyond it. Intellectual humility, therefore, is the recognition of our limitations and helps us remain open to new information.
- calahad 6y agoCapital and Ideology - Piketty very approachable for an intimidatingly huge book
- asar 6y agoI personally really like The Economist to get a good sense of what's going on globally.
- rjtavares 6y agoI agree, though readers should be aware of their bias towards free-markets, liberal democracies and globalization.
- lovemenot 6y agoWhat you said is broadly right, but it's always nuanced. Yesterday they disavowed economists who are apologists for price-gouging on life-essential goods, such as masks, whose production cannot quickly respond to pricing signals.
- tfigment 6y agoI disagree that it's nuanced, it's very blatant. Listen to coverage involving Bernie Sanders before he dropped out to hear it. But as long as you realize it, it can still be informative.
- oDot 6y agoThe only school that has any explanation for this is the Austrian School of Economics. Their theory of the business cycle is the reason they successfully predict every crisis to the tee (except for timing, no one can do that), while other economists are just blown away in surprise that it even happened. Mises and Hayek wrote big and hard to read books about it, but two that explain this to the layman are "Meltdown" by Tom Woods[0] and "How An Economy Grows And Why It Crashes" by Peter Schiff[1]. The first is an explanation using the 2008 crisis, and the second is a very amusing yet educating economy lesson told as a kids' story. Another book that can help grasp this, although I wouldn't read it first, is "The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself" by James Grant. If you're interested in the actual business cycle theory, Tom Woods explained it briefly while promoting Meltdown. Explanation starts 14:03: https://youtu.be/NBwJm68FkMc?t=844 https://youtu.be/NBwJm68FkMc?t=844 [0] https://www.amazon.com/Meltdown-Economy-Tanked-Government-Bailouts/dp/B001UL7NY4 https://www.amazon.com/Meltdown-Economy-Tanked-Government-Ba... [1] https://www.amazon.com/How-Economy-Grows-Why-Crashes/dp/B0049MEXPS https://www.amazon.com/How-Economy-Grows-Why-Crashes/dp/B004...
- fanzhang 6y agoThe Austrian School seems to have been wrong about the last 15 years' money printing causing inflation. In particular, the general Austrian school would have predicted a lot more inflation by now. The prediction on this has fared so poorly that the last 15 years has given rise to a school nearly diametrically opposite to the Austrian school: modern monetary theory. (My understanding of the Austrian response to this is some amount of semantic contorting: "well... let's define inflation this way and there is inflation... or will be... lots of it!") Also, current consensus, of course among mainstream economists, is that countries that more believe the Austrian school, like Germany, has caused unneeded pain on themselves/their neighbors by advocating of austerity versus stimulus during downturns. If you want the mainstream steelman against the Austrian school, you can search Paul Krugman's take on them.
- ghastmaster 6y agoAre you aware of the stock market, housing market, bond market, precious metals? Asset price inflation absolutely is happening. The FED up until now was able to keep the CPI increases fairly low even though they were creating trillions of dollars, because the money was locked into assets. This has had a severe effect on anyone in the market for these assets that have risen.
- threatofrain 6y agoHow are people reading timing and schedule for major institutions near their area?
- smarri 6y agoThe blogs and articles of John Kay and Niall Ferguson. The Financial Times too.
- Tycho 6y agoThings Hidden Since the Foundation of the World by René Girard.
- yodsanklai 6y agoFor general principles, I recommend https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Economics-7th-Gregory-Mankiw/dp/128516587X https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Economics-7th-Gregory-Mank... I started with vulgarisation but it didn't lead me very far. This is a reference textbook used by economics students around the world. It's surprisingly entertaining and teaches you the basic concepts of macro and micro economics.
- brainpool 6y agoDefinitely Keynes. Much of the fundamentals hasn’t made much sense earlier, but it does now. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes
- postingawayonhn 6y agoI'd argue the Keynesian response to the last crisis is what has left us so overleveraged and poorly prepared for this one.
- RobertoG 6y agoWhat Keynesian response? A Keynesian response would be a fiscal response to a fall in aggregate demand by governments, not a monetary one by central banks.
- tumetab1 6y agoThat's the old problem that those who call themselves, and between them, keynesians ignore the first part of fiscal responsibility on good times. According to tome better read than me it doesn't help that Keynes ideas floated during his writings so many contradictory ideas can be read and/or inferred from it.
- rocco337 6y agoCapital - Piketty
- Tangokat 6y agoThe markets and the economy move so fast now I prefer content which updates very regularly. A lot of material is simply outdated. Real vision[0] has some really good content. It's not super easily digestable for someone not in professional finance but I think finance is just too complicated to simplify and not lose a lot of nuance. I'm trying to learn and have to look up a lot of stuff but it has been fun. I think they have 1 month trial for $1. I recommend Raoul Pal's recent video "The Unfolding" as a starting point. I also think Macro Voices[1] podcasts are very solid. Again not very easy content but experts in various fields help to make sense of the bigger picture. You can choose a bit depending on what you're interested in (gold, bitcoin, bonds etc). It's worth noting that NOBODY knows what is really going to happen, all you can do is try to get informed opinions and set probabilities. If you're looking for investment advice trying to time the market or sectors, I would stop looking. The uncertainty does not favour amateurs in my opinion. [0]https://www.realvision.com/tv/home https://www.realvision.com/tv/home [1]https://www.macrovoices.com/ https://www.macrovoices.com/
- ekianjo 6y agoThomas Sowell - he has many great books about economical principles - "Basic Economics" itself is extremely educational, and is regularly updated with examples of recent History.
- downerending 6y agoHaven't read his econ book, but really loved Cosmic Justice. The guy is brilliant. Beyond that, if you want something kind of fringe but real time, ZeroHedge is interesting. Lots of chaff, but some of the wheat is insightful.
- ekianjo 6y agoThanks for the recommendation of Cosmic Justice, I was not aware of that book of his. Will definitely have a look!
- lucasps99 6y agofirst question
- nickysielicki 6y agohttps://www.epsilontheory.com/things-fall-apart-part-3-markets/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/things-fall-apart-part-3-marke... This blog, and this post in particular.
- bosky101 6y agowanted to share an offbeat method a friend shared the other day. he started plotting the weight of the local newspaper. lesser weight meant lesser advertisers.
- DanielBMarkham 6y agoMaking sense in what fashion, to what end? Investment opportunities? Proposed public policy changes? Where to look for a job? To a large degree the economy is unknowable. That's why you can get two economists in a room and receive seven opinions. Don't get me wrong; there's good value there. It's just that economics is an odd mix of philosophy and math. On my more cranky days I call it astrology for people who know calculus. If the economy were knowable to the degree that some economists claim to know it, they'd all be billionaires. So my advice is to scope down your question to something a bit more workable.
- smoyer 6y agoMy favorite fight between two economists - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc
- PopeDotNinja 6y agoThat was excellent.
- smoyer 6y agoWe certainly need more educational materials like this - especially in this time of social-distancing. I'm on the board of a small Christian high school and the teachers and students need materials that can be shared via Zoom/Teams/etc. A video like this starts the engagement for everyone and makes it easier to have the follow-on discussion. Plus it's entertaining but the message actually highlights the two mind-sets pretty well!
- ghostpepper 6y agoThis is actually a sequel to the first "Keynes vs Hayek rap battle" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk
- smoyer 6y agoYes it is ... I like the second video better but I should have mentioned the first as context.
- vinceguidry 6y agoWikipedia. Just yesterday I was explaining my layman's understanding of econ, namely that money itself is zero-sum, so the prices of goods and services float on the free market according to how much people are willing to pay for them. Central banks inject money into the economy, inflating the economy, reducing costs across the board. This acts as a wealth transfer from wealth holders to wealth producers, by that I mean businesses. Normal inflation happens in a healthy economy, in an unhealthy one like this one, they dust off the lever known as QE. In a QE environment, the central bank injects money directly into the economy by buying up government bonds and other financial instruments. This coupled with fractional reserve banking means that the banks can make a whole lot more loans, flooding the system with liquidity so that money can start moving again. I had implied that QE increases the money supply, and so was corrected and told that it was actually the money base that was increased. On to Wikipedia I went to upgrade my knowledge. There I found out that the concept of money base is referring specifically to the amount of money banks can lend on using fractional reserve banking. So while nominally it's referring to the amount of hard currency in circulation, that 'in circulation' part is key, it's not just the amount of 'real' money out there. Economics shouldn't be mysterious, one's first stop should be Wikipedia to understand the boring concepts. If you want to know how it got that way, the Wikipedia articles on the history of the banking system are pretty good. It's dry, boring stuff. But you need to know it if you want to understand how the world works.
- RobertoG 6y ago>>"This coupled with fractional reserve banking means that the banks can make a whole lot more loans, flooding the system with liquidity so that money can start moving again." That's not how it works. First, never mind how much money banks can lend, if there is nobody asking for credit. You can't create demand for credit by QE. Second, private banks are not limited in their capacity for creating credit by the quantity of reserves available. If central banks are going to keep their interest rate target they have to facilitate any demand of reserves by private banks. It's impossible for a Central Bank to control the quantity of money and the interest rate, they have to choose one, and they choose the interest rate. As I said in another post, I was totally confused about how it works until I started to read the Modern Money Theory version of all this. Here, explained by the Bank of England (pdf): https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-...
- sambarina 6y ago"All" you have to do is watch "How the economic machine works (in 30 minutes)" by Ray Dalio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0 Read his insights and watch his interviews. That's a good basic start. Everything more then that: Nobody really knows. I have read countless of books, but one thing you have to know: It is a market - period. Something has value just because another person wants to buy it (at a given price). That's basically all there is. If you think that some asset is worth more in 10 years then it is now - buy it. The "markets" go heavily up and down currently. That's just because different people price in the current health crisis in different ways.
- yamrzou 6y agoI wish there was a book (or even video lectures) that goes more in depth, but with the same style as that video.
- edsykes 6y agoNot in the same style, but this is the research that the video summary is based upon. https://www.principles.com/big-debt-crises/ https://www.principles.com/big-debt-crises/ It's free
- manishjhawar 6y agoI found this recent interview [0] of his by TED to be quite insightful. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrxYhv2O3wU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrxYhv2O3wU
- ipnon 6y agoA great follow up in the "New York billionaires explain basics of the economy" curriculum: William Ackman: Everything You Need to Know About Finance and Investing in Under an Hour | Big Think [0] Covers the money making, Wall Street side [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEDIj9JBTC8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEDIj9JBTC8
- sideshowb 6y agoFor a longer term read I'd recommend Hill & Myatt, the Economics Anti Textbook. It's a fair introduction to Economics 101 but at the same time provides more in depth critique than an introductory book usually would, of where Economics 101 fails, and how it tends to get over-applied in policy. Ha Joon Chang, Economics: the Users Guide and 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (don't dismiss it as an anti-capitalist treatise, it's not) are also good, lighter weight (unlike Hill & Myatt no maths) but give an overview of the different schools of economics and what can be drawn from each.
- RobertoG 6y agoWe will never agree in what makes sense explaining economy because it's a political question. The first thing to do, in my opinion, is to accept that. For me, personally, after trying to make sense for a while using the mainstream narrative, the only thing that worked was Modern Monetary Theory. Their explanation of the banking system is based in how it really works (mainstream textbooks don't), the sectoral balances framework (1) gives you a tool to think in terms of aggregate demand and their theory explain things that mainstream have problems with (like public debt ratios and inflation and interest rates relationships). There is a textbook available(2). 1.- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectoral_balances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectoral_balances 2.- http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?page_id=33139 http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?page_id=33139
- s_kilk 6y agoMarx - Capital
- DrNuke 6y agoYou may want to have a look at five world-leading, freely available general references (from World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Merryll Lynch, United Nations and Deutsche Bank... look for their latest updates following this crisis), which I used as an intro for my recent booklet about Economy https://www.tenproblems.com/2020/02/24/ten-problems-for-economy-in-the-2020s/ https://www.tenproblems.com/2020/02/24/ten-problems-for-econ...
- PaulHoule 6y agoMancur Olson: Logic of Collective action.
- dredmorbius 6y agoGood book. How so specifically?
- mempko 6y agoThis website from Ray Dalio is excellent. https://economicprinciples.org/ https://economicprinciples.org/ Read Debt the first 5000 years from David Graeber. Read Money in the Modern Economy from the Bank of England. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-in-the-modern-economy-an-introduction&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjd46nn6ufoAhUHvJ4KHSo-BjMQFjAAegQIChAB&usg=AOvVaw3dYvxxGs_C7rcXWYBjP3Cp https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.bankofengland.co.uk... Why these? You have to understand money and credit. Economics ignores money and credit which would be like physics ignoring atoms and gravity.
- cynusx 6y agoI wouldn't look at economic theory to predict what will happen as economists haven't studied economies subject to pandemics, but you can look at the reality on the ground 1/ consumer confidence is extremely low as people are afraid of the virus and afraid of losing their jobs 2/ businesses have seen sudden and complete revenue destruction with revenue going down from 50% to 0% of pre-crisis; however their obligations (salaries, servicing debt, paying suppliers) obviously are still there. The natural instinct is to pause projects, new hiring, layoff people, stop buying things, postpone payments to suppliers and be more aggressive in collecting invoices. This becomes a self-reinforcing cycle purging non-essential businesses or non-competitive businesses at a very high rate. This will accelerate until normal people are no longer afraid to go out and then the supply chains will restart with the businesses managed to remain alive. The best policy response would be to freeze the capitalist system altogether and allow any liability due in the future to be postponed by 3 months when entities can prove significant revenue shortfalls and implement an aggressive government-backed temporary unemployment system for those businesses as well. To the extent that people haven't lost their job yet, it would fix the impulse of business owners to do this very aggressively in the necessity to balance inbound and outbound cash and post-crisis these businesses would have similar balance sheets as pre-crisis so life can resume quickly. For normal people nothing would change much to the current situation (stay at home, temporary unemployment, being afraid). The other good policy response I have seen is to force banks to give businesses a corona-credit and to guarantee those loans. It's less good because it does increase the debt-load of a company which alters their balance sheets and would have to be paid off post-crisis.
- _DIFIGIANO_ 6y agothe bible
- fallingfrog 6y agoDebt: the first 5000 years by David Graeber. It’s a fantastic piece that takes a step back from the present moment and asks how the economic debt system developed and how other people in other times have done things.
- hosolmaz 6y ago+1 The first few chapters were eye opening
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- axegon_ 6y agoCurrently nothing, ran out of books to read and amazon is taking forever to ship them, despite the hefty shipping fee I paid(currently two weeks from Austria to Bulgaria which is just over 1000 km away)... Rant aside, all of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's books are a very good choice for anyone that hasn't read them.
- texasbigdata 6y agoKindle?
- axegon_ 6y agoNot available there I'm afraid.
- skanderbm 6y agoI would go through these three videos : - Ray Dalio for one view https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0 https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0 - Yanis Varoufakis for another https://youtu.be/zi-dXc0bKUM https://youtu.be/zi-dXc0bKUM - Charles Mackay for an ancient, wise and entertaining read : https://youtu.be/FxgRbnh2ouE https://youtu.be/FxgRbnh2ouE
- kiliantics 6y ago+1 for Varoufakis, he has a very deep understanding of the system, having seen its ugly details very close up in the eurocrisis, and he has an excellent clarity in explaining it all
- aqqTwxye 6y agoThe entrails of birds.
- seymore_12 6y agoRight now I enjoy reading The Coming Plague https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Plague-Emerging-Diseases-Balance/dp/0140250913 https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Plague-Emerging-Diseases-Balan... Written 1995, but incredibly actual. Shows that most of epidemics are function of political will and economy and vice versa.
- themantra514 6y agoWhat were the ideologies that shaped the economic systems in which we live you ask? Welp do I have a book for you, friend: Capital and Ideology by by Thomas Piketty Spoiler alert Since way back inequality was baked-in as a featue.
- tigerlily 6y agoFWIW, if you're in New Zealand you can follow economic news updates from www.interest.co.nz. It's an impressive aggregation of data and journalism. But boy could their site do with some improvement... Could be some work in it? There's a comments section under every article, and a motley community of dedicated "common 'taters". Plenty of workers, business owners, property darklords, doomers, prospective first home buyers, trolls, and even a few wise farmers. I find it helpful to guage the vibe of what is happening on the ground. Deep down, I think what's really needed is a forum.
- tigerlily 6y agoHere ya go: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php
- sauwan 6y agoA very interesting one that's helped me understand a lot right now is Goliath by Matt Stoller. He frames todays economy in a similar light as the 1920s. Very compelling and interesting.
- AndyMcConachie 6y agoFirst, the usual disclaimers about 'do your own research' and all that. Also, people come into econ for different reasons, have different focuses, and expect different things from their news. Some people read news about the economy because they have specific decision making responsibilty, and some people read it because they're just curious. I'm somewhere in the middle depending on what is specifically being talked about. Here are some random links that I check from time to time when I have the time. https://wallstreetonparade.com/ https://wallstreetonparade.com/ https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/ https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/ https://mattstoller.substack.com/ https://mattstoller.substack.com/ And then many mainstream ones like newspaper sites and the like.
- pjmorris 6y agoI've followed the 'Calculated Risk' and 'Naked Capitalism' blogs since the last crisis. On twitter I follow @MkBlyth and @nntaleb. Disclaimer: NC is fairly leftish, but I don't consider that a flaw. I'd be interested in learning about rightish blogs of the same depth and quality. [0] https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/ https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/ [1] https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/ https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/
- sleepysysadmin 6y agoThe boomers are retiring soon if not now. Many of them were in higher risk investments than they should be and if they all sold their high risk and went to low risk at once. The market crashes; that's what happened. Tons of people want to sell. So the governments of the world have been the ones buying. https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren... The fed put 4 trillion on the books during the financial crisis and 10 years later they started normalization and barely made a dent. This number should be 0. Now in a few months they've spent 2 trillion buying what nobody on the market is buying. How do you make sense of the market when the government is basically preventing the crash. It's not possible to make sense right now. We aren't seeing real market numbers. We aren't seeing real tbill rates. We arent seeing real economic numbers like unemployment because the governments have been hiding % under participation rate.
- myth_buster 6y agoBehavioral Economics - Thaler Kahneman Tversky et Al. If you are referencing to the fallout from covid, it's essentially the effect of global commerce coming to screeching halt. As CEO of GS said, no one has a clue on what's going to happen in Q2 and beyond, and if they say they do, they are BS'g. It's a Black swan event. Most forecasting models are ineffective. Whether it would be a V, U, L recession is anyone's guess. As it all depends on how politicians react, ie. How late they are to lockdown and how long they will be in that state. Which perhaps is outside the realm of traditional economics. Hence my suggestion.
- barrenko 6y agoIt's NOT a black swan event.
- paganel 6y agoNot the OP but we've last had a pandemic of such proportions 100 years ago, and back then the world was not as inter-connected and inter-dependent as it is right now. Even during WW1 and WW2 industry and the economy itself were working (sometimes at full capacity), a fact that it is not happening right now. We've never had half of the planet's population in some sort of lockdown, that is the definition of a "black sawn event". Yeah, one could say that things could have been better prepared (I'm in that camp), but one can never truly prepare for half of the working population being put on indeterminate leave on such great a scale.
- DennisP 6y agoRay Dalio. Start with his articles on LinkedIn. He has a recent book if you really want to dig in. Dalio runs the world's largest hedge fund and it's entirely focused on predicting what the macroeconomy will do, based on studying the last thousand years or so of economic history.
- Jedd 6y agoJohn Ralston Saul's The Collapse of Globalism. Published ~2005, it (arguably) makes sense of the previous several decades of western economics. https://www.johnralstonsaul.com/non-fiction-books/the-collapse-of-globalism/ https://www.johnralstonsaul.com/non-fiction-books/the-collap...
- eru 6y agoI just read the blurb and summary on the page you linked to. It might be an interesting read, but the main thesis seems false? Globalism has done just fine. > Elsewhere, the world looks for answers to African debt. the AIDS epidemic, the return of fundamentalism and terrorism. all of which perversely refuse to disappear despite the theoretical rise in global prosperity. Most of these don't look so intractable any more, even if we haven't solved them, yet.
- chrisco255 6y agoReal Vision Finance by Raoul Pal and others. They are a subscription based macro-finance and economic analysis platform with some of the highest quality interviews I've ever seen on this subject. Raoul and his team are great synthesizers and do a great job at pulling in people from different disciplines and specialties. They release daily updates and have an interview catalog going back several years. They have many free videos on their YouTube channel but I pay for the subscription and it's been well worth it. Check out their YouTube channel: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCBH5VZE_Y4F3CMcPIzPEB5A https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCBH5VZE_Y4F3CMcPIzPEB5A
- dudeinjapan 6y agoFear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson
- BenoitEssiambre 6y agoAlways read David Beckworth: https://www.davidbeckworth.com/popular https://www.davidbeckworth.com/popular ,https://twitter.com/DavidBeckworth https://twitter.com/DavidBeckworth Nick Rowe: https://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/nick-rowe/ https://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/nic... , https://twitter.com/MacRoweNick https://twitter.com/MacRoweNick Scott Sumner: https://www.econlib.org/author/ssumner/ https://www.econlib.org/author/ssumner/ https://twitter.com/MoneyIllusion https://twitter.com/MoneyIllusion Maybe, Antonios Fatas: https://twitter.com/AntonioFatas https://twitter.com/AntonioFatas And Also Maybe Sam Bell: https://twitter.com/sam_a_bell https://twitter.com/sam_a_bell
- eru 6y agoMatt Levine's Money Stuff is also helpful and usually entertaining.
- freeduck 6y agoTry looking into political betting sites.
- aazaa 6y agoEverything Lyn Alden has written: https://www.lynalden.com https://www.lynalden.com
- jotakami 6y agoWhere to begin? I’ve been reading about economics for about 15 years, and I have to say that this crisis has brought a level of clarity about certain economic truths that I never would have seen otherwise. First: accounting. I got an MBA five years ago and accounting was my favorite subject because it is behind everything that a business does. Accounting is the instrumentation that allows humans to organize their activity across tremendous scale and complexity and still be confident that they are producing value (making a profit). In the modern economy, accounting is everything. Try reading Jerome Levy’s “Where Profits Come From” to check your accounting chops: https://www.levyforecast.com/assets/Profits.pdf https://www.levyforecast.com/assets/Profits.pdf
- twomoretime 6y agoInteresting take on accounting - I've never understood why anyone competent would be drawn to it.
- jonahbenton 6y agoShould be the top comment. Accounting is everything. It is the physics of the economy. There is a common fiction to money matters that everyone has to share- whether or not they know it- and the language in which that fiction is written is accounting.
- _curious_ 6y ago"There is a common fiction to money matters that everyone has to share- whether or not they know it- and the language in which that fiction is written is accounting." Poetic.
- simonh 6y agoThe Economist magazine, they have a paywall but you get to read a handful of articles for free. Many of the Covid-19 relevant articles are publicly viewable and you can access more if you sign up for a newsletter. https://www.economist.com/ https://www.economist.com/
- blackvelvet 6y agoThere's an excellent graphic novel (Economix) which gives a good broad overview of "the economy". It's very accessible. https://economixcomix.com/ https://economixcomix.com/
- artur_makly 6y agoRay Dalio : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrxYhv2O3wU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrxYhv2O3wU
- wernst 6y agoMany are plugging books here, so I will plug: The Money Problem by Morgan Ricks It provides a solid overview of different views of what is money, what is banking, and in what ways does the financial system impact the real economy? - These are all contested points in economics. He goes on to lay out a different design to a monetary system, that he believes resolves the main fragility in our current system - panics on short term debt. It's a good read for someone who enjoys system design as much as they do financial/monetary economics.
- bwb 6y agoPlanet money and the indicator, both great podcasts that break economic data down into the macro/micro.
- jazzyk 6y agoOne book NOT to read: "The Ant and the Grasshopper" by Aesop. He got it completely wrong - for quite some time, Grasshoppers have been routinely bailed out with money stolen from the Ants (through interest rates way below inflation). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper
- passer_byer 6y agoConsider a subscription to the British newspaper The Economist. It began publication in 1848 in protest against the British corn laws. The writing is superlative written with a rather sly sense of humor. In particular, they collect and graph enormous amounts of data to augment their articles. It's much better than random posts found on the internet.
- jazzyk 6y agoVery well written indeed, unfortunately owned by globalists since 2015 (check out the ownership change, if you are interested [1]) I had been an avid reader for 30 years, cancelled my subscription around 2015-2016, and I was not even aware of the new ownership at the time, I just sensed the change of their ideological orientation and did not like it one bit. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist_Group
- zie 6y agoso where do we go now?
- sanderjd 6y agoI'm confused by this thread: I've been reading the Economist since quite awhile before 2015 and I don't think its editorial stance has changed significantly; it has always been pro-globalism, pro-trade, pro-market, generally what I'd describe as neoliberal. If anything, the shift I detected in their views was toward more government intervention and regulation, coming out of the great recession. I'm very skeptical of the idea that there was an inflection point toward globalism in 2015. So to answer your question: if you want what the Economist gives, you don't need to go anywhere else.
- Nasrudith 6y agoWhat? They bought up another company in 2015. Not the other way around. Why would that even be a bad thing?
- lootsauce 6y agoBest discussions on the economy I have found are on Macrovoices[0] podcast and Realvison[1] TV Both are macro focused and take as a given the audience is trying to make money or at least preserve assets. It's been an amazing few years listening to all the interviews and working over the ideas in my own head then seeing things play out in the markets and economy. [0] https://www.macrovoices.com/ https://www.macrovoices.com/ [1] https://www.realvision.com/ https://www.realvision.com/
- frequentnapper 6y agoWhat I'd like to know is that is the middle class going to shrink further as a result of the current set of events?
- chvid 6y agoS&p500 five year chart
- inv13 6y agoAfter reading through the comments, I'd like to approach from a different angle. Summary: you better of learning more about human behavior, and how we operate on a daily basis then reading every book on economy. When I heard in 2008 as a kid, that the world is in a financial crisis because the investors are scared, I had no idea what is going in. I was like, those people are grown man, how come they fear something they do all the time? And why does investors mood correlates to financials? How can a grown man have a fear of investing as an investor, it was odd at a time for me. Then I went ahead and played outside like nothing is happening. I've read a lot of books just about everything, like on every topics i could get my hands on. Some of em are: Thinking, Fast and Slow, The power of habbit, Deep Simplicity, Intelligent Investor and much more, not exclusively from hackernewsbooks.com.[0] I always arrived at the conclusion of the market is eventually run by people(no shit). At some point in time people come up with the idea of having a stock exchange or whatever you want to call it. Without people it would be non-functional, non-existent. So if you want to know about the working of market, you better of reading about humans, human mind. What drives us, why we do things, fears, and so much more. And the best thing about this is that you can see for yourself, it feels I am doing a research, but on myself. There is not a single silver bullet in this topics of course, but one book I most often hear is Thinking, Fast and Slow, mentioned before, its really worth to read it! Sometimes its driven by fear, like right now. In 2008 it was greed (yeah its usually not just one thing, but you get the idea). So at the why and how, I usually end up with human behavior. And since you cant determine what someone is going to do, feel or think, you cant really tell what is going to happened next, or in the future. But after reading more and more about humans, it gets a little bit clearer as you read more books and connect the dots. And you are going to experience everything for yourself. You can be your own research subject. The past couple of years I've been doing that and I really enjoying it. [0]: https://hackernewsbooks.com/book/thinking-fast-and-slow/8e66163f2bbc9e7ea1eb12ab7299a7d2 https://hackernewsbooks.com/book/thinking-fast-and-slow/8e66...
- grindgrind 6y agoRead Bloomberg? They have several excellent free e-mail newsletters.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- wernercd 6y ago1984
- lukewrites 6y agoDavid Harvey’s The Enigma of Capitalism has quite a bit of explanatory power, I think, and presents an ideology that is a bit different to the most book suggestions on hn.
- snow_mac 6y agoI'm reading absolutely nothing. I'm staying away from the markets and my investment accounts. Right now we're down from the trump bump; atleast last week we were. My 401k and college fund (index fund) for my kid are all in the shitter. Therefore, my best advice for you is to hoard cash (3-12 months expenses), cut expenses and try not to freak the fuck out right now
- sfj 6y agoHow can you suggest to be in cash when they are literally printing trillions with no sign it will slow down? I know that a lot of it is supposedly not going to make it into the real economy. But if there is one thing for sure, it's that the government is going to behave recklessly and fuck it up.
- dahdum 6y agoThe inflation target is still 2% despite the easing. I'm not aware of any indicators showing it'll exceed that, but it's easy to funnel your cash into TIPS or similar if needed. If the lockdown continues and the recession deepens the more valuable cash will be. If it ends soon and the economy rebounds you're out the opportunity cost.
- ratsbane 6y agoFamous Financial Fiascos by John Train. It's short and entertaining. There are only a few chapters that deal with sovereign debt, but he gets the essence of the thing.
- icu 6y ago1. How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes (2010) by Peter Schiff and Andrew Schiff 2. A Template For Understanding Big Debt Crises (2018) by Ray Dalio 3. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand 4. Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell
- tmaly 6y agoI have really enjoyed simple economics texts. I highly recommend Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. It is a very approachable book that can be read in one sitting. It illustrates the seen and unseen effects of action from Frédéric Bastiat.
- 0x8BADF00D 6y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis
- PKop 6y agoThese twitter accounts: https://twitter.com/LukeGromen https://twitter.com/LukeGromen https://twitter.com/LynAldenContact https://twitter.com/LynAldenContact https://twitter.com/darenpa72 https://twitter.com/darenpa72 blog: https://www.lynalden.com/ https://www.lynalden.com/ Common thread is topics around currency dynamics, and US Dollar reserve currency affecting..many things: trade, markets, geopolitics.
- koheripbal 6y agoIt's hard to under-emphasize the long term impacts of the Fed's actions to print (not literally print but buy assets (treasuries, corporate bonds, and even amazingly public EQUITY) in exchange for cash), and the impact it will have on the USD - the global reserve currency. Anyone who claims to know for certain what the impact will be, is a fool or a liar. We are in unprecedented monetary policy times. Maybe USD is cementing it's position as the global currency standard, maybe this will spell the demise of the USD and the US' economic collapse, or maybe not much will change at all. There are arguments for all three to be true.
- aguyfromnb 6y ago>Anyone who claims to know for certain what the impact will be, is a fool or a liar. Why do you need to know for certain? If you're trying to make money, or even just "get by", you look at probabilities of possible outcomes and make your best guess on how to approach the problem. A mentality of "no one knows for sure, so it's pointless" is oddly unscientific. You only need to be "right" some of the time.
- Zenst 6y agoYou will see mentalities lean more towards a cell based distrubution system over a global one and by that, production spread more with many countries waking up to being dependant upon others and looking at it as if they are at war with a country that makes all the guns in the world style thinking will play out politicaly more. So a shift away form outsourcing, at least outsourcing out of country in full as has been the case in many area's of production alone. Equally, resource/asset stripping may well be rife in the fallout with the ability to buy up companies cheaper and be instances in which those value of assets changing quicker than the company values them. They may own some unused warehouses that on the books been almost written off and yet perfect venue for manufacturing boom. But so many things so high up in the air, you can never see a true picture of tomorrow, but can get some idea's and those ideas will change and flesh out in the long-run. But it's the overall trends and psychology is probably as useful a skill in predicting the markets than maths in today's times. Which kinda shows how up in the air everything is. Only thing for sure, soon as one company comes up with a cure, you will see a jump in that companies share price, even if they was to do it all for free.
- GavinMcG 6y agoThis isn't an answer to the question.
- jressey 6y agoMoby Dick might be a place to start. A popular reading is that it is an examination of the impossibility to understand large things.
- vincentmarle 6y agoI’ve studied Economics. It took me a while to realize that it’s far from a deterministic science despite all the fancy math and models (my first clue should have been that it’s in the department of “Social Sciences”, doh!). I wish more of my time was spent learning chaos theory, probability, and systems thinking, rather than solving Lagrange multipliers by hand. I have learned a lot more from reading Nassim Taleb’s books than I ever did in those years in college. So if you want to make sense of the economy, start with learning how much of it doesn’t make sense. Start with Nassim Taleb’s books (any book of The Incerto will suffice).
- aguyfromnb 6y ago>my first clue should have been that it’s in the department of “Social Sciences”, doh! Because judging a subject based on it's faculty classification is oh-so-scientific. Economics is a scientific study of social phenomenon; where else would you like it to be placed?
- anoraca 6y ago100% not anonymous public comments on the internet. Having waded into the waters of r/WallStBets and even some threads on here, there is so much disinformation and propaganda that it's actively harmful to read it.
- moandcompany 6y agoGood blogs: https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/ https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/ https://wolfstreet.com/ https://wolfstreet.com/
- rv-de 6y agoreddit.com/r/collapse ... only half joking.
- dredmorbius 6y agoI'd recommend Collapsademic as far higher S/N. Mod is a former /r/collapse mod. Pesimistic, but not a loon. https://old.reddit.com/r/collapsademic/ https://old.reddit.com/r/collapsademic/
- rv-de 6y agoI'll check it out. But I must say that the crowd on collapse is actually on average surprisingly critical and will expose and discuss flawed information or unfounded theories. It's not a bunch of conspiracy nuts as one might expect.
- thorwasdfasdf 6y agoRealVision - https://www.realvision.com/ https://www.realvision.com/ not in any way affiliated with them, i just find their content sophisticated and interesting.
- cl42 6y agoThis is a bit of a self-promotional piece, but I put together a simple website that extracts sentences related to COVID-19 and economics/finance news: https://chimerais.com/covid19 https://chimerais.com/covid19 I try to write a blog post once or twice a week as well, but this is more for myself -- just to actually force myself to synthesize everything going on. Happy to share if anyone is interested.
- sproketboy 6y agoGoliath The Curse Of Bigness
- stopachka 6y agoThree things: 1. Economics in one Lessons. One of the most powerful books I've read on the economy. Will help you rethink and see deeper 2. Dao of Capital. Book by Mark Spitznagel -- goes into tail risk hedging, and his counter-intuitive investment thesis. He made 4000% over Covid 3. Dalio's essays -- from "The changing world order" to "Debt Crises"
- larrydag 6y agoFor US economy I like to track the FRED metrics. They have good visualization charts https://fred.stlouisfed.org/categories https://fred.stlouisfed.org/categories
- econbooks 6y agoHa-Joon Chang's works Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Samaritans:_The_Myth_of_Free_Trade_and_the_Secret_History_of_Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Samaritans:_The_Myth_of_Fr... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU9DgfOMpmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU9DgfOMpmo Economics: The User's Guide https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/29/economics-the-users-guide-ha-joon-chang-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/29/economics-the-... Jane Jacobs Cities and the Wealth of Nations https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-394-72911-0.html https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-394-72911-0.htm...
- minimidge 6y agoThe writing on the wall
- dacohenii 6y agoNot reading per se, but I've listened to Marketplace podcast [0] almost daily for years at this point, and I find it invaluable for economic news and interpretation -- especially now. Also recommend Marketplace's podcast Make Me Smart [1], which is an informal deep dive on a single subject. It's nominally a weekly podcast, but they're now releasing a 10-minute daily version. Finally, NPR's Planet Money [2] and their daily podcast The Indicator [3] are entertaining and education as well. [0] https://www.marketplace.org/ https://www.marketplace.org/ [1] https://www.marketplace.org/shows/make-me-smart-with-kai-and-molly/ https://www.marketplace.org/shows/make-me-smart-with-kai-and... [2] https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510289/planet-money/ https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510289/planet-money/ [3] https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510325/the-indicator-from-planet-money https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510325/the-indicator-from-plane...
- jldugger 6y agoHonestly, I find Marketplace's obsession with politics annoying. IDK if they just have an easier time sourcing interviews from government officials because public radio or something, but it feels like even in times of non-distress they lean heavy on policy and lean on actual markets. Look at the non-COVID Make Me Smart topics as an example: - Housing policy - Corporate social responsibility - food policy to fight global poverty - the equal rights act - facebook and US elections - regulating the internet with section 230 - an interview with a senior politico editor about the school-skills-jobs pipeline - why private equity needs to be regulated That said, I do appreciate the Marketplace interviews with 'regular small business owners' Marketplace has been doing lately. Ranchers, Mississippi freighters, factory operators, etc. In terms of other podcasts, Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast[1] is a nice long form podcast with subject matter experts. Their guests also likely have a political agenda, but you at least get exposed to the inner workings of a market. A recent pair of podcasts provides a good example: a few months ago they talked with a guest about an unusual feature of Korean retail banking, the structured note. They provide investors--primarily retirees--a fixed 7.8 percent return if the market doesn't drop by a huge margin. Otherwise, investors are stuck with the return of the underlying benchmark (which is down a huge margin). Well, last month exactly that exact tail risk scenario triggered, and they brought the guest back on to further discuss how this compares with previous bank crisis episodes. [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/podcasts/odd_lots https://www.bloomberg.com/podcasts/odd_lots
- TehShrike 6y agoGeopolitical Futures https://geopoliticalfutures.com/ https://geopoliticalfutures.com/
- refurb 6y agoBack in 2007 I listen to Econlib podcast quite a lot. The host had some really great guests on and did a very nice job in digging into the issues. https://www.econlib.org/ https://www.econlib.org/ Yes, the host is a libertarian, but I don’t think he forces it on his listeners. He’ll often have people on who aren’t anything close to libertarian. He’s also quite upfront about his own biases. I learned a ton from that podcast.
- jcroll 6y agoEconomics Explained on youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4AMrDcNrfy3X6nsU8-rPg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4AMrDcNrfy3X6nsU8-rPg
- neilwilson 6y agoMacroeconomics by Bill Mitchell (https://amzn.to/2XyoTrU https://amzn.to/2XyoTrU) The go to text book to understand the mechanisms and mechanics behind Modern Money Theory.
- biolurker1 6y agoCoursera and Edx courses. IBS Univ, Rice
- yaa_minu 6y agoI'm surprised no one has mentioned Basic Economics[1] by Thomas Sowell. It's a fairly detailed book but it's worth the time. If you're too busy to read a whole book, you might want to take a look at "Economics in One Lesson" [2] by Herny Hazlitt. The foundation for economic education[3] has some great articles too about economics and public choice. [1]https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Thomas-Sowel/dp/0465060730 https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Thomas-Sowel/dp/04650... [2] https://fee.org/media/14946/economicsinonelesson.pdf https://fee.org/media/14946/economicsinonelesson.pdf [3] https://fee.org https://fee.org
- ckrusk 6y agoI really enjoy reading Matt Levine on Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthew-s-levine https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthe...
- rz2k 6y agoRight now I am reading The Black Death in Egypt and England: a comparative study by Stuart Borsch. It compares the macroeconomic effects of the black death in England in Egypt. The relative power of the aristocracy to control or fail to control the supply and price of labor not only affected wages in the short term but agricultural productivity and eventually the foundation for industrialization and entrepreneurship. I am only a third of the way through, but it so far seems thoroughly researched, without the dodgy understanding of economics in many (most?) historical nonfiction books. The only potential problem is that I want to believe that the dystopian sounding world ruled by mamluks was an economic disaster waiting to happen, so I am wary of my reading being overly credulous. It could be that irrigation dependent agriculture was more brittle infrastructure, but I haven't yet had time to finish or digest the book yet. From the introduction England: > In spite of the disputes over many significant issues, scholars agree about certain aspects of the outcome in Western Europe, particularly northwestern Europe. In many areas, urban and rural wages rose, land rents declined, grain prices dropped, agricultural output became more diversified, and unemployment levels decreased. Furthermore, the percentage decrease of agrarian and total output was less than that of the population, and per capita incomes rose. Overall economic recovery was largely completed by the year 1500. Landholding systems were transformed, and the manorial system, which was on the wane in some areas, collapsed in many parts of Western Europe, and was replaced by tenant farming or small peasant landholdings. Where these conclusions are accepted, they are often accepted as an axiomatic response to the relative scarcity of labor and the abundance of land that accompanied depopulation. The concessions that landlords made to peasants also seem to be an obvious consequence of the relative scarcity of rural labor. Egypt: > Wages dropped precipitously, land rents increased, grain prices rose, agricultural output became less diversified, and unemployment levels increased. The percentage decrease in agrarian and total output was greater than that of the population, and per capita incomes plummeted. The landholding system did not undergo a radical transformation, and the aristocracy was able to successfully contest the demands of scarce rural labor. Furthermore, economic recovery was nowhere in sight by 1500; the agrarian system lay in ruins, and agricultural output had declined by approximately sixty-eight percent. [1] https://smile.amazon.com/Black-Death-Egypt-England-Comparative-dp-0292706170/dp/0292706170 https://smile.amazon.com/Black-Death-Egypt-England-Comparati...
- shanev 6y agoKhan Academy’s economics and finance videos are excellent for learning the fundamentals. Ray Dalio’s talks on YouTube, and his most recent TED talk are great for context around economic downturns. Real Vision and Anthony Pompliano’s podcast are good for deep dives into what’s going on with a bit of an alternative take.
- owenversteeg 6y agoSo there are a number of pretty funny responses in this thread, I decided to make a list: Marx the Bible Bogleheads Newspaper titles (you read that right, not the content, titles) "nothing, I just bought a piece of land to grow potatoes and beans" Comparative study of the black death Raw St. Louis Fed data Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- scorecard 6y agoA big shout out for "Good Economics for Hard Times", by two MIT profs who recently won the Nobel Prize in Economics. Why did two academic Economists who specialize in the developing world write a book for the general public? From the book's preface: "We got tired of watching at a distance while the public conversation about core economic issues - immigration, trade, growth, inequality, or the environment - goes more and more out of kilter. ... Also ... as we thought about it, we realized the problems facing the rich countries in the world were actually eerily familiar to those we are used to studying in the developing world - people left behind by development, ballooning inequality, lack of faith in government, fractured societies and polity, and so on."
- scorecard 6y agoThe Economy, a free, open access textbook crowdsourced from Econ professors all over the world, along with the Core Covid-19 collection of teaching materials: https://www.core-econ.org/ https://www.core-econ.org/
- rojeee 6y agoPerry Mehrling - The Money View. He has a course on coursera [1]. It’s the best explanation I’ve seen of how the economy works. It’s a bank centric view and focuses on balance sheets for analysis. Highly recommend it. [1] https://www.coursera.org/lecture/money-banking/a-money-view-of-economics-and-finance-Dd4Lq https://www.coursera.org/lecture/money-banking/a-money-view-...
- activatedgeek 6y agoI have been reading A Farewell to Alms - Brief History of Economics [1]. Largely answers questions around why Industrial revolution happened when it did despite all the institutions existing well before that. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Economic-History-Princeton/dp/0691141282 https://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Economic-History-Prince...
- ilaksh 6y agoBig Debt Crisis by Dalio. Because a lot had been happening gradually also.
- m0llusk 6y agoStart with some basic reading such as Mandelbrot's Misbehavior of Markets and Taleb's books, then move on to articles and recent video interviews with Nouriel Roubini, Raoul Pal, and Neil Howe, and finally be sure to take in some modern thinking from the likes of Venkatesh Rao at RibbonFarm.
- elamje 6y agoThe Fed gets a lot of hate, and heck, even economists get a lot of hate, but a good place to start learning about macroeconomics is by understanding what the Fed is doing and why they are doing it. The Age of Turbulence and the Courage to Act are autobiographies written by two former Fed Chairmen, which is the highest rank in the Fed. Greenspan and Bernanke likely get negative publicity, but they wrote books for the layman to understand their decisions. The Courage to Act goes into detail about what Bernanke and co did during the Great Recession and at least gives you context for the decisions which can help you determine if what they did was for “Wall Street”, “Main Street” or everyone. You’ll likely be surprised at what facilities are at the disposal of this pseudo public institution, and it’s certainly interesting. The Fed collects inordinate amounts of data from each of its branches, and in times of crisis, as the books elaborate on, it seems they mostly go off the cuff with custom solutions to large scale solutions. Anyways, it helped me understand the US economy better. Greenspan’s book has more info on global policies.