This book will give you some overall perspective: http://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-50th-Anniversary/dp/0930073193 http://www.amazon.com/Economics-One

This book will give you some overall perspective: http://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-50th-Anniversary/dp/0930073193 http://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-50th-Anniversary/... Here's a link to one chapter on rent control, with detailed examples (saw this here at HN before reading the book): http://jim.com/econ/chap18p1.html http://jim.com/econ/chap18p1.html Here's part of the reason people won't honestly evaluate the pros and cons of economic arguments: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/03/blue_or_green_o.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/03/blue_or_green_o.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/02/politics_is_the.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/02/politics_is_the.html Finally, economics is complicated, but we've got almost all of human history to give us some data. It's got an immense amount of noise in it, but general trends do emerge. Price controls far below market have always created a black market, even in a hardcore enforced police state. That's a fact. Maximum price of goods under what people want to pay... human behavior... black market. That example is clear enough, and not many places in the world today are trying that one. Likewise, we're constantly trending to better economic systems with some blips here and there along the way. Many of the ideas we're arguing about today will be settled, and many of the positions held today will look really foolish in the near future. That's part of being human and progress in thought.