In CHEAP We Trust
In CHEAP We Trust

Author: Lauren Weber

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2009-09-07

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 031608204X

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Cheap suit. Cheap date. Cheap shot. It's a dirty word, an epithet laden with negative meanings. It is also the story of Lauren Weber's life. As a child, she resented her father for keeping the heat at 50 degrees through the frigid New England winters and rarely using his car's turn signals-to keep them from burning out. But as an adult, when she found herself walking 30 blocks to save $2 on subway fare, she realized she had turned into him. In this lively treatise on the virtues of being cheap, Weber explores provocative questions about Americans' conflicted relationship with consumption and frugality. Why do we ridicule people who save money? Where's the boundary between thrift and miserliness? Is thrift a virtue or a vice during a recession? And was it common sense or obsessive-compulsive disorder that made her father ration the family's toilet paper? In answering these questions, In Cheap We Trust offers a colorful ride through the history of frugality in the United States. Readers will learn the stories behind Ben Franklin and his famous maxims, Hetty Green (named "the world's greatest miser" by the Guinness Book of Records) and the stereotyping of Jewish and Chinese immigrants as cheap. Weber also explores contemporary expressions and dilemmas of thrift. From Dumpster-diving to economist John Maynard Keynes's "Paradox of Thrift" to today's recession-driven enthusiasm for frugal living, In Cheap We Trust teases out the meanings of cheapness and examines the wisdom and pleasures of not spending every last penny.

Puzzles and Paradoxes in Economics
Puzzles and Paradoxes in Economics

Author: Mark Skousen

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13:

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Analyzes 50 paradoxes that challenge or have challenged both economists and others. Among them are the fairness of market wages, the alleged gold absurdity, the Irish potato famine, the paradox of thrift, the perversity of Wall Street, why the best crops are shipped out of state, whether teachers are underpaid, whether studying economics makes people immoral, and whether war is good for the economy. References are provided to each. Assumes no special knowledge of economics. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism
Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism

Author: Robert P. Murphy

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2007-04-09

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1596986174

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Most commonly accepted economic "facts" are wrong Here's the unvarnished, politically incorrect truth. The liberal media and propagandists masquerading as educators have filled the world--and deformed public policy--with politically correct errors about capitalism and economics in general. In The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to Capitalism, myth-busting professor Robert P. Murphy, a scholar and frequent speaker at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, cuts through all their nonsense, shattering liberal myths and fashionable socialist cliches to set the record straight.

General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money
General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money

Author: John Maynard Keynes

Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Dist

Published: 2016-04

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 9788126905911

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John Maynard Keynes is the great British economist of the twentieth century whose hugely influential work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and * is undoubtedly the century's most important book on economics--strongly influencing economic theory and practice, particularly with regard to the role of government in stimulating and regulating a nation's economic life. Keynes's work has undergone significant revaluation in recent years, and "Keynesian" views which have been widely defended for so long are now perceived as at odds with Keynes's own thinking. Recent scholarship and research has demonstrated considerable rivalry and controversy concerning the proper interpretation of Keynes's works, such that recourse to the original text is all the more important. Although considered by a few critics that the sentence structures of the book are quite incomprehensible and almost unbearable to read, the book is an essential reading for all those who desire a basic education in economics. The key to understanding Keynes is the notion that at particular times in the business cycle, an economy can become over-productive (or under-consumptive) and thus, a vicious spiral is begun that results in massive layoffs and cuts in production as businesses attempt to equilibrate aggregate supply and demand. Thus, full employment is only one of many or multiple macro equilibria. If an economy reaches an underemployment equilibrium, something is necessary to boost or stimulate demand to produce full employment. This something could be business investment but because of the logic and individualist nature of investment decisions, it is unlikely to rapidly restore full employment. Keynes logically seizes upon the public budget and government expenditures as the quickest way to restore full employment. Borrowing the * to finance the deficit from private households and businesses is a quick, direct way to restore full employment while at the same time, redirecting or siphoning

The Paradox of Fiscal Austerity
The Paradox of Fiscal Austerity

Author: Justin Vélez-Hagan

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-12-12

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1498571948

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If governments followed the optimal fiscal policy path, surpluses in good times would counter necessary deficits during economic downturns, leading to worldwide balance. The world, however, has chosen to go in a different direction in recent decades, avoiding thrift in light of a decidedly more indebted future. When financial crises kicked off a global recession in 2008, the spotlight placed on countries’ fiscal conditions put pressure on policymakers around the globe to find a way to slow the growth of deficits and debt by imposing fiscal consolidations (or, more simply, austerity). How have these policies fared across the developed world? Were they even necessary to begin with? This book examines the many factors that have contributed to the success (or failure) of such policies, including timing, magnitude, accompanying policies, composition, and more, while explaining the economic rationale behind their choices.

The Globalization Paradox
The Globalization Paradox

Author: Dani Rodrik

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2012-05-17

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 0191634255

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For a century, economists have driven forward the cause of globalization in financial institutions, labour markets, and trade. Yet there have been consistent warning signs that a global economy and free trade might not always be advantageous. Where are the pressure points? What could be done about them? Dani Rodrik examines the back-story from its seventeenth-century origins through the milestones of the gold standard, the Bretton Woods Agreement, and the Washington Consensus, to the present day. Although economic globalization has enabled unprecedented levels of prosperity in advanced countries and has been a boon to hundreds of millions of poor workers in China and elsewhere in Asia, it is a concept that rests on shaky pillars, he contends. Its long-term sustainability is not a given. The heart of Rodrik’s argument is a fundamental 'trilemma': that we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national self-determination, and economic globalization. Give too much power to governments, and you have protectionism. Give markets too much freedom, and you have an unstable world economy with little social and political support from those it is supposed to help. Rodrik argues for smart globalization, not maximum globalization.

Cognitive Capitalism
Cognitive Capitalism

Author: Yann Moulier-Boutang

Publisher: Polity

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0745647324

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This book argues that we are undergoing a transition from industrial capitalism to a new form of capitalism - what the author calls & lsquo; cognitive capitalism & rsquo;

The Keynesian Revolution and Our Empty Economy
The Keynesian Revolution and Our Empty Economy

Author: Victor V. Claar

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-04-06

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 303015808X

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This book considers the cultural legacy of the Keynesian Revolution in economics. It assesses the impact of Keynes and Keynesian thinking upon economics and policy, as well as the response of the Chicago and Austrian schools, and the legacy of all three in shaping economic life. The book is a call to restore economics to its roots in moral and cultural knowledge, reminding us that human beings are more than consumers. The Keynesian Revolution taught us that we should be happy if we are prosperous, but instead we feel hollow and morally anxious – our economy feels empty. Drawing on paradigms from earlier historical periods while affirming modern market systems, this book encourages a return to a view of human beings as persons with the right and responsibility to discover, and do, the things in life that are intrinsically good and enduring. Because in the long run, the legacy of our choices will continue long after “we’re all dead.”