May 08, 2012
Economics is Fun
I'm still not playing poker, and the US online scene is looking pretty sad these days. But in spite of all that, I've started tightening up my finances in anticipation of pending legislation and/or my next deposit. Yup, I'm a total degen. Woteva (as those English kids love to say). I was reading this thread about Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover on 2+2 the other day (when the forums were still up before it got hacked), and it really got the old gears turning. I have about 5K in credit card debt, so I worked Excel and figured that can be cleared with just a bit of budgeting in about 5 months. Yeah, and I've had this revolving debt for about 10 years now... doh! (Don't go for the free t-shirt and credit card offer in college, kids!)
But really thinking about my finances opened up the floodgates: Debt, Savings, Retirement, IRA, Taxes, Bonds, Equities, Keynesian economics, Austrian economics, aggregate demand, malinvestment, animal spirits, and on and on. I'm reading multiple economics and investing books (from all perspectives) and watching multiple documentaries at the same time too, and I still can't get no satisfaction. It's kind of gotten out of control. It's pretty weird cause I never cared about economics before. Anyway, I already posted this in the Awesome Links thread, but it's pretty cool so I'll put it up again:
This vid really hits on all levels, great production value and intellectually stimulating. You can go to the website and wiki all the terms and it checks out as legit economics terms. It's about the coolest, geekiest video I've seen in years.
As for where I lean theoretically, I'm still not sure yet. I'm in total belt-tightening mode right now, so you could say I'm more in tune with the Austrian school, but maybe not since this lifestyle is only temporary to pay off the credit cards. Keynes is kind of a balla'... anyway, peace!
2 Comments:
Mullanimal posted on May 08, 2012 at 02:26 AM
I highly recommend two books:
How an economy grows and why it crashes - Peter Schiff
Economics in One Lesson - Henry Hazlitt
Schiff explains economics in such an easy to understand fashion. The second is a fantastic exercise in shooting down fallacious economic propaganda that encourages you to think for yourself. Here is a quote:
"The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups."
Hazlitt tries to encourage you to put yourself in the position of the good economist described.
nawhead posted on May 08, 2012 at 15:16 PM
thanks for the recos. i've already read both How an Economy Grows books (by father and son), and i've started on Hazlitt right now. also, i'm watching this old documentary with Milton Friedman (Free to Choose) debating other thinkers, so i'm getting totally immersed in the Austrian/free market school of thought right now, and it's pretty solid.
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