Thursday, July 07, 2005

Review: Naked Economics, Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan

I'm straying off-topic here. Naked Economics isn't a gambling book nor is it about sports. But its a good book - I give it 5 stars - and in my opinion, these types of books are useful to develop a good positive EV gambling mind. By "these types of books", I mean books that make you use your brain to analyze varying situations. Here's my review:

Naked Economics is a good introduction to economics for the layman. There is no math, although personally I wish Wheelan had used some to back up some of his points or to show some issues in more depth. It is well written and easy to read. So even though the information is as useful as many textbooks, it isn’t tough to understand it.

Subjects covered include: why capitalism and free markets is better than communism and state-controlled markets; how information is crucial (such as product or corporate branding and health insurance for individuals); efficiency of financial markets (why the individual is often foolish when he buys a stock after reading a tip from the newspaper); and why international trade is good even if special interest groups may oppose it due to job losses.

Readers on both the extreme left or right will be able to pick up certain issues in the book that they disagree with. They will then pick those up and attack Wheelan for being an extreme liberal or an extreme conservative. They will accuse him of not caring about U.S. jobs; they will accuse him of pandering to the environmentalists. For those readers, their mind is already made up before the read this book. For open-minded readers, this book will be very enjoyable and interesting.

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