Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Economics
Summary
Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity, written by James Gwartney, Richard Stroup, Dwight Lee and Tawni Ferrarini, explains the foundation of economics and how it all works in all aspects of our lives from the role of the government trickling down to personal credit cards and savings. This book was written with clear language for the audience to understand and comprehend the large amount of information within its condensed size. The authors’ target audience for this book seemed to be for those individuals wanting to learn the mechanics of economy including economic growth and stability. Gwartney separates his book into four parts: Part I, Twelve Key Elements of Economics, Part II Seven Major Sources of Economic Progress, Part Three Economic Progress and the Role of Government, and Part IV Twelve Key Elements of Practical Personal Finance.
Despite its size, only 190 pages, the authors address the basic concepts of economics while also applying those politically and for personal finance decision making. Those basic concepts include scarcity, gains from trade, marginal decision-making, profit management, income growth, and Adam Smith’s invisible hand theories are all discussed within the first part of the book; allowing readers to understanding the concepts, Gwartney applies the same concepts to the creation of wealth and the importance of competition, private property, open trade, monetary stability, and lower taxes. This book educates its audience by evaluating our economy and government mechanisms without the overpowering display of charts, formulas, and graphs; which you would typically see in a textbook allow...
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At one point in time poverty was the general fact of the world. Man was always expected to live on the line of poverty, majority of the economic thinkers couldn’t see the world moving away from this standard but we did and have gained great affluence. As Society has grown from this poverty stricken state it once was in, into an affluent one the ideas used to run it have yet to change in some ways. In The Affluent Society John Kenneth Galbraith explains how with great economic growth there should be growth in economic ideas as well. The old idea that were for a country that barely could stay above the water are inappropriate for society today. He proves this by naming numerous issues like The conventional Common wisdom,
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The American economy struggling originates from people taxing themselves as a result of idleness, pride, and folly, leading to a downward economic spiral. For the economy to return to a low unemployment rate and little to no debt people may want to read “The Way to Wealth” in order to learn about industry and how to avoid future money mistakes. Franklin wrote a persuasive sermon in order to convince people to change the financial status created from idleness, pride and folly. In the modern society American people need to create a stable economy for both themselves and the future generations. In order to understand the importance of unemployment rates and debt rates in comparison to Franklin’s “The Way to Wealth” idleness, pride and folly must be analyzed in
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This paper aims to provides a full understanding of the free market system and how it can potentially benefit individual’s needs. The free market system is fully explained and classical economist’s views are considered separately as well as in contrast with one another. The specific economists discussed include Ricardo, Marx, and Mill. Their individual opinions on how the free market system could impact the economy is examined and the effects of an economic system controlled by the government is also discussed.
The book I chose to review for this course is titled, “The Millionaire Next Door”, by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D., and William D. Danko, Ph.D. After learning that it was published in 1996, prior to the widespread availability of the internet, and subsequent ebusiness boom, I was slightly sceptical that the information held within might not be relevant for someone like myself trying to thrive in today’s chaotic economy. Fortunately, I was wrong. The Millionaire Next Door is full of concepts and principles that put into perspective how we view money and status in our society, and also debunks the myth that America’s wealthy are the ones doing most of the spending while living elaborate and carefree lives. There are several ‘takeaway’ principles that are presented to the reader. I will be focusing on the five concepts and ideas that impacted me the most.
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There are a number of fundamental questions that economic systems attempt to solve: How does one gain access to the resources needed to produce new and useful goods and services? How does one get humans to perform the labor? How do you organize the production process? How do you get the produced output into the hands of consumers? And finally, who gets the surplus and what do they do with it? Using these questions as a basic framework, one can attempt to dete...
Today, more than ever, there is great debate over politics and which economic system works the best. How needs and wants should be allocated, and who should do the allocating, is one of the most highly debated topics in our current society. Be it communist dictators defending a command economy, free market conservatives defending a market economy, or European liberals defending socialism, everyone has an opinion. While all systems have flaws and merits, it must be decided which system is the best for all citizens. When looking at the financial well being of all citizens, it is clear that market economies fall short on ensuring that the basic needs of all citizens are met.
Each and every country or nation in the world has what we call the economic system that it uses. With economic systems countries are able to three central economic questions. What to produce? How to produce? For whom to produce? However each of the four economic systems is different from the other which results in economic system having characteristics of their own. The main characteristics of the economic systems are ownership of resources or factors of production and also the level of role played by the government. These are important things to consider when analysing the economic systems because they are the driving force behind every system. Scarcity is the reason countries are faced to answer the three central economic questions, since the factors of production are limited in every economy. The systems not only provide answers to the three questions but they also have their consequences that come with each one of them in their usage on the economy. We can that they have advantages and disadvantages or pros and cons. Their usage also has a different impact on the economy. We will start by analysing the traditional economic system, one of the four systems that will be discussed.