Fear the Boom and the Bust

Really, a little too short a summary, but if you’re not willing to work your way through a few good books, it’s better than nothing…and way more entertaining.

A few instructional tidbits from the clip:

“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”

John Maynard Keynes

and

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

Friedrich von Hayek