Customer Reviews

Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Life

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book is a good read; it's fun, entertaining, and factual correct. Landsburg explains simple concepts through the eyes of an economist with blinders on. It's an interesting read where pages seem to fly by. For an educational book, it flows as freely as a novel, and is incredibly gripping for something about economics. He presents different scenarios, from the price of popcorn to government debt, and shows how a true economist would view each situation in small bite sized chapters. It's both refreshing, and at some points, eye-opening.

One problem is that he tends to simplify everything way too much. It's hard to relate what he says to the real world when many of the details are gone. For example, when explaining national debt, he talks about the lending rate, and the rate of return to being exactly the same. He doesn't explain what would happen if they were different.

Another problem I had is the lack of continuity. He seems to switch from one topic to another without any direction. Sometimes, the types of arguments were repeated from one hundred pages ago, while the previous page had nothing to do with the current page. With about 30 or so seemingly random arguments and situations present, it's hard to place it all into any lesson or theme.

Finally, and most importantly, Landsburg seems to take out his aggressions and displays some mean spirited rants in the latter part of the book. I felt that it incredibly hurt his credibility. When someone starts debasing someone else's opinion vehemently and atrociously, it gives the impressions of fanaticism rather than cool-headed thinking. He seems to enjoy criticizing every line of particular papers and making the writer feel like an idiot. He even goes so far as to reprinting a letter he wrote to his daughter's kindergarten teacher espousing the horrors of environmentalism and how the teacher is indoctrinating his daughter into it.

I would recommend this book as good, fun, quick read. As an educational piece, it needs to be more organized and more levelheaded.

This book is not meant as a grand overview of economics. Landsburg has considered the big picture, but the books focus is on smaller areas. He lists all sorts of interesting examples. Why do CEOs receive such high salaries? Why does popcorn have such a high price at the movie theatre? Then he spins out his answers to these economic puzzles. Landsburg also employs a dry wit, when discussing his ideas. You will either like his sense of humour or consider him rather smug.

Landsburg also runs down the current environmental movement, as a new coercive religious movement. Once again, you will either be offended, or laugh out loud.

In terms of economic books, this is a fun read. There are also some interesting twists on everyday transactions.

This is the first book that has moved me sufficiently to write a review on Amazon.

I found it an entertaining read, with some though-provoking ideas often wittily written up. It is such a shame, though (and I read a review here from someone else with similar views) that the text is threaded so liberally with the author's private conceits. What a very smug and self-satisfied man.

Again agreeing with a previous review here, in the end the sheer arrogance becomes offensive and begins to overshadow the arguments being put forward.

I'm glad I read the book. I'm also glad, however, that I shall likely never meet Steven E Landsburg.

While the book has some interesting parables and anecdotes and is an engaging look at some problems from the "man is a rational agent" perspective, this mantra starts to get a bit tiring after a while (and is also starting to sound a bit dated with recent developments in the field).

My main gripe however was the author's style. Arrogant and condescending, I found the book hard to get through at points - despite being interested in the content.

The criticism of this book seems to be largely based on the feeling that rational economics leads to unsatisfactory political conclusions and even possibly that rational economics is itself a suspect theory.

My take is that this is a pretty fun read that illustrates some basic economic concepts via common examples. True, it is not comprehensive and the arguments presented are neither completely thorough or precise. But then again, that's not what I'm looking for from a book about economics with the word "armchair" in the title.

Anwyway, if rational economics isn't a good model, what is? Central planning? Keynesian economics? European socialism?

The criticism here is of a worldview, not this book. It should come as no surprise that to those whose political views tend to conflict with rational economics, this book is threatening and must indeed seem highly political. But imho, the political agenda is in the eye of the beholder. When you point a finger, there are 3 pointing back at you.

Quit picking a fight about epistemology with a country pastor.

There were some good concepts here, but the stories meant to use the ideas all went astray. Each application of an economic principle to the story changed the result, and when he stopped with one conclusion, I always wondered why he didn't take it one more step and reach the opposite conclusion. It seems that any conclusion wanted can be reached. His arrogant commentary left me distrusting his chosen conclusion. Maybe economic theory isn't so useful after all.

Much better was 'New Ideas from Dead Economists.'

Landsburg apparently sets out to explain real-world, everyday economics phenomena (the subititle is "Economics & Everyday Life" and the cover has every-day examples) but proceeds to merely use real-world, every-day examples to show that economics is inscrutable and political. He fails to actually reach any conclusions about most of the scenarios on the cover--or any others, for that matter--and continually concocts loaded scenarios that enable him to reach bizarre conclusions. The worst part about this technique is that it leaves the reader continually baffled--knowing that his conclusions are wrong but not sure why.

Landsburg is best when he is talking directly about economics and worst when he applies theories of economics to law, science, and the environment.

He concludes that air pollution is great because it makes a city so unlivable that poor people can afford it, ignoring the fact that real-world cities are always more expensive to live in than the (unpolluted) countryside and that cities--polluted or not--always contain lots of poor people and rich people.

Landsburg claims that we shouldn't elect the best candidate for senator because that person's productivity is better used in private industry. He fails to take his argument to its logical conclusion and have the country run by autistic children. Apparently, he can't see that the work of a senator also has value and can actually be more beneficial to the economy as a whole than the work of a private businessman.

He goes on to claim that the value of proving scientific theory with experimentation is mainly in giving credibility (and higher salary) to the scientist (it's actually in the economic value being right more often). He claims that there are "high-powered" research firms and "low-powered" research firms so that bad scientists can work at the "low-powered" ones and stay out of the way (high-powered firms are actually for theories with high profit potential, not high correctness potential). This shows that Landsburg thinks that science works like economics: theories don't have to be proven right before they are implemented.

Landsburg's hatred of environmentalism, which is a recurring theme (he ends the book with a letter attacking his daughter's kindergarten teacher), is especially peculiar. He seems unaware that the destruction of flora and fauna is a permanent loss of not just value but a resource to the planet and its people. He argues that the value that could be obtained by destroying it is also lost if it is never destroyed; this is true (it's the definition of "consumption") but there is a fundamental difference between a non-renewable rainforest and a renewable resource like wheat or cows. The rainforest can even provide us with value (exotic plants and animals, tourism, oxygen) without destroying it, making it a renewable resource. Perhaps Landsburg looks out on the Statue of Liberty and bemoans the waste of all that good scrap metal that could be had.

He casually observes that since he never heard of a certain species of monkey, it didn't have much value. Well, that monkey has never heard of Steven Landsburg, but I'm sure that Landsburg and his family would say that the world is still a better place with him than without him. But the monkey and I am not so sure.

This may not be the worst book on economics ever written, but it surely ranks among the most narcissitic and self-indulgent.

Landsburg explores through 24 short chapters a number of myths, problems and paradoxes that confront the contemporary economist. The problems in the book fall into two general categories.

First, Landsburg seems far more interested in proving his own cleverness and superiority than presenting useful discourse. Take this example: "In my experience economists are extraordinary in their openness to alternative preferences, life-styles, and opinions." One senses that Landsburg could go on at length about the intellectual and characterological virtues of economists. Mercifully, one can fit only so much self-praise in such a brief volume.

There are other examples, but let one more suffice: "There is an appalling population of otherwise literate adults who prefer the poetry of Rod McKuen to that of William Butler Yeats." He follows this observation with a contrived scenario in which McKuen-lovers buy volumes of Yeats for public display so as to conceal their real preference.

Now mass culture is certainly fair game for criticism, but Landsburg's contempt for anyone not a member of the allegedly superior economist class is so pervasive and mean-spritited that it finally is just offensive. He outdoes even himself in one chapter that is nothing more than a puerile diatribe against environmentalism.

This arrogance might be tolerable if the text were otherwise virtuous. But failures of substance are legion. Many of the "problems" that he addresses are trite or have trivial solutions. There are numerous examples of inconsistency between chapters and, in at least one case, a hypothetical with analysis that disregards its own assumptions. Finally, some of his commentary is simply jejune, as for example his discussion of air pollution in which obvious externalities are somehow ignored.

On the positive side, the book may have some use as a thought-starter; some of the problems posed are thought-provoking. And a pervasive theme -- that obvious solutions to economic problems may well be wrong -- is certainly correct.

The failings here are unfortunate. Economics is a poorly understood science; and that poor understanding has led to misguided social and economic policies. Landsburg had an opportunity to produce a really useful volume here but was diverted by his own attempts at cleverness and self-congratulation. Too bad.

This books uses real world examples to debunk some of the common misconceptions and preconceived notions people have about economics. In business school, I used this book to get an overall perspective on the topic to avoid getting lost in the details. A must read for any one who has always wanted to learn more about economics but was afraid to ask....

A modern iteration of Bastiat's "Economic Sophisms". Should be required reading for politicians and reporters. Both groups are prone to believe the nonsense in the economic field.