tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post8625169342464817086..comments2024-03-23T12:05:13.464-07:00Comments on Ideas: Fictional Economics: A Request for AidDavid Friedmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06543763515095867595noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-23287196588748090502017-03-12T17:19:55.098-07:002017-03-12T17:19:55.098-07:00There might be more, besides BAUDA, in this anthol...There might be more, besides BAUDA, in this anthology _Tomorrow, Inc._. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?51980<br /><br />The only other one that comes to mind is "Owe Me" about an inventor who finds a way to profit from his inventions than suits him better than the usual route. If I recall correctly, that is.<br /><br />Anthologies that contain BAUDA might also be good places to look. My quick skim in ISFDB didn't turn up any, though.eric_harris_76https://www.blogger.com/profile/09180475991494447438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-73226063765639584902017-03-12T11:54:33.690-07:002017-03-12T11:54:33.690-07:00Eric:
Many thanks--that's a great one that I ...Eric:<br /><br />Many thanks--that's a great one that I hadn't thought of.David Friedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06543763515095867595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-51101856655313801222017-03-12T08:34:17.160-07:002017-03-12T08:34:17.160-07:00Someone should have already suggested "Busine...Someone should have already suggested "Business as Usual During Alterations", by Ralph Williams <br /><br />Hostile aliens try to destroy our economic system by eliminating scarcity with a matter-dupliator device. It doesn't play out as intended.<br />eric_harris_76https://www.blogger.com/profile/09180475991494447438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-58883239077564875182017-03-10T06:57:42.847-08:002017-03-10T06:57:42.847-08:00G. Dirk Mateer is a professor with a great many ec...G. Dirk Mateer is a professor with a great many economics references from all sorts of entertainment media. He wrote this--but his personal trove contains more than movies.<br /><br />https://www.amazon.com/Economics-Movies-Access-Card-Mateer/dp/0324302614Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08020528009764754569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-54208932541896467692017-03-07T10:40:07.797-08:002017-03-07T10:40:07.797-08:00A fun little read, and it's even online: And T...A fun little read, and it's even online: And Then There Were None, Eric Frank Russell.<br /><br />http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.phpAndyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07221537769343338514noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-4219855412693469192017-02-25T04:42:51.083-08:002017-02-25T04:42:51.083-08:00Rather than a book, have you considered a video wi...Rather than a book, have you considered a video with some SCA friends in costume?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14414707276737125834noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-58640338532290767602017-02-24T06:33:10.038-08:002017-02-24T06:33:10.038-08:00Second the comment to look at Yudkowky's works...Second the comment to look at Yudkowky's works (not just HPMOR). <br /><br />Liked the Kipling, that wasn't in my Kipling collection as a child. (Kipling didn't allow for Satan's tool of central banking ;)Bill Walkernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-42426323640553632562017-02-22T20:10:39.125-08:002017-02-22T20:10:39.125-08:00I would argue that you look at Garet Garrett. I l...I would argue that you look at Garet Garrett. I liked his book, The Driver. The book is a celebration of capitalist achievement and tells the story of a Wall Street investor, Henry Galt. Galt is a very persistent individual who sees that the country is still in decent shape during the Panic of 1893 and chooses to invest all that he has to gain control of a failing railroad. (If the story seems familiar, Galt is based on James J. Hill, the man who built the Great Northern Railway.) <br />Galt's knowledge of the true value of the assets and his superior ability to forecast and plan, allows him to earn extraordinary profits. Garrett is quite good at showing what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur and businessman, and how intellect, persistence, and ability can be the primary drivers behind a business. He also shows how businesses and government can conspire to stop him from competing by using antitrust legislation and accuse him of exploiting the general public and his investors. Politicians see extraordinary success as something that is suspicious and dangerous. <br />You can find a copy of the book on the Mises site. It can be converted from the PDF format into a Kindle or ePub version by using Calibre or something similar. Garrett has other books with economic themes on the site. You may wish to have a look at them. <br /><br />VangelVhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18253765145016548748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-13463918771784916592017-02-22T15:19:39.981-08:002017-02-22T15:19:39.981-08:00The growing popularity of Bernie Sanders brand of ...The growing popularity of Bernie Sanders brand of socialism should tell you the importance of the bad economics idea. There are too many Choskys and Klein clones mixing well with our current group identity grievance based form of politics.<br /><br />We need your brand of soap to clean the collective mind of my millennial generation.John Smithersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08875938611001837023noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-49757009797087121392017-02-22T08:04:52.541-08:002017-02-22T08:04:52.541-08:00Sorry, the correct link for that comic is this one...Sorry, the correct link for that comic is <a href="https://asterixonline.info/comics/index.php?manga=Asterix_Comics&chapter=23" rel="nofollow">this one</a>.Alejandronoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-46438870095468354752017-02-22T08:03:44.382-08:002017-02-22T08:03:44.382-08:00In one of the classic Asterix comic books, "O...In one of the classic Asterix comic books, "Obelix and Company", the Romans' latest dastardly plan to pacify the unruly Gauls involves a speculative bubble in the menhir trade. The comic can be read online <a href="https://asterixonline.info/comics/index.php?manga=Asterix_Comics" rel="nofollow">here</a>.Alejandronoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-39144788931744276362017-02-20T15:10:18.318-08:002017-02-20T15:10:18.318-08:00Peter, funnily enough the babysitting vouchers thi...Peter, funnily enough the babysitting vouchers thing is a well-documented problem http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1998/08/babysitting_the_economy.htmlTKWhitakernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-53633683528139463432017-02-20T10:45:46.587-08:002017-02-20T10:45:46.587-08:00This may not quite be what you're looking for ...This may not quite be what you're looking for because it is explicitly didactic -- about a much broader array of topics than just economics -- but Eliezer Yudkowsky's "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" covers a number of economic theories. it will b ea bit hard to dive into if you don't know any of the relevant canon, but in this chapter http://www.hpmor.com/chapter/33, the prisoner's dilemma is explained in great detail. In this chapter, http://www.hpmor.com/chapter/79, the protagonist quotes " Tom Smith and His Incredible Bread Machine."Sethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13588785968921899184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-46482024389054278362017-02-20T08:41:12.917-08:002017-02-20T08:41:12.917-08:00I have always had the title "The Economics of...I have always had the title "The Economics of Villainy" in my head as an idea I wish to pursue or see someone else thoroughly pursue. I imagine it as a number crunching exercise as much as anything. How many henchman are running around the evil compound at any given point in time and (when the motivations are clearly money or power, which realistically they always truly are) how much are they being paid? How much do they really stand to gain and at what risk? Hazard pay for such highly skilled individuals must be very high. Sauron's armies might not have been paid but let's say they win-- they conquer the whole middle earth-- what do they do then? In order to get the most out of their lives and provide for their offspring they would need to specialize in labor and create a system of free trade and in reality would need to become just like the races they defeated. They would stomp out the last of the hobbits in the shire, eat what was left on the table and in the stores, and realize they needed to become their own version of the hobbits just to have food to eat. In a few generations they'd all be laughing and drinking mead around a campfire. <br /><br />More or less the central idea being that the laws of economics are the best protection against super villainy as evidenced by a thorough analysis of their operations. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13693540444004548692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-33714797277794367352017-02-20T06:21:32.562-08:002017-02-20T06:21:32.562-08:00I am thinking the "bad economics" book, ...I am thinking the "bad economics" book, with an explanation of why things are bad, might work in much the same way as <i>How to Lie With Statistics</i> (a really good book even today).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06233042400447894928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-8238170632624517142017-02-20T03:29:56.033-08:002017-02-20T03:29:56.033-08:00Thank you David for repeating: "I'm not p...Thank you David for repeating: "I'm not proposing to write a book, but to put together a collection of things other people have written that make economic points."<br /><br />I had been confused on reading your first mention of "a collection of works". I believe now that what you are asking for pertains, not to the whole book, but to those shorter works of literature that you would gather together into one book.Richard Ober Hammerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14208441695398875817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-35430147438292588732017-02-19T23:02:40.337-08:002017-02-19T23:02:40.337-08:00Henry Hazlitt wrote a novel called Time Will Run B...Henry Hazlitt wrote a novel called <i>Time Will Run Back</i> in which a socialist leader rediscovers the value of price signals. A lot of this involves Socratic dialogue and talking through thought experiments, one of which might make a good excerpt.Matthew Munoznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-78148868606074143882017-02-19T21:31:31.904-08:002017-02-19T21:31:31.904-08:00
I would buy the bad economics book.
On an unrela...<br />I would buy the bad economics book.<br /><br />On an unrelated note, that you are probably not interested in (but I am here so why not?) Reason.com used to have a good community of commenters but in the last few weeks most of them left and stated their own site, http://glibertarians.com/. As a libertarian forum it has great potential and it needs content.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-59877792714399015852017-02-19T19:14:04.688-08:002017-02-19T19:14:04.688-08:00Peter:
I'm not proposing to write a book, but...Peter:<br /><br />I'm not proposing to write a book, but to put together a collection of things other people have written that make economic points.David Friedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06543763515095867595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-75893666092292826012017-02-19T11:33:43.992-08:002017-02-19T11:33:43.992-08:00That was a silly idea but what about.......
A sto...That was a silly idea but what about.......<br /><br />A story that borrows from Gulliver's Travels or the three ghosts in A Christmas Carol. First we visit a land where there is no money so everyone lives in large extended family groups that have to do everything for themselves: make clothes and shoes, build houses, cut logs for fires, manage the fields and the animals, cook the meals. Then we visit a land where money, and so trade, has been invented but a few greedy people have most of the money: they live in vast houses and have fabulous balls whilst the rest of the people live in poverty. Then we visit a land, where there is money, but is run by benevolent elders who make sure that everyone has plenty. And so on and so on. Peter Chapmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-17834489341030833752017-02-19T11:09:16.375-08:002017-02-19T11:09:16.375-08:00After our first was born my wife joined a baby-sit...After our first was born my wife joined a baby-sitting circle. She was given 20 plastic tokens, worth 1 hour before midnight and half an hour after midnight. The circle included women who loved baby-sitting but never went out - so they accumulated tokens that were effectively taken out of circulation. Then there were women - such as my wife - who were always going out so quickly ran out of tokens. These women started issuing IOUs to each other. So, the women who needed tokens didn't have any and the women who didn't need any had them all. <br /><br />So, you could write a book about baby sitting. You would need to make it a lot more complex, by introducing a central bank, loan facilities, taxation etc, etc.<br /><br /> Peter Chapmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-70538981432347699322017-02-19T07:44:29.192-08:002017-02-19T07:44:29.192-08:00TANSTAAFL was a Robert Ruark phrase before Heinlei...TANSTAAFL was a Robert Ruark phrase before Heinlein and Pournelle. The free lunch was offered by bartenders before Prohibition raised beer prices and made drinking less sociable. <b>The Old Man and the Boy</b>. Sentimental nonfiction.brucehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05784331972859363089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-85865636597075700732017-02-19T07:21:29.052-08:002017-02-19T07:21:29.052-08:00Charles Stross, Neptune's Brood, is science fi...Charles Stross, Neptune's Brood, is science fiction, but the plot revolves around the economics of money-transfer latency.Jessa Mittlemannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-20976876314045754072017-02-18T22:18:46.880-08:002017-02-18T22:18:46.880-08:00David Friedman, that gold/scarcity government reve...David Friedman, that gold/scarcity government revenue concept is blowing my mind. Imagine you went on Reddit and created a subreddit for Ricardo's "Principles of Political Economy". Members of that sub could submit passages from that book and vote them up or down. Then the most <i>popular</i> passages would be at the top. The passages in the book would be ordered by the Democratic Hand. As opposed to? As opposed to the passages in the book being ordered by the Invisible Hand. Out of sight, out of mind... no more?<br /><br />Here's something else that's blowing my mind. Let's say that the <a href="https://www.debatepolitics.com/" rel="nofollow">DebatePolitics Forum</a> started charging members $1 dollar/month. But... members could elect one person to decide how to divvy up all the fees among the different threads/topics. Pretty much like how our government works. Except, unhappy members could <i>so easily</i> foot vote for other websites. If there was a mass exodus, what would this say about the social contract? <br /><br />It's bizarre that economists generally don't use community websites to test economic systems. I've failed to convince a dozen forums to implement our government's system. <br /><br />One last thing... according to most economists... the free-rider problem is a bad thing while consumers surplus is a good thing. I derive value from reading your blog but I've never made a donation. My valuation is greater than my payment. My payment is suboptimal so your incentives are suboptimal so the supply of your blog entries will be suboptimal. But if it would be optimal for my payment to equal my valuation, then how could consumer surplus be a good thing? So it should really be called the consumer surplus problem... and it's a continuum that ranges from the payment being (valuation - $.01) to $.00 cents. <br /><br />One last last thing. Ever heard of spending money being referred to as nonverbal communication? For some reason this dawned on me for the first time last week. Why didn't it dawn on me before? Spending money is communication... and it's definitely not verbal communication... which leaves nonverbal communication. Who typically studies nonverbal communication? Sociologists? Except, they "can't" study spending money because that's the domain of economists. <br /><br />With economics spending money is about maximizing benefit. But with communication the issue is accuracy. How accurately are my words conveying my info? Consumer surplus might immediately maximize your benefit, but what you're communicating isn't accurate. If you deceive (misinform) producers then you're going to derive less benefit from their behavior.Xerographicahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14978832439622230018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19727420.post-58853490584361727382017-02-18T20:01:06.622-08:002017-02-18T20:01:06.622-08:00Russ Roberts has at least two novels that do that ...Russ Roberts has at least two novels that do that - they're novels, but maybe you could excerpt a relevant bit? They are:<br /> <i>Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance</i>, and<br /><br /> <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Price-Everything-Parable-Possibility-Prosperity/dp/0691143358" rel="nofollow">The Price of Everything</a>: A parable of Possibility and Prosperity</i><br /><br />From the blurb for the latter: "Stanford University student and Cuban American tennis prodigy Ramon Fernandez is outraged when a nearby mega-store hikes its prices the night of an earthquake. He crosses paths with provost and economics professor Ruth Lieber when he plans a campus protest against the price-gouging retailer--which is also a major donor to the university..."Glenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14661650090485723755noreply@blogger.com