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Title: FAIR PLAY by Steven Landsburg ISBN: 0-684-82755-7 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 08 November, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (9 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Overrated
Comment: I probably would have liked this book better had the author not adopted such a smug attitude of moral and intellectual superiority. I also feel sorry for his daughter if he truly interacts with her as he claims.
Rating: 3
Summary: Economic enlightenment for the layperson, with flaws
Comment: I agree that "Fair Play" is an entertaining read, and generally somewhat worthwhile; although you'd do better to read Robert Kiyosaki's financial books. "Fair Play" approaches a subject we Americans are grossly under-educated in from a plain-english, down-to-earth perspective. Nearly everyone can stand to be enlightened by this book. The author does have his faults, however; and they usually stem from his desire to force-feed economic theory, at the expense of all other logic, into every area of sociology. At one point, he tries to adjudge the number of forests to be saved by their price of admission!?? At another point, he starts off with a discussion of our responsibility to future generations, and somehow arrives at the idea that even un-conceived humans should have legal rights. Chapter 13, in which he takes a stab at explaining away environmental issues using pure economic theory, contains so many single-minded leaps of logic that it actually discredits the author, and the book. Thank goodness economists are not the caretakers of our environment, or the earth would be paved over, and unlivable!
Chapter 9 on the "perfect tax," which disgusted a previous reviewer, I found to be a sarcastic exercise in futility. I found it somewhat amusing and illustrative. I don't think Landsburg was being serious, because a truly serious discussion of the "perfect tax" would have to include the concept of consumption taxes.
On the positive side, of which there is plenty, here is a quick example of the kind of economic enlightenment this book can provide: "$1,000 invested seventy years ago would be worth about $13,000 today if invested in bonds, or about $850,000 if invested in stocks." And paraphrasing: bondholding is 25 times more conservative than any other type of risk-related behavior... this "is a paradox that economists call the equity premium puzzle." Again, on balance, an admirable, though flawed, attempt at delivering economic knowledge to the layperson.
Rating: 3
Summary: A different perspective on Economics
Comment: Much of this book will make you say "Hmmmm... I never thought about it like that. He does have a point."
Chapter 17: "The Arithmetic of Conservation" was particularly enlightening.
Although some of Landsburg's analysis is great, I only give him 3 stars because much of the book contains a contradiction - Landsburg claims that there is no right and wrong - no good or bad, but at the same time, he is advocating a system! For an economist of this caliber, I was disgusted with Chapter 9: "The Perfect Tax".
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Title: Armchair Economist: Economics And Everyday Experience by Steven Landsburg ISBN: 0029177766 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Hidden Order : Economics of Everyday Life, The by David D. Friedman ISBN: 0887308856 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 27 August, 1997 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Economics of Life: From Baseball to Affermative Action to Immigration, How Real-World Issues Affect Our Everyday Life by Gary Stanley Becker, Guity Nashat Becker, Guity Nashat ISBN: 0070067090 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Trade Pub. Date: 01 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: A Course in Microeconomic Theory by David M. Kreps ISBN: 0691042640 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 21 February, 1990 List Price(USD): $65.00 |
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Title: Exchange and Production: Competition, Coordination, and Control by Armen A. Alchain, William R. Allen, Armen Alchian ISBN: 0534013201 Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing Pub. Date: December, 1983 List Price(USD): $51.95 |
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