Economics of Good and Evil by Tomas Sedlacek

First of all, if you really want to understand some basic economics of why we are in such current problems, see the video below from RSA.

I got this book from my favourite book shop in Toronto. The book shop is Nicholas Hoare. It is at 45 Front Street East. Their web site is here. Whenever I am in the area, I take a look and I always buy a book. That is because there is always a book that I find interesting and I am afraid I would not find it elsewhere in Toronto.

This book is the subtitle of this book is “The Quest for Economic Meaning from Gilgamesh to Wall Street”. Sedlacek talks about the first business cycle. Egypt’s pharaoh has dream of 7 good years and 7 bad years. He asked Joseph what this means. Joseph said to save gain in good years to use in bad years. Even today we should try to level out the business cycle. Part of the reason we are in such trouble is that we built up debt in good years and we are very overstretched in current bad years.

When you borrow money, you borrow money from your future, not the bank. You borrow from the future via the interest rate charged on a loan. You really borrow energy from the future for today, feeling that you will not need the energy or the money in the future, but that you need it now.

There is a Wikipedia entry for Tomas Sedlacek . There is a great review of this book and Tomas Sedlacek at Czech Centre . According to the blurb on this site “Tomas Sedlacek, leading Czech economist who is considered to be one of the ‘five hot minds in economics’ by the Yale Economic Review”.

Thomas Sedlacek is on Authors@google. He talks about things he mentions in his book. This is a video worthwhile watching. Also he gives a talk about his book at RSA. This is the video to watch to get a good handle on economics for today. This video is just over 20 minutes, but it is all you need to have a greater understanding of what is going on. He makes it very easy to understand.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Sedlacek. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.