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Economic Facts and Fallacies
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
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Summary
While all of these fallacies have a certain plausibility that gives them their staying power, this makes it even more important to carefully examine their flaws. Sowell holds these beliefs under the microscope and draws conclusions that are sure to inspire rigorous debate.
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What listeners say about Economic Facts and Fallacies
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- JP
- 08-07-20
Must listen!
Gives a good insight into why #BLM is a massive marxist con. Well worth paying attention.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Dawn from Kent
- 12-08-18
Another great Sowell book
Another great Sowell book although there is a lot of overlap between this and Sowell's Basic Economics.
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4 people found this helpful
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- John Musk
- 13-08-21
Some good points but clearly biased
Most of the information is presented with relevant studies cited but there is an implicit assumption that everything is a commodity and that productivity and profit takes precedent at all costs. A convincing argument is presented for the gender pay gap issue citing there is more than just saying x% of this and y% of that, but then there is a mention of disproportionate proportion of liberal minds in academia as faculty without any analysis like what was done with the pay gap issue. An unbiased analysis, in my view, would dive deep into this issue like how the author talks about the gender pay gap, since for all we know, it is possible that liberal minded people prefer to forgo higher salaries and teach the next generation due to their sense of wanting to help others more compared to conservative minded people who would choose industry where there is better pay on average
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3 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 14-08-19
logical simple to follow...
this book breaks down the problem of making decisions based on preconceived notions without prior proper investigation necessary in many important matters in our society..
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2 people found this helpful
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- Alistair Domestics
- 11-12-21
Fantastic. highly recommend.
This book provides a fantastic critic on many long standing issues.
Sowell is libertarian. I’d especially recommend this book to people who are more socialist by leaning as it gives a very cogent argument for libertarianism which you may not have been exposed to.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Y. Syed
- 16-03-19
The importance of reading data in the right way
“Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics!”
The importance of digging deeper into any assertions and statistics, is made clear, in this very important and impressive book.
Whether you’re on the Left or on the Right; there are lessons that you can learn from this.
Go back and analyse some of your personal assertions and beliefs; whether on immigration, man-made climate-change or racism …
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1 person found this helpful
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- Freneticmonk
- 14-05-23
Essential listening
Although this book is more than a decade old it’s still relevant to our current times.
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- Andrew Peartree
- 15-02-23
A libertarian take which mostly misses the mark
As quickly becomes clear the writer approaches everything from a far right “libertarian” position. On economics, which is what I came to this book for but is only really in the first chapter, the writer makes little to no attempts to balance his views so that the listener can reach an informed conclusion. The fallacies presented obscure and poorly explained while the facts are his own opinions often contradicted by real world events he chooses to ignore.
For some of his views, such as those rent control policies, he uses actual examples to support his opinion and makes a compelling case. Unfortunately, this is the minority. The writer peddles long disproved right-wing views and passes them off as economic fact. The lowlights include:
• Minimum wages are bad because they increase unemployment (in fact, endless case studies have shown that a sensible set minimum wage has no noticeable impact on unemployment and improves living standards of the poor)
• Housing is unaffordable and it’s the Government fault for intervening in the housing markets by setting up planning laws to protect green spaces and historic buildings, setting minimum housing standards, subsidising affordability schemes, etc. The author uses examples that make no sense when you think about them. Of course, it is true that we could knock down all our old buildings, concrete over all our parks and build identical prefabricated concrete skyscrapers in no time. It would certainly make the homes in that area more affordable as nobody would want to live there anymore.
• All public transport is a waste of time. We should all just use cars instead. I’m not even joking, and the reasoning used is ridiculous.
As has always been the problem with libertarian’s, they assume employers, housebuilders, landlords, etc. are all lovely people who are ever so keen to do the best they can for the good of the general populous. If only the pesky Government wouldn’t make all these laws ensuring minimum standards, affordability of living, employee rights, etc., then everything would be great. If only indeed.
The writer moves onto various other subjects which don’t fall under the category of economics, nor fallacies. Some of which qualifies as interesting, and some good points do get made which raise the book up to two stars, but little written here is new or insightful.
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- Mr. G. Tierney
- 15-07-22
Fantastic
Fantastic listen which really expands on core economic concepts, using real world examples in laymans terms. Narrator did a great job.
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- Oded Sharon
- 05-03-22
Somewhere between stupid and evil
Arguing in the first chapter that all transactions are beneficial for both parties completely ignores the endless scenarios in which people don’t have a choice (when there’s a monopoly for example). The premise of libertarianism which this book heavily relies on is that everyone are equal in power and no one is stupid or evil. Can anyone seriously argue this reflects reality?
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