Daytrading.no-the homepage of Oddmund Grøtte

Short notes on recommended books
Copyright Oddmund Grøtte 2004, updated 14th of September 2004

(This is older notes from my blog which you can find on the frontpage)

14th of August, 2004
Economics in One Lesson

I have spent the last couple of days on the beach reading Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, a real classic published for the first time in 1946. This is an easy and educational read which a lot more people should read, at least politicians and those new to economics. At less than 10 dollars at Amazon there is no excuse for those interested in understanding basic and sound economics and at the same time realizing all the bullshit (excuse me - just had to say it) written in the media. 

The main point in the book is that all regulation/politics has a secondary consequence, namely what you do not see. For example, everyone can see the farmers losing their jobs and income without subsidies, but noone "sees" the new jobs created elsewhere in other industries because the same money (the subsidy) is instead spent and/or saved elsewhere. Paying subsidies has to mean that someone else is worse off - it is as simple as that. I summarize by this excerpt from he introduction:

"This book is an analysis of economic fallacies that are at last so prevalent that they have almost become a new otrhodoxy.....There is not a major government in the world at this moment, however, whose economic policies are not influenced if they are not almost wholly determined by acceptance of some of these fallacies."    

1st of August, 2004
Gone with the Wind

I have just read Margaret Mitchells Gone with the Wind, as far as I know the most widely read book in the world after the Bible. I didnt have any expectations but I was surprised of the reasonable good quality. What caught me the most was its moral and philosophy. I saw several classic confrontations:

• Collectivism vs. individualism

• Dogmatism vs. reason

• Survival vs. pride and customs

• Subsidies vs. production

There are several dialogs that really emphasised these moral issues, and certainly Ms. Mitchell must have been a quasi-liberal (and by that I mean a liberal in European terms, not the American liberal). I think it was a good book, not among my favourites, but certainly worthwile to read. I also learnt a lot about the slavery and the Civil War as the history was set in Atlanta and Georgia from 1861 to about 1873.