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    Cover of Basic economics

    Basic economics

    Thomas Sowell · 2000

    "Why are homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks of New York in the winter, when the abandoned apartment buildings in the city have four times as many dwelling units as there are homeless people in the city? Why are people hungry in Moscow when there are vast amounts of some of the richest farmland on the continent of Europe within easy driving distance? Why did unemployment reach 25 percent and American corporations as a whole operate in the red for two years in a row during the Great Depression of the 1930s?". "All these very different - but equally puzzling and needless - tragedies grew out of a failure to understand and apply basic economic principles. Explaining these principles for the general public in plain English, with neither graphs nor equations nor jargon, is the goal and the achievement of Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. Professor Sowell has taught economics at leading colleges and universities across the country and now uses his years of experience to bring economics to light in a way that is both easy to absorb and hard to forget.". "His lively examples are drawn from around the world and from centuries of history, because the basic principles of economics are not limited to modern capitalist societies and apply even to situations where no money changes hands, such as caring for wounded soldiers on a battlefield.

    Economics & Finance
    Open LibraryAmazon
    Stats for nerds
    88recommend
    156mentions
    120people
    2008–2026years
    74% recommend23% neutral3% critical

    Mentions per year

    2008201020122014201620182020202220242026

    What Hacker News says

    1. SV_BubbleTimeAug 2026
      Well… for one, your competitors would have an instant marketable advantage over you.

      What “the market will bear” isn’t what you think it is. Mars and Hersey and … idk is there another candy company?… don’t meet in a smoke filled room figuring how best to make you poor and fat. “What the market will bear” in a free market much more means what you can offer as a value before you introduce a opportunity more competition or an alternative to your product.

      If your industry does meet in a smoke filled room, that is neither capitalism nor a free market.

      I suggest everyone read Sowell’s Basic Economics at least once as an adult.

      thread
    2. smitty1eAug 2026
      TL;DR => Sowell, "Basic Economics".
      thread
    3. whattheheckheckApr 2026
      Profit is serves as a decentralized coordination for the allocation of scarce resources of the infinite number of commodities and combinatorics of products and services that exist in the world.

      Have you read Basic Economics by Sowell?

      thread
    4. SV_BubbleTimeFeb 2026
      Depends. The basics are testable. An explanation of scarcity is available in Basic Economics and should be required reading (Sowell)… but whatever this VC nightmare thing is… I agree.
      thread
    5. whattheheckheckJan 2026
      Seriously read Basic Economics

      Not enough % return on risk and the company cancels their service and consumers have to go to loan sharks or get even more desperate and ready to do whatever they need to to survive

      thread
    6. antiquarkDec 2025
      Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell.
      thread

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