Name: Economics
ISBN: 9781473786981

What Hacker News says

ChuckMcMMar 2013

This presentation confuses money and currency. That is unfortunate because there are principles of monetary policy (like how much currency is in circulation) which are being conflated with currency issues (like how hard it is to counterfeit).

Bitcoin is a currency, which through a number of exchanges, can be exchanged for money. Because it is not legal tender for any economy, its economic value is entirely controlled by currency exchange. That will always makes it less stable than currencies that are backed by an economic entity (a nation-state, or perhaps at some point a multi-national corporation).

This is important to consider because currencies that are backed by an economic entity are only as strong as that entity is with respect to the global economy. That is why the Italian Lire tended to hyper-inflate but the Euro does not. The difference is that the Eurozone economy is stronger than the Italian economy by itself is.

I can whole heartedly recommend that people interested in Bitcoin visit the British Museum's display of the history of currency, and to invest in understanding the reasoning that economists go through in order to make the statements they make. I can recommend this course by Dr. Taylor [1] from The Great Courses catlog, I originally checked it out from the library to listen to on my commute but bought my own copy when they went on sale.

[1] http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.asp... -- "Economics, 3rd Edition" by Tim Taylor.

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ahsanhilalJan 2012

It really depends on what level of Economics understanding you currently possess. For a complete newbie to economics, I would definitely recommend:

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Economics-N-Gregory-Mankiw/...

It is a solid book, and you cannot go wrong with it. However, if you want a more thorough understanding of economics, with the mathematics laid out etc. then there are other more advanced economics text for that. Also, I think, given the topics you highlighted, you want to understand more about Macroeconomics, as such these MIT lectures might help:

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/

Also, remember is Economics, like in any subject, there is wide diversity of viewpoints. The best way to choose a side, I feel, is to really look deep into the a topic, delve a bit into the math and make informed decisions as to what gels with your point of view. Ping me if you need any more resources

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gortokJun 2024

The study isn't shared, so we can't see the methodology to determine its accuracy. We see the results of the survey; but that's not a study, and the survey itself isn't shared with us.

I don't dispute that agile has its issues -- and I'd be surprised if 'agile' failure rates weren't an issue. We can empirically see the result of 25 years of 'agile', and it's not somewhere we should aspire to be.

The issues comes down to this:

1. Is adopting an 'agile' methodology sufficient to ensure (insert goal here)? 2. Has the software industry adopted a method of operating that creates a statistical quality control; and adopted practices that investigate and remediate special causes and common causes of variation in quality?

To spoil it: for #1 the answer is 'no', and for #2 the answer is a resounding 'no'.

There are practices that are ingredients to the world described in #2, but we as an industry have not yet adopted a systematic way of thinking and resolving problems in the software development process.

I think we'd be better off adopting Deming's method of management and his System of Profound Knowledge and be far better off than adopting the agile fad of the week; even as I admit I still have open questions on how to apply his work to Software. (See "The New Economics" 3rd Edition, and "Out of the Crisis", both written by Deming).

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dalkeMar 2013

Are you sure about that? For example, http://tap.usf.edu/what-is-tap/state-policies/ (I went to USF not FSU, but both are Florida schools) says:

> No USF employee may receive any money in exchange for requiring a textbook. However, if the professor is the author, royalty payments may be received.

It references and quotes Florida Statutes 1004.085. "An employee may receive: ... Royalties or other compensation from sales of textbooks that include the instructor’s own writing or work."

Just in case you don't think FSU or USF are reputable, I found http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1985/10/4/sandel-donates-b... from Harvard, back in 1985:

> Harvard has no policy on whether professors can profit on the sale of texts to students in their classes. The University leaves that decision to the individual instructor, according to faculty officials.

or more recently (Harvard, 2008) http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2008/3/4/professors-find-d... :

> Since N. Gregory Mankiw returned to Harvard to teach the College’s introductory economics class, 2,278 students have filled his weekly lectures, many picking up the former Bush advisor’s best-selling textbook, “Principle of Economics” along the way. ... So, what has professor of economics Mankiw done with those profits? ... “I don’t talk about personal finances,” Mankiw said, adding that he has never considered giving the proceeds to charity.

Given that Florida law doesn't prohibit collecting royalties and that a Florida school and a Massachusetts school both allow collecting royalties from assigning one's own text books for class, I think the burden of proof is on you to show that "most reputable universities don't let you do that."

(In any case, I went to university about 20 years ago, and the laws and rules were different than. But it doesn't look like it's changed all that much.)

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RockyMcNutsNov 2011

So the fact that dropouts like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates and Steve Jobs became billionaires is due to increasing returns to education? (why did Zuck drop out? why isn't everyone getting Ph.D.s?)

How much of Mankiw's wealth is due to his education, and how much to the industry structure's ability to make people pay $233 for his textbook?

http://crookedtimber.org/2011/11/04/occupy-greg-mankiw/

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Economics-N-Gregory-Mankiw/...

It should not be that hard to take income (or labor income) and regress against educational level and get a pretty good sense of how much inequality is related to educational achievement, and how returns to education have changed. My gut feeling is it explains some of it, but education has not that much to do with the vastly increasing income share of the top 1%. One man's 'stochastic' is another's 'uncorrelated'.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/inequality-trend...

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qohenNov 2011

Actually, to be fair, the $233 price is for a prior edition--the latest edition "only" costs $192 (and $154 on Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Economics-N-Gregory-Mankiw/...

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