I need a new economic fix

Of all the subjects I ought to know about but don't economics ranks right up there in the top five. It's at the root of the explanations (as opposed to reasons) given for much of the extremist insanity currently being inflicted on the nation. You need at least a passing knowlege of the ideas being bandied about to be able to respond to them with more than a slack jaw and a glazed expression in your eyes.

When playing basketball, you watch your opponent and estimate his capabilities. Those capabilities depend on the mechanics of his particular body, but you never think on that level. You watch his foot movement and such. That's the level on which I want to approach economics…I really don't need the whole textbook. I need a high level view. Basing my thinking on such an understanding I will be wrong sometimes; without doubt some significant detail will trip me up occasionally. But at least I'll be in a position to understand a correction.

The problem is, "economist" used to imply a knowlege of a certain field of investigation. Now it seems to be a job title.

The number of econoblogs I've read is small because I hit a few good ones right off the top. First Wampum plus various links that showed up on multiple credible blogs was good enough. I added It's Still The Economy, Stupid to the list because it was drawn from several quality econoblogs— if the submitter felt it was important enough to draw attention to on ISTES, I figured it was important enough to absorb.

I've decided to add MaxSpeak to the blogroll for several reasons:

• I believe he's an actual economist, as in having detailed knowlege of the field as opposed to being paid to spin things to influence events
• I have read some of his stuff and I understood him. He's out of my league, but in the same way your coach is out of your league.
• He's openly lefty/progressive/liberal (this renaming of our political position is reminding me a lot of the negro/colored/Black/black thing), so when he does spin things it's (showing my biases here) in a direction intended to benefit the largest segment of society
• it has come to my attention through the Secret Underground Communcations Network of the Vast Left Wing/Liberal Media Conspiracy (email) that he thinks my blog is okay
• He seems quite able to bullshit around
• He has a collection of research links that ought to get me through any topic he raises that I feel I need a deeper immersion in

I'm not giving up ISTES at all. I think between it and Max, and the occasional excursion into their blogrolls, I should be able to reach and maintain the level of understanding I'm after.

LATER: MaxSpeak is more diversified than I remembered. That's good too.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 6/11/2003 11:28:48 PM |