. . . ABOUT THIS ARTICLE ON "THE END OF THE AGE OF INFLATION."
In it, the author (Robert Samuelson) argues that the main powerhouse driving the economy in the last number of years was not the economic and tax policies of different administrations that were often touted, nor simply the effect of technology and the Internet, but the end of the era of double-digit inflation that we experienced in times past.
According to Samuelson, it was inflation that posed the greatest risk to the economy and that caused the recessions that used to plague America with far more frequency than they do now.
Unfortunately, the end of the era of inflation means that we can’t expect the economy to grow at such a rate in the future and that nobody knows that the shape of the future economy will be.
Even more unfortunately, I don’t know enough about economics to evaluate what Samuelson says.
That’s why I’d like Thomas Sowell to do one of his neat-o, spiffy columns on it.
But . . .
That’s not overly likely to happen, a realization which caused me to finally break down and buy Sowell’s book Basic Economics (reputed to be one of the easiest-to-read introductions out there).
Maybe when I’m done I’ll know enough to have an opinion about what Samuelson says.
I’ve read that book, along with his Applied Economics book. They are great, but I would strongly recommend “Economics In One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt. It is by far the first book that should be read on the topic.
Oh yeah, another book I would recommend is,
Learning Economics
by Arnold Kling
Callahan’s Economics for Real People is also good.