Official Book Thread - What You're Reading & Everything Book Related (merged)

#1,076
#1,076
VOLatile said:
First day of class, back to reading textbooks until I settle in. Had to buy "Aftershock" for my Macroeconomics class, anyone read it?

Also, $480 for 5 used books is ridiculous.
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Have you tried Amazon and other used book sites buying used books there? My wife did that when she went back and we paid about 25% of the colleges costs. Look around and you can buy and sell on sites and make a little of your money back.

Edit: Half.com is the other site she used
 
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#1,079
#1,079
SamRebel35 said:
Union apologist
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Ahhh....I was wondering why he was going after me.

If you are in a union, being pro-union doesn't make you full-retard. You're just following your own best interest.

An economist who is pro-union cares about politics more than he does total social welfare (meaning the best outcome for the population as a whole). Unions are good for people in the union and bad for everyone else. It's basically a fact of economics.
 
#1,084
#1,084
joelkthx said:
I feel your pain. If the dates match up, you might consider renting rather than buying. Of course, you'd have to think if its worth it or not because of the buy back when you buy. but for me, its better to rent.

Chegg.com is good and Amazon sometimes too. I usually check those two and just go with the lower price
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So, the hard part about renting for me is that I ride my bike everyday, everywhere. If something were to happen to the book, I'd have to pay the rental fee + new copy. I rented the most expensive book I had last semester and never used it in class, the professor even said we'd never use it but the school required a book for the class. I couldn't return it for a refund because they opened it and put a rental sticker on it. I ended up using it the last few sections for extra info and getting A's on the last 2 exams (I was the only one in that class to get an A on any test and I did it 4 times).
 
#1,085
#1,085
n_huffhines said:
Oh man I feel bad for you. Assigning that book probably means your professor sucks.

Reich is a pro-union economist. As I understand it, that book is a wealth inequality explanation of the recession. You never go full-retard.
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He's a socialist and he makes no bones about it, but the syllabus looks like he's pretty fair about teaching everything and he's gotten great reviews.

Guess we'll see how it goes. I just want to get all A's this semester.
 
#1,086
#1,086
VOLatile said:
He's a socialist and he makes no bones about it, but the syllabus looks like he's pretty fair about teaching everything and he's gotten great reviews.

Guess we'll see how it goes. I just want to get all A's this semester.
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Like a real socialist or like a Keynesian? Most people that teach Macro are Keynesian or Monetarist. Few are Austrian. I've never heard of a socialist Macro professor (I'm not doubting their existence). That would be nuts.
 
#1,087
#1,087
n_huffhines said:
Like a real socialist or like a Keynesian? Most people that teach Macro are Keynesian or Monetarist. Few are Austrian. I've never heard of a socialist Macro professor (I'm not doubting their existence). That would be nuts.
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Probably Keynesian. I'm in the class to learn the difference. Haha.
 
#1,088
#1,088
Sounds fun. Not to be a downer, but macro is the worst field in economics (still interesting, though). There is little certainty about what "we know". They try to treat it like a hard science, but it's economics not nature, and the numbers aren't reliable and can be twisted to support just about any kind of policy. Economies (particularly ours) are much too big to be able to accurately identify what causes what and what's correlation and what's coincidence.

This is pretty much all you ever need to know about macro (you should watch before the semester and after):

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk[/youtube]
 
#1,090
#1,090
VOLatile said:
Aftershock is a surprisingly easy and quick read.
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Doesn't surprise me. LOL

So you'll get into business cycle theory (the main component of Keynes philosophy on macroeconomy)...to me it doesn't even matter if it's a sound theory or not, because nobody will ever execute it properly in practice. Meaning, the main idea is that during busts the government needs to spend to stimulate the economy. But in order to be able to do that without accruing massive amounts of debt, Keynes says governments have to save during boom periods. Governments are completely incapable of saving during booms. They just find new ways to spend.

That's (one reason) why Keynes' system is doomed to failure.
 
#1,091
#1,091
About to start this, an account of my Grandfather's WWII battleship.
 

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#1,092
#1,092
Started reading my Macro, Speech, and Archaeology textbooks. This is going to be a read-heavy semester compared to last. I just want to finish The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History and move onto The Things They Carried.
 
#1,093
#1,093
Finished The Things They Carried. I'll likely read another one of his books at some point. Don't know what I'll read next. I have about 10 books on my Kindle that I've downloaded
 
#1,094
#1,094
Yankee_Vol said:
Finished The Things They Carried. I'll likely read another one of his books at some point. Don't know what I'll read next. I have about 10 books on my Kindle that I've downloaded
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I still haven't started it and the book club meets in a week to discuss it. I don't think I'll get the chance to read it before then.
 
#1,096
#1,096
Just finished Aftershock and The Sixth Extinction this morning and last night. Started The Things They Carried last night. Should finish it by tomorrow night.
 
#1,098
#1,098
Currently reading: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Up next are:

The Martian by Andy Weir
Why We Run: A Natural History by Bernd Heinrich
Love and Math by Edward Frenkel
 
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