Who is your favorite Economist...past or present?

Have you read much Friedman? I haven't read any of his books and was looking at them and didn't really know which one to start with. Any suggestions?

If you're note sure, these two might be a great place to start:

Here's info on "Free to Choose", you can watch the video's on the net or buy the book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Dr. Arthur Laffer.. (a fellow Tennessean) “The Father of Supply-Side Economics.”.
http://www.laffercenter.com/a...

Father of the Laffer Curve! Too bad the Democrats have favored Keynes over Laffer!

Is that “Keynesian”, or “Kenyan” ?

Seems to be similar! I did actually have someone lash out at me because I used the term "Keynesian"! lol!

No person worth the title, economist would argue that we are on the right side of the Laffer curve today. The effective tax rate in this country is at a 60 year historic low. Sure you'll find people who wish to lower the nominal rate while eliminating tax expenditures(something I would favor) but that's a different arguement all together.

Comparing historic tax rates without comprehending the complexities of it is like apples and oranges. I'm all for simplifying it or going to a consumer tax. I don't think you can really have a society where one half is supporting the other and voting for the guy that wants more of it.

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

b. franklin

And old Ben was right on!

Sowell has caught my favorable attention.

Yes, we've been sharing that mutual admiration!

Check the book group. I dropped something there! :)

I will.

Hayek is Boss in this arena.

Adam Smith, he's a Scottish Economist who wrote "Wealth of Nations" in 1776.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...


He is thought to have originated the idea that democracies only last until the people discover they can vote to give themselves money from the treasury.

Yes, I'm reading it, have been for quite some time. One day I might finish it! He's almost like a Founding Father!

Bastiat turned out some pretty excellent stuff as well.

And, he writes for the laity.

I wanted him to be our first black President! Now, that would be a true success!

It sure would have!! But, he turned down Reagan on a cabinet post. :-(

Sowell is smart enough that he doesn't want to be president. lol

Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek. Father of the Austrian School of Economics.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/...

Best choice ever!

Marx, but lennin comes as a close second.

I would think Che would be a particular favorite of yours.

First, as my profile image says, I am a troskist, and El "Che" didn't liked us. Second, he was not near marx or lenin in their understandings of economics.

Marx lived off the wealth of his in-laws and partner. He should have spent less time writing drivel and more time feeding his children. Lenin just thinned the citizenry to try and achieve financial success of which he too, failed miserably.

I guess if you want the favorite worst economists, those might be my pick also!

Ok, so, the study of how the whole production sistem works and how that sistem work under the advance of monopolies, whe the capital from central countries colonize others, doesn't counts? And Marx lived from Engels because he was several times kicked off universities he worked because of his ideas

The whole labor theory of value has been buried with the dinosaurs. One of his major flaws was his theory that it would be the rich capitalist countries that would flock to communism when in fact, the opposite is true. Another unfortunate fact is that countries that were colonized have prospered because of it. It's the uncolonized countries such as the interior of Africa that was left to their primitive ways because of their difficult location and disease.

Marx lived off of the wealth of his in-laws before he was supported by Engels. He starved his children and he had a son out of wedlock that he made Engels claim. When Engels told Marx's daughter the truth right on his death bed, she committed suicide.

Yes, marx had much errors in his life. He was a misoginous drunk, you forgot that one, but that doesn't make him les brilliant. And the labour theory of value, that appears in the first volume of Das Kapitel, does not implies that the revolution will appear in the advanced countries, that can be found in other texts like "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy", and is related with a dalectic problem between the advance of the productive forces and the advance of the workers subjetivity. Later, other marxists, like Trotsky, discovered that semi-collonized countries had mor advanced class concience, what makes them easier to have a revolution, while the goverment after the revolution it's harder.

What has communism given us other than millions less people?

What communism? I, as a troskist, believe that there was no comunism yet. Comunism implies the extintion of the state (as government).If you think that the USSR was communism, you have bought Stalin propaganda.

Sorry, didn't mean to use a term in it's unpure form.

You know what trostkism says about the USSR? We say it was a deformed workers state. We say it was a burocrtized workers state. We say it was traitioned revolution. I mean, we don't like them. They killed Trotsky.

I know they killed Trotsky but I don't really know that many details. He believed that the workers would take over the world, right? My Russian history only goes up to Catherine the Great and it's sketchy during WWI. I know more about the WWII era. I am very familiar with Marx from studying Economics.

catherine the great?

didn't she have a fondness for horses? or maybe that was just a rumor

sorry, I couldn't resist

LOL, I'm not sure about the validity of that! She did have a fondness for many men!

that's right. to say that she slept around is quite an understatement. I understand she pretty much gave it away after her attendants had tried the guy out first? yeeesh!