Try it out by listening to a sample.
-
Fiscal Follies
- A Little Fun with Economics (and Economists)
- Narrated by: Virtual Voice
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $4.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Yet they’re often wrong. How can this be? How can a profession that sends one of these high priests to Scandinavia each year to receive a Nobel Prize for achievements in “Economic Science” be so error-prone? The answer is quite simple: Economics, and the social and soft sciences more generally, are not science in the same sense that physics and chemistry and engineering are science.
In Fiscal Follies, author Daniel C. Munson pricks the bubble of scientific pretension that surrounds economics and finance and the social sciences generally in a humorous, light-hearted way, and points out precisely why these forms of “science” are so different.
Fiscal Follies details the problems inherent in attempting to study humanity using charts and graphs and math, offering instead the idea that movies, plays, novels, music lyrics, and the simple facts of economic history—without all the polarizing platitudes-- can teach economics more effectively. The writing is neither academic nor filled with business jargon, yet it explores many thorny economic issues: social insurance, inflation vs. deflation, socialism, Wall Street pay, gold-backed currency, income tax fairness, energy policy, business school proliferation, etc.
The economic significance of many well-known people is explored in these articles and essays: Babe Ruth, Charles Dickens, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, California governor Jerry Brown, playwright George Bernard Shaw and literary figures Fran Lebowitz and Herman Melville, philosophers Jean Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx, the Beatles, Mick Jagger, Swedish rock group ABBA, movie characters played by Greta Garbo, Edward G. Robinson, James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, etc.
Light-hearted criticism of economic planning is done to try to have some FUN with this sometimes-pompous subject. Fiscal Follies seeks to appeal to a reading public that may be a little fed up with the economic and political “know-it-alls” who, though often wrong, still dominate policy discussions.
The book concludes with a chance encounter that forces our author to examine a specific moment in American economic and Civil War history that puts some of his ideas to the test.
This title uses virtual voice narration
Related to this topic
-
The Boyfriend
- By: Freida McFadden
- Narrated by: Victoria Connolly, Robb Moreira
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen it all: men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and worst of all, men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot. Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet. Then the brutal murder of a young woman—the latest in a string of deaths across the coast—confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them.
-
-
Just didn’t find it interesting.
- By Lori Cathey on 10-11-24
By: Freida McFadden
-
Here One Moment
- By: Liane Moriarty
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee, Geraldine Hakewill
- Length: 15 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The plane is jam-packed. Every seat is taken. So of course the flight is delayed! Flight attendant Allegra Patel likes her job—she’s generally happy with her life, even if she can’t figure out why she hooks up with a man she barely speaks to—but today is her twenty-eighth birthday. She can think of plenty of things she’d rather be doing than placating a bunch of grumpy passengers.
-
-
Too much of the death lady!
- By karen on 09-28-24
By: Liane Moriarty
-
Atomic Habits
- An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
- By: James Clear
- Narrated by: James Clear
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving - every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change.
-
-
start here, if you are looking to achieve in life
- By NL on 10-22-18
By: James Clear
-
Revenge of the Tipping Point
- Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why is Miami… Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial harmony? In this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious phenomena. Through a series of gripping stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new and troubling form of social engineering
-
-
Repetitive and boring
- By Gayle Allen on 10-08-24
By: Malcolm Gladwell
-
All the Colors of the Dark
- By: Chris Whitaker
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.
-
-
Best book of 2024
- By Jmo930 on 07-04-24
By: Chris Whitaker
-
10 Rules for the Perfect Murder
- By: James Patterson, Chris Tebbetts
- Narrated by: Reid Scott, Cobie Smulders, full cast
- Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the killing of a prominent mob lawyer, NYPD homicide detectives Jacob Jackson and Caitlin Grimes start receive chilling, written “rules” for how to commit the perfect murder. "Rule number one for the perfect murder: Evidence is your enemy. Leave none behind." Jackson (Reid Scott) and Grimes (Cobie Smulders) race to find the killer, setting them on a collision course with the city’s crime underbelly, and a perpetrator who seems happy to toy with them. “Rule number two. No crimes of passion. The perfect murder is always business, never pleasure.”
-
-
The ending
- By steven estrada on 10-29-24
By: James Patterson, and others
-
The Boyfriend
- By: Freida McFadden
- Narrated by: Victoria Connolly, Robb Moreira
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen it all: men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and worst of all, men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot. Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet. Then the brutal murder of a young woman—the latest in a string of deaths across the coast—confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them.
-
-
Just didn’t find it interesting.
- By Lori Cathey on 10-11-24
By: Freida McFadden
-
Here One Moment
- By: Liane Moriarty
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee, Geraldine Hakewill
- Length: 15 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The plane is jam-packed. Every seat is taken. So of course the flight is delayed! Flight attendant Allegra Patel likes her job—she’s generally happy with her life, even if she can’t figure out why she hooks up with a man she barely speaks to—but today is her twenty-eighth birthday. She can think of plenty of things she’d rather be doing than placating a bunch of grumpy passengers.
-
-
Too much of the death lady!
- By karen on 09-28-24
By: Liane Moriarty
-
Atomic Habits
- An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
- By: James Clear
- Narrated by: James Clear
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving - every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change.
-
-
start here, if you are looking to achieve in life
- By NL on 10-22-18
By: James Clear
-
Revenge of the Tipping Point
- Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why is Miami… Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial harmony? In this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious phenomena. Through a series of gripping stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new and troubling form of social engineering
-
-
Repetitive and boring
- By Gayle Allen on 10-08-24
By: Malcolm Gladwell
-
All the Colors of the Dark
- By: Chris Whitaker
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.
-
-
Best book of 2024
- By Jmo930 on 07-04-24
By: Chris Whitaker
-
10 Rules for the Perfect Murder
- By: James Patterson, Chris Tebbetts
- Narrated by: Reid Scott, Cobie Smulders, full cast
- Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the killing of a prominent mob lawyer, NYPD homicide detectives Jacob Jackson and Caitlin Grimes start receive chilling, written “rules” for how to commit the perfect murder. "Rule number one for the perfect murder: Evidence is your enemy. Leave none behind." Jackson (Reid Scott) and Grimes (Cobie Smulders) race to find the killer, setting them on a collision course with the city’s crime underbelly, and a perpetrator who seems happy to toy with them. “Rule number two. No crimes of passion. The perfect murder is always business, never pleasure.”
-
-
The ending
- By steven estrada on 10-29-24
By: James Patterson, and others