Economics of the 1% : How Mainstream Economics Serves the Rich, Obscures Reality and Distorts Policy

 Content: Cover; Title; Copyright; CONTENTS; Preface DR BOB'S THIRD LAW; Further Reading; Web addresses for progressive economists; Introduction ECONOMIC IGNORANCE; Further Reading; Chapter 1 FAKECONOMICS AND ECONOMICS; Idolatry of Competition; Teflon Pseudoscience; How Real Markets Operate; Where Econfakers Dwell; Fakeconomics and Economics: Name and Shame; Further Reading; Price discrimination; Nonsense-free economics; The nonsense itself (approach with great care); Chapter 2 MARKET WORSHIP; What Is Competition?; Why Markets Go Bad; The "Labor Market"; Workers Cause Their Unemployment? Further ReadingHow markets work; Chapter 3 FINANCE AND CRIMINALITY; Why a Financial Sector?; Cost of the Financial Crisis; Financial Markets: Folks like You and Me; Further Reading; For the technical stuff simply presented; Chapter 4 SELLING MARKET MYTHS; Designing Deception; Resources Are Scarce; The Supply and Demand Scam; Resources Abundant, Wants Limited; Nonsense of Consumer "Choice"; Further Reading; Chapter 5 RICHES, "SOVEREIGNTY" AND" FREE TRADE"; Even You Can Be Rich; Consumer Is Sovereign; Everyone Gains from Free Trade; Trivia pursuit; Further Reading For an impressively shallow defense of free tradeA balanced treatment of the World Trade Organization; The real economics of trade; The Chang-Bhagwati debate on trade and manufacturing; Chapter 6 LIES ABOUT GOVERNMENT; Government Is a Burden; Wasting Money on Social(ist) Spending; Markets and Governments; Further Reading; Chapter 7 DEFICIT DISORDERS AND DEBT DELIRIUM; Peddling Nonsense; Public and Private: Debts and Deficits; Calculating Public Deficits; US GDP and public finances, 2005-2010 (billions of dollars and percentages); Calculating Public Debt; US public debt, end of 2010 Interest payments on public debt, percentage of GDP, 2010Further Reading; Chapter 8 GOVERNMENTS CAUSE INFLATION?; Fears of Inflation; What Is Money?; Too Much Money Causes Inflation?; What Is Inflation?; Why Do Prices Go Up?; Inflation Fears: A Class Act; Chapter 9 INSTITUTIONALIZED MISERY: AUSTERITY IN PRACTICE; Balanced Budget Ideology; Deficit Disorder in the Land of the Free; Fear and Financial Market Loathing in the UK; Great Euro Scam; 99% in Thrall to the 1%; Chapter 10 ECONOMICS OF THE 99%; Wealth Accumulates and Democracy Decays; Fakeconomics and Class Struggle Open Debate in EconomicsEconomics in a Decent Society; Implementing Economics for the 99%; "Our Future Lies before Us"; Notes; Preface; Introduction; Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9; Chapter 10; Index
 Abstract:             How much do economists really know? In most cases, they claim to have profound knowledge but in fact understand little and obscure almost everything. Most people are convinced that economics should be left to the ?experts', when they themselves are perfectly capable of understanding it. This book explains that mainstream economics serves the interests of the rich through its logical inconsistency and unabashedly reactionary conclusions. John F. Weeks exposes the myths of mainstream economics and explains in straightforward language why current policies fail to serve the vast majority of p