Look at the long term...it's important!

Look to the long term...that's the main message of Applied Economics. Dr. Sowell is a master of making the complex understandable. This book covers a number of topics such as rent control, land use restrictions, and corporate tax rates. He follows each through to its logical conclusion, pointing out that politicians often cast votes with an eye only on the current election cycle. We need to make wise decisions based on sound facts, not emotion or sound bytes. Dr. Sowell is a very wise man, and a wonderfully effective teacher! Any book he writes is worth reading! 100 percent!!!!

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41 people found this helpful

Comprehensive and yet easy to listen to

An in depth and well articulated work on the goings on of the American economy. Despite the comments of other reviewers, this book does not support the 'right wing' Rebuplican agenda like books by Glen Beck or Ann Coulter might. Rather, Sowell focuses on economic facts and calls members of both political parties for actions taht tend to damage economic prosperity.

Also, unlike the political cheerleader authors, Sowell's works are more educational in nature, and spend lest time bashing anyone than they do explaining actions and consequences. While he certainly notes that politicians (on both sides) tend to act against the best long term interests of economic growth... he shows why they will inevitably do so, regardless of party, by outlining the incentives that govern political decisionmaking in relation to economics.

Well worth the read, regardless of your political orientation. Be warned, however, the economics discussed here is based on looking at the choices real people make rather than on studying the aggregated graphs of entire populations (ala John Keynes). It's an easy listen as well, despite the offputting title. The prose is light and isn't filled with overly academic pretention, and the narrator handles the material well.

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36 people found this helpful

Vintage Sowell

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Thomas Sowell writes more clearly on economic issues than almost anyone else (though sadly he recently retired from writing). While others think and analyze in aggregates (women earn less than men, black men are disproportionately murder victims, the bottom 20% aren't making real economic progress), Sowell breaks down the figures to show that comparable women have earnings nearly identical to comparable men, black men are disproportionately the shooters in homicides and the people who were in the bottom 20% a generation ago aren't there now (unless they still don't add economic value to others). His conclusions don't fit neatly onto protesters' signs or into pithy slogans, however.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Sowell clearly explains that discrimination is more prevalent where the costs are low (everyone else also discriminates against a certain group, or there are so few laborers of a particular race or gender that excluding them barely shrinks the pool) and less prevalent when the costs are high (employers lose a competitive advantage because they hire inferior workers who reflect their biases).

Any additional comments?

If you haven't read Sowell, you can't talk intelligently on discrimination, economic distribution or the differences in economic performance and income of individuals with different racial, ethnic and gender characteristics. Period.

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8 people found this helpful

Great Writing Poor Reading

How could the performance have been better?

While listening to this book I was impressed by the excellence of the writing but disappointed as I found myself again and again distracted by the reader. The reader seems to think it's his job to dramatize the book. In all books, especially non-fiction, the reader's influence should fade into the background so that the writing comes to the forefront. This reader almost seems to be trying to upstage the writer by continually bringing the focus back to himself. It was a solid text and very interesting, I just wish they had rehired the guy who read Sowell's "Basic Economics."

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8 people found this helpful

For the far right only

What would have made Applied Economics better?

Less bias.

What do you think your next listen will be?

A German audiobook

What didn’t you like about Bill Wallace’s performance?

Well, it may not have been his fault. The book was often off the wall. He came across a little pompous, but, again, it may be the book content that caused me to hear it that way.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

It made a few valid points.

Any additional comments?

This is a book that started with a conclusions in favor of the economic policies of the far right, then looked for a way to get there. At one point it suggested that the poor have adequate access to medical care via emergency room. This is often untrue. Emergency room only handle emergencies, not e.g. a chronic, non-life threatening events--and of course very expensive. Or it talked about how the founder of Woolworth started by working for free. How the success of a super-compentent person over a century ago applies to those less gifted today, the book did not say. If you are a member of the Tea Party, and only want to be told what you want to hear, you will like this book. Everyone else, including thoughtful conservatives, likely will find many shortcomings.

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7 people found this helpful

Read it twice

I read Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics before this one, and it is a good follow up. It does repeat a lot of the same themes covered in BE but with more focus on the long-run effects of policies that may appear to pay off in the short run. He also does diverge somewhat towards the end in his discussion about immigration, but it's still good analysis even if he sort of goes off on a tangent. Sowell is a master teacher, able to explain economics without charts and graphs and be understood.

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7 people found this helpful

Flawed book

This book is actually two books, somewhat intertwined: When the author discusses the develoment of civilizations or migration patterns he is interesting and insightful. For that, the book was worth it.

But then there is the second book, in which the author promotes extreme free-market libertarianism. His argumentation has two flaws. First, he uses evidence selectively to support his own thesis. First, he says that you cannot critisize the US healthcare system based on life expectancy, because there are other factors. Twenty minutes later he critisizes the healthcare system under the Soviets, partly based on life expectancy.

Second, and more fundamentally, he assumes that all government actions represent a failure to "think beyond stage one". He seems unable to understand that people might accept that political decisions arrive at sub-optimal economic results. It is possible that free markets might have eliminated Jim Crow laws after another hundred years, but that is not what people wanted.

The narrator is mediocre, tending to drag out the end of words in an annoying way that stresses the condecension of the author in his arguments.

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6 people found this helpful

Remembering political economy

When I was studying economics as an undergraduate, it was called political economy. Dr. Sowell's book illustrates how politics drives economics. The discussion of housing prices in California was especially illuminating to me. It makes me wonder how much of the cost of medical care is driven by politics.

I found this book to be very "listenable" and and helped numerous three hour commutes go by quickly.

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6 people found this helpful

Applied Economics

Applied Economics by Thomas Sowell is a book of hate and right-wing extremist political propaganda in a veil of economics.

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6 people found this helpful

I'm not a free markets zealot, so not for me

I love to read books that promise to pierce my mental bubbles. However, those pinpricks must be propelled by evidence.
This author holds his many opinions very confidently, but drifts lightly over the facts.
One example is healthcare: He is all in on free markets and despises public healthcare.
As fatal flaws in public healthcare systems, he points to patients in public healthcare systems who must wait to receive non-urgent treatment. He points to government bureaucrats who have a say on whether treatments are justified.
Does he show how his beloved free market system would avoid those flaws? Does he deal with the poor and middle-class patients who must wait forever because they can't afford treatment? Does he deal with the free-market bureaucrats who instead decide which treatments might be covered or not?
He does not.
I sensed that he is fully satisfied with preaching to the converted and could not care less about convincing me of his views.
I am not worth his trouble; he is of no service to me. Let us not bother each other.

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5 people found this helpful