Economics

Matt — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:53:25 +0000

Seriously, everyone should read The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. He’s on the £20 note, so he must be good, right?

After almost a year working in the finance industry in London, what I learned was that the Tube is so late so often that you can read quite a lot of books. One of the books was The Wealth of Nations, which is a very well-thought-out argument for free markets. Steve has kept arguing that free markets were A Good Thing for pretty much as long as I’ve known him, but nothing convinced me as well as Adam Smith’s extremely plausible reasoning.

Anyway, long story short: read it – despite its age, it is very good.

Incompetnce

Matt — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 23:39:39 +0000

This book is very funny, if a little close to the bone. The plot is basically a sort of spy thriller and in that respect its not particularly good. The real genius is setting it in the near future where, by European law:

No person shall be prejudiced from employment in any capacity, at any level, by reason of age, race, creed or incompitence.

Rob Grant, one of the guys who wrote Red Dwarf, envisages a world where it is impossible to get anything done, with many Kafka-esque situations of extreme idiocy in feedback mode… He also picks up on the modern tendency to invent “syndromes” and “disorders”. For example: NSS or “Non-Specific Stupidity”, for those people who are stupid, but none of the other syndromes or disorders is applicable. They then get equal opportunities for jobs and promotions, meaning companies have to employ a certain percentage of “stupid” people.

Wonderfully farcical.

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Economics

Incompetnce