I've seen a few reviewers of this book decry 'politically motivated' criticism of this book, and I scratch my head at the notion. First, the attempt to keep a neat tidy box around what can be deemed political or not. (I tend to err on the side of more things being political than not.) Second, the inability to understand that economics is a political science.

Jonathan Gruber, professor of Economics at MIT, opens his Microeconomics course (freely available on YouTube!) with a crucially important observation: Economics is a right-wing science. In that, it's basic principles and logical conclusions lead towards right-wing politics. Less government intervention. More dependence on the free market. More individual autonomy. This may seem offensive to both adherents and critics of Landsburg. Adherents may protest the claim that a 'science' can be political and critics may find that it proves their suspicions of Landsburg's policy conclusions.

Landsburg's book succeeds when it focuses on those economic principles, and it falls short when it attempts to present them as unassailable.

I’ll provide an example, not from this book, but instead that you would find in many introduction to economics textbooks. That minimum wage laws lead to unemployment. The basic economic theory here is not hard to follow. A minimum wage is effectively a price floor. Price floors set below the equilibrium price do nothing. Price floors set above the equilibrium price create a surplus because the prices are too high for many people who would otherwise be interested. In this example a surplus in labor would translate to higher unemployment rate.

This example is sound economic theory, and the logic rather straightforward. But the wrinkle is that in reality we have seen very different things happening when minimum wage laws are enacted. The effects we observe neither prove or disprove the theory. Instead, they point to a complicated outcome with various factors and inputs.

This is where Landsburg’s book falls short. It presents a very basic introduction to economic thought as a very basic introduction to economics. I think there’s a vast difference between the two. Learning to think like an economist is different than learning to be an economist.

I suppose it’s unfair to malign the book for its inability to crunch various undergrad courses into a single 200-something page popular economics book but alas! The book is a fine introduction to economic thought, but economic thought is not necessarily the end all be all way to analyze the world. It’s an important tool in the toolbox and this book serves as a passable starter set. ( )

Robert Crais' The Two Minute Rule is a captivating thriller that has it all: non-stop action, nail-biting suspense, deepening mystery and even the hint of a romance! It doesn't take long to get caught in the complex web and find that you can't wait to get to the next chapter to see what happens next.

The book is well written and the pacing is perfect. The characters are fully fleshed out until we feel like we know them inside and out.

Max Holman was a career criminal, busted on his final bank robbery and has just finished his ten year prison sentence. On the eve of his release he learns his son, a police officer, has been gunned down and killed. Max's world is turned upside down from that moment, as he vows to find and bring his son's killer to justice. He elicits the help of the last person on earth you would expect him to, the former FBI agent that put him away, now a financially struggling single mother. Together they find themselves steeped in a mystery with twists and turns that will amaze you. They also find themselves face to face with a killer who knows no bounds and will let no one stand in his way. ( )

Fun little read from the author of the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike stories. This one, though, is a stand alone story, not part of the series. It was a good read, full of red herrings, not ending the way I expected at all. Nothing spectacular, but a solid book overall. ( )

The plot is not bad, with suspense and some twists, but the writing and sentence construction feels like a high school composition in places... It was quite jarring at times and prevented me from getting as much into the book. ( )

Perhaps Connelly may be wearing thin for me, but Crais takes over. This is a wonderful detective story with no real detectives. The day a guy gets out after ten years in prison, his estranged son is murdered. The father is a bank robber, the son a policeman. The murder is very complicated and the father isn't getting any help from the police who are investigating. He enlists the aid of a divorced, widowed ex-FBI agent who was the one who arrested him and put him in jail. The writing is better than Connelly and these characters are wonderful. A great read. ( )