The anti-Dobbs

Lou Dobbs (and many others like him) has a large following because economic illiteracy is widespread -- in spite of the best efforts of many of us who have spent a lifetime teaching principles.

Diane Coyle, in Sex Drugs and Economics, has some things to say about all this. But hers is not the only one of a spate of recent books (by Arnold Kling, by Tim Harford, by Tom Sowell, and many others, some listed here) which are absolutely readable, insightful and informative. The writers have done their job; it is the readers who are not doing theirs.

Coyle ends her book with "Ten Rules of Economic Thinking". (Among them is: "3. Metaphorical time bombs don't explode."). Perhaps these should have been labeled "Ten Inconvenient Truths."

But Coyle has done her job, finally linking sex with economics. She has neatly outflanked Lou Dobbs.