[beermonster]

Can anyone recommend some good blog articles or books (aimed at lay people) on how the global economy works, bank interactions with other banks, and government management of inflation and interest rates?

I'd like to understand a bit about both the previous crash and the current banking crisis, but feel I need to do some background reading first.

[losvedir]

Be careful out there reading blogs. Maybe I'm biased because I have a degree in Econ from MIT, but I'd highly recommend starting out with the "orthodox" treatment of the subject, as you'd learn at a university. To that end Core Econ[0] is a very solid, free, engaging, easy to read book that covers it. Chapter 10, "Banks, money, and the credit market", is particularly what you're asking about. You can take a look at the authors and editorial board[1] and you'll see they're a bunch of professors and professional economists at banks, that sort of thing.

I've had some thought provoking fun reading, e.g. unorthodox "Austrian School" economics by Mises, but you should be wary of reading blogs, as lots of incorrect things in Econ can sound convincing if you don't have the right background.

[0] https://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/0-3-contents... [1] https://www.core-econ.org/meet-core/

[hgomersall]

In the words of Joan Robinson "The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists." Everything written by mainstream economists should be taken in such light. Being a professional economist is not the authority you suggest it is.

[andruby]

As opposed to the arm-chair economists writing blogpost with an agenda?

Economics is not an exact science like maths or physics. "The Economy" is the collective human activity. It depends on so many actors. Actors who don't have full information, and who don't actually behave in a rational way.

Yes, I would be weary of anyone who speaks in absolutes and you should use your own common sense and judgement.

[reginaldo]

That the Austrian School is being singled out is particularly interesting right now, given that they are highly critical of fractional-reserve banking precisely because it might generate crises such as the one we're living through. Chapter 10 of the Core Econ book does not feature the word "fractional" and only talks about reserves and money creation in passing [0]

So I hope that, like the Index, you warning steers people towards instead of away from austrian aconomics :)

[0] https://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/10.html#108-...

[_heimdall]

+1

I started college as a business major focusing on finance. Ended up switching to software but got enough finance under my belt to know the basics.

Definitely start with learning the basics of the "standard" models used by mainstream economists today. Whether you end up going down the rabbit hole of Austrian economics or bitcoin madness, it's best to know what the mainstream view is first IMO. Know your enemies, and all that

[cyclecount]

https://twitter.com/moshik_temkin/status/1637033761794674688

>> The thing that people don't understand about these elite, neoclassical economists from Harvard, MIT, etc. is that while their whole brand is being "empirical" and objective, they are as ideological and politically driven as the most ardent Maoist who ever existed

[plaidfuji]

As a layperson with no economic credentials, I’d recommend books with a bit of entertainment value, even if they may gloss over some details. It’s still important to understand the basic theory and mechanics of the financial markets, but it’s equally important to understand the human factors and politics involved, and some of these more narrative books are helpful in that regard.

I found The Big Short both entertaining and enlightening on the 2008 crash, a while back I also read “The Number” by Alex Berenson, which focuses more on corporate equities and the rise of earnings per share as a driving metric.. I did also read about half of an older book called “Secrets of the Temple”, which gives a history of how Paul Volcker handled the inflation crisis of the 80s. That was more dense but really helped solidify my understanding of the Fed. I’ve also recently started “Random Walk through Wall Street”, which again is mostly equities-focused but so far seems to give a balanced take on the financial and human factors.

As far as explaining the most recent crisis, I’ve found this blog [0] to be the most informative, approachable and somewhat entertaining. Very clear explanation of what exactly the BTFP program is doing, with a healthy amount of speculation about how it could be abused and potential effects of that. Disclaimer that it’s written by a crypto researcher, but there’s very little content about crypto.

[0] https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/kaiseki-b15230bdd09e

[kyaghmour]

Have a look at "Investing in Stocks, How to Win Big! Strategizing, Positioning, and Leveraging for Success" by Kishore Mishra. It's self-pub on Amazon. The title is truly horrendous, the text would benefit from an editor, the layout would benefit from professional typesetting, etc. But it's written by an EE. I started reading it a while ago and liked how he approached the explanation from the ground up. It spoke to my engineering mind. Unfortunately I had to set it aside and it's been on my shelf for a while. But I'm thinking of picking it up again.

I had discovered this author by reading another book he wrote entitled "Advanced Chip Design, Practical Examples in Verilog". Also self-pub and also suffering from lots of self-pub issues. But the essentials were more-or-less there.

[hgomersall]

Oh crumbs, you're going to get wildly different understandings depending on what camp the books come from. Personally, I'm of the view that the most coherent understanding comes from the MMT crowd, but much of that is quite subtle and open to deep misinterpretation (and regularly is). Warren Moslers' writings are excellent, but make you think https://moslereconomics.com/mandatory-readings/. Neil Wilson writes in a very accessible way and has bite size articles that cover many things you're talking about: https://new-wayland.com/blog/ (IMO, that blog is full of gold).

[rendall]

I like to watch Economics Explained https://youtube.com/@EconomicsExplained

A book I read and enjoyed is "Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science". It helped me understand what economics even is.

[optiomal_isgood]

It does not cover everything you asked for, but Ray Dalio has a excellent 30 min. video that explains ELI5 how the economy works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0

[panphora]

Lords of Finance - a nonfiction book by Liaquat Ahamed about events leading up to and culminating in the Great Depression as told through the personal histories of the heads of the Central Banks of the world's four major economies at the time.

[VoodooJuJu]

That's none of your concern, plus it's far too complex for someone like you to understand - a lot of complex math and statistical models that only we can understand. Just leave everything to us.

[lamontcg]

I'd recommend the books by Galbraith -- Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went, The Great Crash 1929, and A Short History of Financial Euphoria.

That is some pretty timeless background.