Who else is reading it ?
I'm at page 28 and I find it terrific. It's a really nice improvement over the old version.
And I think this is now the best book that exists to give to other people, and it can be given without hesitation because the ideas are profound yet they are fun in this form.
Does it actually have a good explanation of ABCT?
Political Atheists Blog
I would like to know the same thing. I've always heard Schiff blame "easy credit" among other things for the crisis, but I've never heard him explain in economic terms why that is bad. He just says too much consumption and not enough savings is unsustainable. True, but he never mentions malinvestments, time preference, higher order goods, etc.
I read the .pdf of the first chapter. It's definitely written for people with no understanding of economics at all, but nonetheless, it was pretty good.
At least he wasn't a Keynesian!
I've always heard Schiff blame "easy credit" among other things for the crisis, but I've never heard him explain in economic terms why that is bad.
Sure he does. I'll repeat his explanation. When you lend money to people who cannot possibly repay it, you are going to lose that money. When banks lent so much money to people to buy houses who could not possibly afford to repay the loan, guess what happened? The banks lost all that money. Enter the bailouts.
He just says too much consumption and not enough savings is unsustainable. True,
Need he say more then?
but he never mentions malinvestments, time preference, higher order goods, etc.
As for malinvestments, sure he does. Building all those houses was a malinvestment, and he calls it that.
The concepts of time preference and higher order goods are more relevant in the olden days, when consumers had a VERY HARD TIME getting any kind of loan. To get a housing loan, they had to come up with 20% in cash, prove very nicely that they had a steady job that would enable them to repay their mortgage, pay a hefty interest rate, and of course, prove that the house that was their colatteral was actually worth MORE than the money they were being lent. There were no such things as credit cards, of course.
So that when freshly printed money was divvied out to the banks, they lent it to businesses. And what the businessmen did with the money was determined by the interest rate, with low interest rates meaning investment in higher order goods, etc.
But this time around TONS of money was lent to the man in the street, not just to the business community. And the real headache was caused by what the man in the street did with his borrowed money [buy a house he couldn't afford with money he could never repay].
My humble blog
It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
I just finished reading through the old version. I really like this format because as you said, you can give this to anyone and introduce them to the concepts.
I know Lilburne has his Human Action comics (which are a great start!); now imagine we had a compiled form in the form of a graphic novel. It would be a great way to introduce people to Austrian economics. Or... does this already exist? :) If it does, there's a few people I'd like to introduce it to!