The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why The Rich Are Rich, The Poor Are Poor–And Why You Can Never Buy A Decent Used Car! – Tim Harford

July 4, 2024, 6:02 pm
I was set against Tim Harford on the very first page of this book, where he details his habit of reading books he has not yet purchased in the bookshop cafe, to see if he'd like to buy them. There are many different strategies to do that. Showing us the world through the eyes of an economist, Tim Harford reveals that everyday events are intricate games of negotiations, contests of strength, and battles of wits. This covers, among other things, why the gap between rich and poor nations is so great, why it's so difficult to get a foot on the property ladder, or why you can't buy a decent second-hand car. Offshore wind farms play to some oil-company strengths; they know a lot about large metal structures in the North Sea. Tim harford ibm undercover economist printer.com. InEfficient: if we can point to a change that could make at least one personbetter off. And for IBM, the shift from a mechanical tabulator to a mainframe digital computer was like the shift from rifles to the machine gun: an awesome step up in firepower, but a modest adjustment to organisational capacity. These ideas are easy to grasp as he illustrates with an impressive number of examples, some of which include buying second-hand cars, game theory in auction settings, why healthcare works in very different ways among countries, the impact of corruption on growth etc. Sasson worked for Eastman Kodak, where in 1989 he and his colleagues also constructed the first modern digital SLR camera. And he never acknowledges the difficulties involved in implementing his 'solutions'. Instead, you have to carefully think about what products youbuy, no matter where you 't buy out of member that the seller might be willing to sell you a dud product just to get your money.

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Generally these are taxes on things that add costs to the wider society in order to ensure that the steps to manage these problems can be paid for. It predates the digital computer by more than three decades. Transactions in a free market make buyers and sellers better off, or at least not worse off. Game theory as a basis of modern day frequency auctions of governments.

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As a mass-market, manufactured product it is closer to the skill set of Ikea than Exxon. Finally, some stores, like supermarkets, often price their goods randomly, so try to be aware of how prices change so you don't get tricked. Consider, for example, IBM — the giant of mainframe computing. There may be no solution at all. Why big companies squander good ideas | Financial Times. And it would also explain why flight attendants sometimes physically restrain passengers from the cheap seats from stepping off the plane before the passengers from first and business class. For example, it took mere decades for South Korea to become a wealthy nation after opening itself up to the world market. Tap water is also free in restaurants.

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قبل كتابة الريفيو فى ملاحظة بسيطة. The book is basically trying to get you to look at the world through the lens of economics. London, for example, introduced the congestion charge, that people had to pay when driving through a certain area of town. But have you ever stopped to think why these problems always happen? It's a very simple point: the more hassle it is to start a business, the more one has to pay in taxes, and the less likely one is to be secure in his property, the less incentive there is to exert effort and produce. If you value clean air or public transit, then you probably don'tfeel you've gotten what you want by being stuck in smoggy traffic on your morning how can we account for this? I>The Undercover Economist: Depriving the poor keeps the wealthy spending. China might be able to produce a TV in only half an hour, but their specialty is in manufacturing DVD players. By offering options, they ensure that each customer can pay the maximum for their product. Sweatshops are not evil (because workers there earn more money than if they'd stayed on the farm, silly! ) But there is something about the "idiot" theory that feels too glib. For an economist this guy is almost a communist! The upstream farmers dont need help, so the downstream farmers no longer have anything to offer on their sideof the deal. Often, the core purpose of a local leader is to enrich himself personally, even to exploit the people. Perfectly competitive markets result in four main components: 1.

The new technology gets better and, one day, the incumbent wakes up to discover that an upstart challenger has several years' head start — and once-loyal customers have jumped ship. He proposes that this be done by putting a value on the production of CO2 or other pollutants and allowing the market to then adjust to that cost. Tim harford ibm undercover economist printers. Even the greatest railways of the 1800s never made exceptional returns for their shareholders. Companies use a variety of strategies to get us to pay the highest possible price for their products.

For example, if someone's behavior issimply annoying, and not truly harmful, then it doesn't make sense to tax it. The first is cheap and the latter expensive, but that isn't the only difference.