How an economy grows and why it crashes book review

How an economy grows and why it crashes is a book on economics, if you haven’t guessed already. The book was written by Peter Schiff. It deals the basics of economics and also stuff that is a little more advanced. It replaces money with fish, and inside the book, there are several pictures. This makes it easier to understand than other beginner economics books. The book also loosely follows some economics events that happened in American history later in the book. The book is also very short, so it doesn’t take that long to read.

I’ll give you some important points in the book.

1. People spend, because an economy grows, not the other way around. The government thinks, the opposite and tries to give a stimulus for spending so that the economy’s position can become better, but they are puzzled when this doesn’t work.
2. Savings is what allows people to create goods. If somebody is building a house they have to have accumulated savings. While he is building the house he can’t be earning money to feed himself at the same time. (His job is not a construction worker.) If he does not have enough savings he will most likely starve to death before he completes the house. This is why you need savings before creating goods or anything else that takes a considerable amount of time and other resources, i.e. infrastructure.
3. In a free market, economy prices go down over time. This happens, because over time people get better at their jobs and use their savings, to improve the quality of the goods they use to produce their products. Or the producers figure out a cheaper alternative altogether. In shorter words, they are making the production process more cost-efficient. This means that they can decrease the prices of their product while still making the same amount of profit. The producers would probably be making more money because the lower prices of their product cause more customers to buy the product.

How an economy grows and why it crashes is great economics book. The writing is well done and easy to understand. Anybody who wants to start learning about economics should pick up this book. It is a great beginner book. It explains the basics while also covering slightly more advanced topics.

Get the book HERE:

Western Civ Week 1: Hebrew History

This is the essay for the 1st week of the 9th Grade Tom Woods Homeschool. It’s A Summary of the Hebrew History from Abraham to Moses.

Abraham

Abraham had a divine promise from God that he had to travel from Mesopotamia to Canaan. In canaan, he would become the father of a great empire. So, he travels west and he arrived in Canaan. Back then it was believed that the biggest sacrifice to god was blood and the persons most valuable thing. In this case, Abrahams dearest thing was his son Isaac. He was about to sacrifice Isaac to god when God intervened and told Abraham that he didn’t have to sacrifice his son. Instead, Abraham sacrificed a ram to god.

When Isaac had become the right age, Abraham went looking for a good wife for Isaac. The wife couldn’t have been a Canaanite because she wouldn’t worship the true God. So Abraham went all the way back to Mesopotamia, found a suitable wife for Isaac, Rebekah. Then they traveled back to Canaan. Then Isaac and Rebekah marry, and Abraham dies.

Isaac, Jacob, and Esau

Isaac spent a pretty normal life. He had 2 children. Jacob and Esau. Esau was the older one. Jacob was jealous about this because Jacob had all the privileges for being the older son. First Jacob tricks Esau in giving him his birthright. When Isaac is about to give Esau a blessing, with the support of his mother, Jacob, deceives his father, and Isaac accidentally gives the blessing to Jacob instead. Esau is furious about this and plans on killing Jacob. Jacob has to flee from his home. While he is traveling Jacob sees a dream where God renews the promise he made to Abraham.

Eventually, Jacob reaches his uncle, Lahan. His uncle has two daughters, Leah and Rachel. Jacob makes a deal with Lahan, that if he works for him for 7 years he can marry Rachel. After this work and after the marriage ceremony it turns out that Jacob was tricked into marrying Leah, so he works another 7 years and then he marries Rachel. He finally decides to return to Esau and they are able to forgive each other. After this moment Jacob is called Isreal. He now has 12 sons. 10 from Leah and 2 from Rachel. Jacob spoils, Joseph a lot, which was his first child from Rachel. The other children know this and eventually, they get so annoyed at this and they sell Joseph to slavery.

Joseph

Joseph was sold to the pharaoh’s guard. He becomes a trusted servant but is thrown into jail for a false accusation on him. In jail he gains the ability, to be able to interpret the meaning of other people’s dreams. This makes him come to the attention of the pharaoh, who has had several cryptic dreams that he wants to know the meaning of. Joseph tells the Pharaoh that there is going to come to a great famine. So the Pharaoh makes a big stockpile of food and during the famine, Joseph’s family and other Hebrews come to Egypt for food. When Joseph and the Pharaoh that was Joseph’s friend, the next pharaoh enslaved the Hebrews. He orders all of the Hebrew boys to be killed.

Moses

One of the babies is cast on a river and the pharaoh’s daughter picks him up and brings him into the pharaoh’s household. This baby was Moses. He grew up in the pharaoh’s palace and would visit the Hebrews frequently. One day he sees an Egyptian overseer beating a Hebrew slave, Moses gets angry and kills the Egyptian overseer. For this, Moses has to leave the city and for some time he becomes a shepherd. During this time he saw a burning bush, that was not consumed by the flames. This signaled him to return to Egypt and free the Hebrews. The pharaoh wouldn’t agree though and instead, he increases the work the Hebrews have to do. God punishes this and brings on a big plaque, which makes the pharaoh release the Hebrews. This is the exodus. Moses crosses the red sea with the Hebrews, by praying for god and god in return, opens a passage through the water. Then Moses and the Hebrews travel for several days and eventually they reach Mt. Sinai, which Moses climbs. He comes down with the ten commandments when he sees the people worshiping a golden calf. He is furious and throws down the ten commandments, breaking them. The ten commandments are eventually rewritten and are put inside the ark of the covenant.

Economy, Society and History Course Review

This course as it says in the name uses economics, sociology, and history to explain well history. It goes through some specific events in human history, but it focuses more on the general human interactions between people and governments.

Instead of focusing each social science in its own area, he mixes them together to broaden the picture. So for history, instead of just having a timeline of events that, this happened after this and that, he explains why this is the case. In sociology, he explains why people the development of human society, but during certain time periods. In economics, he explains the economic consequences of certain decisions in history.

For example, explains why agricultural civilizations are better than hunter-gatherers but using economics. Agricultural societies, build up resources over, time which means that they have time to do other things than just hunt for food. This gives them time to build, houses and other goods.

You will also learn why the medieval times weren’t that bad as we thought and why were in some ways currently worse off. This is done using economics, and sociology. The peasants make deals with the lords that, they will work and go to war for the lord, and then the Lord will give them protection in return. But the peasants could just leave to another lord if the current one became too harsh. So no lords could go absolutely crazy. The king wasn’t the sole judge in all legal matters, but he was merely the most popular choice. If a person had a dispute he could go to the king, but also any other lord. With the state, the king made himself the only judge, thus allowing him to make crazy propositions.

The course is divided into 10, 1 hour and 30 minute long lectures.