Download the PDF. Economic models of the traditional and well-known sense usually describe either manufactured physical goods or services performed, both of which are scarce resources: only so much grain can be grown, for instance—or widgets churned out of an industrial plant, or pipes plumbed by professionals. Short of espionage, even the market for Information [...]
It would be virtually impossible to overstate the size, scope, and power of Wal-Mart. It’s the largest retailer in the world, the largest public company of any sort in the world (by revenue), and since opening its Superstores it has also become the largest grocer in the world. Everyone is likely familiar with the most [...]
Singularity Sky is one of Charlie Stross’ first and most famous works, and therefore predates the other books of his that I have read—namely Accelerando and Halting State. If the two, Singularity Sky more closely resembles the former, being something of a treatise on the economic, political, and cultural effects of a point when technology [...]
Everybody knows something about the oil industry, or at least they think they do. Every summer, when the cost of gasoline rises in America, watercooler conversations are pregnant with from-the-hip remarks about the cause of high prices. It’s Bush, or it’s the war in Iraq, or it’s the CEO of Exxon—whatsisname, Scrooge McDuck. I’ve also [...]
I don’t recall at what point I became aware of John Perkin’s tell-all exposé on the seedy underworld of global politics, but while the idea was intriguing, it sounded a bit too exaggerated for my tastes, and I left it well enough alone. Finally, I could not resist the temptation to read this tome by [...]
When Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner published Freaknomics several years ago, they gained a bit of mainstream fame as popular science writers (think Malcolm Gladwell). They also stirred up controversy with their assertion that abortion lowers the crime rate, which also raised a ruckus for poor Bill Bennett, who didn’t deserve it for once. For [...]
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