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More About This Title Big Picture Economics: How to Navigate the New Global Economy
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Navigate the economy with this insightful new book
The world is awash with economic information. Governments release reports. Pundits give their interpretation on television. And the stock market may go its own way, confusing everyone. How can you better understand what it means for you?
Big Picture Economics, a new book by award-winning columnist and futurist Joel Naroff and veteran journalist Ron Scherer, says the thread that ties everything together is "context."
The authors show how consumers, business, the Federal Reserve, and government take into account what's going on around them to make critical decisions like buying new products, building new factories, changing interest rates, or setting budget goals. The book provides a clear roadmap to understanding the whole story behind the global economy.
Big Picture Economics helps readers understand how context impacts decisions and decision makers.
- The Federal Reserve and Congress in formulating economic policy
- Consumers in a shopper nation and what makes us buy or not buy
- Corporations making decisions on whether to build new factories and buy other companies
- The federal budget that must deal with complex issues, including the reduction of health care spending
- A simple test for tax cuts or increases: will they help the economy grow?
- Where to produce and where to sell in a global economy that is more like a Mobius strip than a flat world
- International events that can ripple through the economy and ultimately affect workers in the Midwest
- Technology, such as intelligent drones to wearable computers, are changing the future
Experts laud the book for its perceptive insights:
"It all sounds like common sense, but it is actually based on a close, expert reading of economic history and what that history implies for the future. Read this book to become a more educated judge of economic policy."
—Robert Moffitt, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins University
"Naroff and Scherer show how seemingly unrelated things like an upgrade of the Panama Canal, a Tex-Mex restaurant's menu change, or how many Americans are overweight turn out to be intricately linked to our daily experiences. What brings the book to life is the authors' focus on these hidden interconnections."
—Brendan Conway, blogger and columnist, Barron's
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JOEL L. NAROFF is a nationally recognized expert and recipient of the Lawrence Klein Award for Blue Chip forecasting excellence and the National Association of Business Economists Outlook Award. Named the Bloomberg Business News 2008 top economic forecaster, Naroff was also named top economic forecaster by MSNBC in 2006. Data compiled by Bloomberg shows Naroff as the top forecaster of the U.S. economy during a period that included the start of the global credit crisis.
RON SCHERER is a veteran journalist who has worked for UPI, U.S. News & World Report, and for The Christian Science Monitor, a prize-winning publication. In his 37 years at the Monitor, he covered Wall Street, economic policy during the Reagan administration, and many of the important news and economic events of the day.
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Acknowledgments xiii
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Economics of Context 1
Chapter 2: The Federal Reserve, Congress, and the Use of Context in Economic Policy 15
Chapter 3: We Are All Economists and Don’t Know It 35
Chapter 4: How a Perfect World Would Work 57
Chapter 5: Shopper Nation: Why We Buy or Don’t Buy 79
Chapter 6: How Is a Can of Tuna Like a Smartphone? Yes, Context! 101
Chapter 7: When to Spend, When to Cut, and When to Scratch Your Head Over the Federal Budget 123
Chapter 8: Tax Policy: Does Cutting Taxes Cure All Ills? 149
Chapter 9: Monetary Policy: Money, or Maybe the Federal Reserve, Makes the World Go ’Round 169
Chapter 10: The Panama Canal Widens and the Middle Class Grows in China—How Does That Affect Indiana? 187
Chapter 11: What Do We Do Now? 207
About the Authors 227
Index 229
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“Readers fearful (and rightly so) that a book about economics is probably dry and impenetrable can relax. Naroff and Scherer have delivered their ideas in richly readable stories, such as the tales of a trucker and a Tex-Mex restaurant that enliven the first chapter.”
—Kevin Post, Business Editor, Press of Atlantic City, April 26, 2014
