The Washington Post recently asked a host of ‘smart people’ for recommendations on what book will help us make sense of the current economic climate.
Those asked include Peter Orszag (Director, Congressional Budget Office); Greg Mankiw (professor of economics at Harvard University); and John Allen Paulos (author and mathematics professor at Temple University). However, my favourite reply came from Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, chairman of HDNet, and the founder of Broadcast.com (sold to Yahoo in ’99 for $6 billion):
“I don’t think there is such a book. In my humble opinion, people who actually believe they can understand all the issues are the ones that got us to where we are today. In reality, there are so many variables and so little data, it’s all a guess. I don’t think a book exists that can explain it. Is there a book out there called ‘No One Has a Clue What Is Going On and the Whole World Is Guessing’?”
via Paul Kedrosky