Hazel Henderson reviews Phishing for Phools and its relevancy to economics.
Hazel Henderson reviews End of Banking and its relevancy to economics.
Addresses insights and shortcomings of each book as compared to each other.
Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation & Deception by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller, Princeton University Press, 2015
The End of Banking: Money Credit and the Digital Revolution by Jonathan McMillan, Zero/One Economics GmbH, Zurich, Switzerland, 2014
In Phishing for Phools, George Akerlof and Robert Shiller, two more eminent economists join the de-frocking of conventional economics, led by the late John Kenneth Galbraith and more recently by Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Romer. The authors’ critiques of conventional theory: efficient markets, rational expectations and other fantasies of the invisible hand are commonplace, even questioning Arrow and Debreu and their obsession with “market completion” and “general equilibrium” models. Yet, Akerlof and Shiller maintain excessive deference to their academic clan. They annoyingly overuse the word “equilibrium,” referring to many micro-market abuses. Truth to tell, the discipline of economics has spawned a powerful profession with its claims as a “science” and its misuse of mathematics, along with dangerously faulty financial models that underlay the crises of 2008 and its effects still plaguing the global casino.