Tim Harford wrote a book I am currently reading, The Undercover Economist and writes a column for the Financial Times and my fave Slate, answering questions such as “why do I only have odd socks?” with the tools of economics. Have a look at the column “Dear Economist” here. Tim blames economists for the fact that people view economics as the “dismal science”, the early books on popular economics he says took it as a matter of pride to shock and offend people. Tim says another factor is the boring forecasters such as investment banks hiring “old talking heads” to talk on TV thats going up, thats going down. This is what people see, but these phenomena are not representative of what economics are about.

Tim’s view is that everything involves economics on a day by day, minute by minute basis. Economists think about everyday decisions, more efficient government, shopping, starting a family… And apparently enjoy a joke as much as everybody else. A lot of people don’t understand what economics is and what it can explain for them. Listen to a full interview with Tim Harford here

With this in mind, I thought I would dig out a few resources for those who want to get their head around this stuff. Enough to understand the Newspaper business pages, the cited economic indicators within these stories. What this stuff means for you now and what it could mean in the future.

Starter - What is economics?

1) Article: Beginners guide to economic indicators here

2) Investopedia Tutorials: Economics Basics

3) Three Economists and their theories: Smith (Invisible Hand), Marx (Its exploitation!) and Keynes (Govt should help the economy)

4) YouTube - Ali G Talks to the Chief Economics Advisor to Ronald Regan, “Economics, it’s well important innit?”

5) YouTube - Principles of Economics translated

And lets finish with the Freakonomics Blog (The Hidden side of everything) from the NY Times

Required reading: although at this stage Bush says there is no recession and Wall St disagrees…

Interesting report on how a digital media strategy can help your company gain competitive advantage and customer engagement in the global environment.

Includes an intro on new marketing - the old way won’t do, changing face of the customer, how to create an online customer engagement strategy, tactics for measuring success of your strategy and a chapter on “Digital media in a recession”. Download and Read it Here

NY Times article just published an article that really resonated with me called, “Making Economics relevant again.” I think it is very important not to see your discipline/passion (probably both of the former if you are very successful) in a silo.

Fundamental disciplines such as economics and psychology are inextricably linked to all aspects of life, both personal and professional. While it is unrealistic and unnecessary for us all to become experts in these field it is important to understand influence and be able to recognise themes, trends, movements and any risks and potentially opportunities these may present to ourselves and our family, friends and businesses.