Modern Economic Issues

By: Robert Whaples, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Robert Whaples

Gross domestic product. Health insurance. Soaring energy prices. Major economic issues dominate today's news, but how do these issues impact the average citizen? This primer in 21st-century economics for the non-economist surveys today's most urgent economic issues that affect both global events and our everyday lives.

You'll learn what economics has to say about making the decisions - big or small - that affect our daily lives: What factors come into play when you're deciding whether to buy this car or that one, or even commute by bus? Mow the lawn or take a nap? Grill a burger with a bubbling slice of cheese or eat a simple salad? And you'll see how this same kind of analysis applies to the major issues of public policy, where the needs and wants of a nation and its people - whether financial security, safety from terrorism, or even an available kidney for someone desperately waiting on a transplant list - involve tradeoffs, which are sometimes obvious and sometimes not.

Whether dealing with the traditional sorts of topics most of us are used to seeing in an economics course - Social Security, inflation, unemployment, immigration, taxation, and the like - or issues perhaps surprising, such as gambling, major sports franchises, and even overeating, these 36 lectures offer a steady flow of insights about public policy and the American economy.

By showing the full range of economic factors at work, this course can help you become an even more insightful judge of policy recommendations and of the leaders and policy makers who advocate them. And you may well learn to supplement your own analyses as you make the real-life economic choices each of us faces every day, becoming an even wiser consumer and manager of your own economic future.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2007 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2007 The Great Courses

economics

would like to see same lectures updated a little, to reflect current events but otherwise excellent.

Statistics are from 2005

While I enjoyed the lectures it would have been improved by more updated statistics.

An excellent course

Professor Whaples is one of those rare teachers who rattle off facts and figures in such an interesting way you figure it's just conversation!

I would heartily recommend this course. Keep in mind that it came out before the crash, so it appears too optimistic. The teaching company really ought to add a lesson on this huge fact!

In light of our country's economic woes, it's helpful to see where we were before it, and what was done to make the situation worse.

Great book about US economics

The book was great! Good narrator, and important issues. I miss the international perspective though, and important questions about the validity of capitalism was quickly breezed through. I was expecting a bit more on 0% growth, environment, politics, and ethics.

Outstanding book

I’ve read a lot of books on economics and finance. This is one of the absolute best I’ve read. It starts out a little slow, but Professor Whaples does an absolutely masterful job investigating most major contemporary economic concerns in an objective, dispassionate manner. I finished the book wondering why someone (from either party) in Washington D. C. doesn’t hire him away from academia to be an advisor. Extremely well done. Only buy this book if you prefer to understand the world we live in.

Fantastic. Balanced, yet provocative.

I've listened to almost all of the economics Great Courses and this might be the best one. I just finished listening to it a second time. I wish Robert Whaples did more courses. His survey of economists' opinions is a great supplement to the data and arguments he provides for the respective issues. Every lecture is packed with data and powerful arguments backed by economic theory. The Walmart lecture was very enlightening. Prof. Whaples disabuses the listener of the many misconceptions about the company and provides the economists' consensus analysis regarding its huge benefit to society. He convinced me that the Postal Service needs to be privatized, the inflation rate is egregiously overstated year after year by the CPI, and the U.S. poverty rate is in need of serious revision. I learned so much from this course. Prof. Whaples really makes you think about things that you don't often think about. I'm going to have to keep returning to it to retain all the information. After listening to this course you'll want to investigate all of these issues further. I can't recommend this course highly enough.

Good but a little out dated

This lecture was made before the financial crisis of 2008. You might want to skip a few lectures.

Economic issues at the brink of the fall

A decent review of economic issues today but hard to get past the datedness of this being a lecture from 2007 on economics on the brink of the fall. The lecturer talks about how rock solid the economy was felt to be and heralded 10 years of solid growth ahead as seen by a survey of top Economists. Proof of how much 20/20 hindsight is bunk.

Very dated (from 2007)

It’s 2022, and this audiobook – which is otherwise good – is chock-full of references and statistics from 2000-2007, which might as well be from 100 years ago. Audible shouldn’t keep it in its catalog if the publisher and author aren’t committed to updating and revising it.

All around solid work

The author does a great job tackling a wide collection of topics and presenting varied perspectives on each issue in a fair way. Though the book is a bit out of date at this point and could benefit from an update, much of the material is still valid as a foundation for your own critical thinking if not the specific numbers given.