Book Review: The Economics of Innocent Fraud
My summer “book a day diet” began with a chewy one. Fortunately it was short (a “bookette” – only 62 pages). John Kenneth Galbraith is 95 years old. So – that makes him the Yoda of economists. And – sometimes – I felt like I was reading something Yoda written had.
Economics of Innocent Fraud is not the first of his books that I’ve read; I hope it’s not the last. Galbraith takes on the gap between “conventional wisdom” (a phrase he coined) and “reality” and uses the construct of both unintentional (innocent) and intentional fraud to explain how humans continue to snooker themselves. His writing is dense, but delightful (almost poetic at times) and his wit is beyond acerbic. About halfway through the bookette I let out a giggle and said… Read more


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