About the Author

Charles Wheelan is the author of the best-selling Naked Statistics and Naked Economics and is a former correspondent for The Economist. He teaches public policy and economics at Dartmouth College and lives in Hanover, New Hampshire, with his family. Burton G. Malkiel is the Chemical Bank Chairman's Professor of Economics Emeritus at Princeton University. He is a former member of the Council of Economic Advisers, dean of the Yale School of Management, and has served on the boards of several major corporations, including Vanguard and Prudential Financial. He is the chief investment officer of Wealthfront.

Reviews

Wheelan has an anti-Midas touch. If he touched gold he would turn it to life. --Burton G. Malkiel, from the foreword--Burton G. Malkiel

Translates the arcane and often inscrutable jargon of the professional economist into language accessible to the inquiring but frustrated layman....Clear, concise, informative, [and] witty.

Explains our global economy in a way that is--gasp!--actually entertaining.

Ever wonder what it means when the Fed raises interest rates? Or why there are occasional fears of inflation? To the rescue comes this simplified and chatty nontextbook textbook. Using words rather than math, it makes economics accessible, comprehensible and appealing. Wheelan, the Economist's Midwest correspondent, breezily explains the big picture, including finance, capital markets, government institutions and more. His informal style belies the sophisticated and scholarly underpinnings of his subject. Wheelan champions the often-maligned science: "Economics should not be accessible only to the experts. The ideas are too important and too interesting." Well before book's end, highly persuasive yet simply illustrated concepts sway the reader. Complex ideas are demystified and made clear, using familiar examples, such as the price of sweatshirts at the Gap. A chapter on financial markets compares a grapefruit and ice cream fad diet with get-rich-quick schemes. (He wryly offers the mantra "Save. Invest. Repeat.") Similarly, an explanation of interest rates compares them to "rental rates," an easy-to-grasp concept. And to convey what the major international institutions do, Wheelan writes: "If the World Bank is the world's welfare agency, then its sister organization, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the fire department responsible for dousing international financial crises." Wheelan's simplicity does not mask the detailed encapsulation of complicated issues, such as relative wealth, globalization and the importance of human capital. He smartly shows that while economic consequences can be global, they are also a part of everyday life. (Sept.) Forecast: A catchy cover illustration a naked stick figure with George Washington's dollar bill face covering his middle and the promise of finally understanding economics will attract recent college grads and uncertain older folk. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Wheelan has an anti-Midas touch. If he touched gold he would turn it to life. --Burton G. Malkiel, from the foreword--Burton G. Malkiel
Translates the arcane and often inscrutable jargon of the professional economist into language accessible to the inquiring but frustrated layman....Clear, concise, informative, [and] witty.
Explains our global economy in a way that is--gasp!--actually entertaining.