● Outrageous Fortunes: The Twelve Surprising Trends That Will Reshape the Global Economy
By Daniel Altman
Review via The Economist
Mr Altman writes with some verve, yet he makes only a partially convincing case in support of his predictions. He is best on purely economic ones. Thus he is surely right to argue that China’s seemingly inexorable growth will slow, though it is less clear that China may, like Japan before it, then slip back. He is also persuasive in maintaining that the rich world’s policies on immigration (taking in the brightest and best) and the environment (transferring polluting industries abroad) will damage the poorest countries.

● Moneymakers: The Wicked Lives and Surprising Adventures of Three Notorious Counterfeiters
By Ben Tarnoff
Review via The Wall Street Journal
As Ben Tarnoff tells us in “Moneymakers,” his portrait of three American counterfeiters, Upham was probably not the first Union patriot to try this form of economic warfare; he certainly wasn’t the last. An enterprising New Yorker, Winthrop E. Hilton, was soon selling his customers fake Confederate notes with a higher face value for less Union money—a sign that even counterfeit Confederate bills were depreciating rapidly. Upham conceived of his own venture as a form of souvenir vending. Perhaps it was, but the scale was immense: By his own estimate (offered a decade later), he produced bills with a total face value of $15 million. If all of them found their way to the Confederacy, then a whopping 3% of the South’s circulating money was printed by one man in Philadelphia.
● The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History,Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better:A Penguin eSpecial from Dutton
By Tyler Cowen
Review via Yglesias
Tyler Cowen’s new ebook… is a bravura performance by one of the most interesting thinkers out there. I also think it’s a great innovation in current affairs publishing—much shorter and cheaper than a conventional book in a way that actually leaves you wanting to read more once you finish it. My guess is that this is the future of books. The argument is in many ways a continuation and expansion of Paul Krugman’s themes from The Age of Diminished Expectations, Third Edition: U.S. Economic Policy in the 1990s. Specifically, the argument is that growth has been slow for the past 30-40 years for fairly fundamental reasons related to a slowing rate of increase in basic science and that our politics has become dysfunctional insofar as it’s failed to adapt to those realities.
● Conquering the Divide: How to Use Economic Indicators to Catch Stock Market Trends
By James B. Cornehlsen and Michael J. Carr
Summary via publisher, W&A Publishing
Many writers focus on economy time series, but James B. Cornehlsen and Michael J. Carr are the first to outline a comprehensive, rigorously tested, easy to understand model. In Conquering The Divide, the authors provide documentation of their model’s validity. Using statistical verification, Cornehlsen and Carr don’t dumb down the economy; they lay out its signals and indicators.
● Probable Outcomes: Secular Stock Market Insights
By Ed Easterling
Summary via publisher,Cypress House
Probable Outcomes continues the Crestmont Research tradition of full-color charts and graphs that enable investors and advisors to differentiate between irrational hope and a rational view of the stock market. The unique combination of investment science and investment art explores the market from several perspectives, and addresses the implications for a broad range of investors. Ed Easterling delivers an insightful analysis of the likely course for the stock market over the 2010 decade. Investors and advisors will benefit from this timely outlook and its message of reasonable expectations and value-added investing. This essential resource provides a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental principles that drive the stock market. Based on years of research, Probable Outcomes offers sensible conclusions that will empower you to take action, guide your investment choices during the current period of below-average returns, and allow you to invest with confidence, whatever your financial strategy.
● The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report: Final Report of the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis in the United States
By the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
Press release for report’s release via Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
Today the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission delivered the results of its investigation into the causes of the financial and economic crisis. The Commission concluded that the crisis was avoidable and was caused by:
* Widespread failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve’s failure to stem the
tide of toxic mortgages;
* Dramatic breakdowns in corporate governance including too many financial firms acting recklessly and taking on too much risk;
* An explosive mix of excessive borrowing and risk by households and Wall Street that put the financial system on a collision course with crisis;
* Key policy makers ill prepared for the crisis, lacking a full understanding of the financial system they oversaw;
* And systemic breaches in accountability and ethics at all levels.