Great Articles and Essays about Money and Economics

The best short articles and essays about money and economics

What Is Money?

To Have is To Owe by David Graeber

A short history of money

Economics

Nothing Grows Forever by Clive Thompson

How can we make the global economy work for 7 billion humans? Stop growing it.

The Austerity Delusion by Paul Krugman

The case for cuts was a lie

Building a Green Economy by Paul Krugman

If you listen to climate scientists -- and despite the relentless campaign to discredit their work, you
should -- it is long past time to do something about emissions of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases

The Invisible Economy by Bill Davidow

Our techniques for measuring economic performance are obsolete, obscuring a complete picture of
how we're faring

Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit

by David Graeber

A secret question hovers over us, a sense of disappointment, a broken promise we were given as
children about what our adult world was supposed to be like...

The Financial Crisis

The End by Michael Lewis

The era that defined Wall Street is finally, officially over. What went wrong?

The Great American Bubble Machine by Matt Taibbi

"The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of
humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."

Betting on the Blind Side by Michael Lewis

How one investor spotted the huge bubble in the subprime-mortgage bond market, in 2004, and
created a way to bet against it.

Wall Street on the Tundra by Michael Lewis

What led a tiny fishing nation, population 300,000, to decide, around 2003, to re-invent itself as a
global financial power?
Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds by Michael Lewis

How Greece ran up a $1.2 trillion debt (roughly a quarter-million dollars for each working adult).

When Irish Eyes Are Crying by Michael Lewis

The Irish boom, bust and how the country's government and banks conspired to screw its people.

Wall Street Smarts by Calvin Trillin

The financial system nearly collapsed because smart guys had started working on Wall Street.

Money and Psychology

The Real Truth About Money by Gregg Easterbrook

No matter how you chart the trends in earning and spending, everything is up, up, up. But if you
made a chart of American happiness since the end of World War II, the lines would be as flat as a
marble tabletop

Misc.

Why We Should Give Free Money to Everyone by Rutger Bregman

The most efficient way to spend money on homeless people might be to give it to them

Imagining a Cashless World by Nathan Heller

Sweden shows us what life without paper currency might be like

Documentaries

Freakonomics

The film version of the nonfiction classic explores the hidden mechanics of everything from baby
names to real estate, and cheating Sumo wrestlers to motivating teenagers

Inside Job

A critical examination of the causes of the financial crisis

The Ascent of Money

A financial history of the world