I'd like to understand a bit about both the previous crash and the current banking crisis, but feel I need to do some background reading first.
I've had some thought provoking fun reading, e.g. unorthodox "Austrian School" economics by Mises, but you should be wary of reading blogs, as lots of incorrect things in Econ can sound convincing if you don't have the right background.
[0] https://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/0-3-contents... [1] https://www.core-econ.org/meet-core/
Economics is not an exact science like maths or physics. "The Economy" is the collective human activity. It depends on so many actors. Actors who don't have full information, and who don't actually behave in a rational way.
Yes, I would be weary of anyone who speaks in absolutes and you should use your own common sense and judgement.
So I hope that, like the Index, you warning steers people towards instead of away from austrian aconomics :)
[0] https://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/10.html#108-...
>> The thing that people don't understand about these elite, neoclassical economists from Harvard, MIT, etc. is that while their whole brand is being "empirical" and objective, they are as ideological and politically driven as the most ardent Maoist who ever existed
I started college as a business major focusing on finance. Ended up switching to software but got enough finance under my belt to know the basics.
Definitely start with learning the basics of the "standard" models used by mainstream economists today. Whether you end up going down the rabbit hole of Austrian economics or bitcoin madness, it's best to know what the mainstream view is first IMO. Know your enemies, and all that
I found The Big Short both entertaining and enlightening on the 2008 crash, a while back I also read “The Number” by Alex Berenson, which focuses more on corporate equities and the rise of earnings per share as a driving metric.. I did also read about half of an older book called “Secrets of the Temple”, which gives a history of how Paul Volcker handled the inflation crisis of the 80s. That was more dense but really helped solidify my understanding of the Fed. I’ve also recently started “Random Walk through Wall Street”, which again is mostly equities-focused but so far seems to give a balanced take on the financial and human factors.
As far as explaining the most recent crisis, I’ve found this blog [0] to be the most informative, approachable and somewhat entertaining. Very clear explanation of what exactly the BTFP program is doing, with a healthy amount of speculation about how it could be abused and potential effects of that. Disclaimer that it’s written by a crypto researcher, but there’s very little content about crypto.
I had discovered this author by reading another book he wrote entitled "Advanced Chip Design, Practical Examples in Verilog". Also self-pub and also suffering from lots of self-pub issues. But the essentials were more-or-less there.
A book I read and enjoyed is "Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science". It helped me understand what economics even is.
That is some pretty timeless background.