This book is so modern, there is no doubt about who the author is or who she lives with. A ten-year-old member of the family is likely to puzzle out situations as well as more professional people in her life. The danger of earning a lot early in life, particularly in a life of crime, is described as a problem for people with short expectations: banking with too much excitement is common for "workers with careers that will probably not last very long, such as sports stars or dancers or perhaps bond salesmen, with a pay structure that gives them high earnings but for a relatively short period." (p. 5) On a psychological level, I thought that some humor could be found in her link of men, "only half of humanity," (p. 7) whose "spending on the sex industry is rising faster than incomes overall." (p. 7). Economically, we expect "the big growth will come in markets where demand is growing even faster than incomes as we become more and more prosperous." (p. 7). We tend to exhibit "behavioral economics" (p. 18). "While people as a whole are pretty bad at figuring out risks realistically, teenagers, like some middle-aged men, are more willing to take risks. Adolescents are trying to shape their independent identities as part of the transition to adulthood, and anybody in the throes of a midlife crisis is in search of a fleeting reminder of youth." (p. 19). Did I mention that the first two words of Chapter 2 are "Bill Clinton" ? (p. 8). Thoroughly modern times have trickle down attitudes that share farce with journalistic awareness in books like SEX, DRUGS & ECONOMICS, which is not "An Unconventional Introduction to Economics" in such a society, it is more like a guide to borderline and mainstream activities that make up a large part of the variety features in daily newspapers.
Seriously though, we should all be aware that transportation problems in Afghanistan prevent farmers in certain regions from obtaining cash for any product except the paste from opium poppies, and portions of the world are understood most easily if the free world capitalist bets are considered off, and bombers at all altitudes are going to determine what remains standing in areas that were previously considered prosperous. It is my understanding that the American Pentagon has been repaired, though this book notes that "Worldwide military spending fell from 3.6 percent of global GDP in 1990 to 2.4 percent in 1999, although the decline was concentrated in the industrialized and post-communist countries. . . . The worldwide peace dividend for 1999 may have been as much as [money amount]to [money amount]." (p. 181). Comparisons in this book could be to the worldwide market for illegal drugs. "One widely accepted United Nations figure is [money maount](bigger than the global oil industry), employing around 20 million people and serving 70 to 100 million customers. Perhaps half of the customers are in the United States, the biggest single market for drugs, as indeed for everything else." (p. 10). As everything else faces declining profits, due to a lack of excitement and "heavy debt burdens," (p. 10), expect "a substantial increase in drug production by developing countries" (p. 11) and I am expecting more U. S. military interest in "Columbia, Burma, or Afghanistan--although whether that is a cause or a consequence of the drug trade is not clear." (p. 11). The Taliban are coming back, too, though I did not find them in this book, which makes no attempt to appeal to people who support Taliban policies.
A unique aspect of this book is the attempt to treat tobacco settlement money due to the states as a tax in Chapter 10, Tax Incidence: Only People Pay Tax. "In a piece of deliberate obfuscation, what amounts to a new national tax increase of about [money amount]on a pack of cigarettes" is being paid to states which sued the tobacco companies, "imposing an apparently staggering [money amount]bill on the cigarette makers," in a deal worked out with lawyers getting payments estimated to have a present value of [money amount]. (p. 78). They aren't getting all that money already, though. Because most smokers are not likely to quit, buying the cigarettes at higher prices "would generate an estimated [money amount]in tax revenues to pay the lawyers." (p. 79). Lawyers working for the states had contingency arrangements, so it isn't like tax money to them, it is compensation for being legal superstars. Law has a lot of exceptions, and in this book, "the power of the American legal profession" is "the one exception to the general principle with which I began, that only people pay taxes. Because, of course, lawyers pay taxes, too." (p. 80).
For those who are expecting a thorough and complete formal introduction to economics using this books, don't keep your hopes up. There are no illustrations, no graphs, no general economics equations or calculations included in this book. Coyle mostly introduces economic terms in this book and describes various situations in the real world to which they can be applied (think CD sales, internet copyright infringement, sex, drugs, environmentalism, sports, almost anything you want to know about pop culture). There is even a glossary of terms in the back.
The reason why I gave this book 3 stars is because of the disappointing take on social policies that she prescribes in the end. From her arguments, I can sense a bias that she appears to be a rigid advocate of free-market capitalism. For example, she explains why child laborers are better off working at such unfair conditions because the corporations provide them with work; thus, work under conditions of exploitation is better than no work at all. But she leaves things at this. When she tackles a social issue such as the one I had described, she often leaves a void. She doesn't leave any alternatives and somehow imposes this tragic reality on what is to become of society. For this particular chapter on social injustice and the third world, I suggest reading Philip McMichael's Development and Social Change along with this book so that you'd have a more specific idea of what I am talking about when I said "alternatives."