What do you think of CNBC?
Hi everyone. I’ve been learning more about economics lately and I also, to apply my knowledge, and to learn more/keep up with economics news, have an interest in reading economics/financial news online. Would you recommend cnbc.com? Or would it be a bad site (like is it biased, confusing, etc. if you dislike it please tell me why)?
Disclaimer: I was just three courses away from having a BA in Economics. These are more random thoughts than a guide to economics.
Any news source is going to be biased - all
If you want a book that will give you deep knowledge about the way that economics really works, I would read “Crunched” by Jared Bernstein. It will not help you pass economics, but it will gain you valuable knowledge.
One important thing to remember about economics is that the graphs and models that they present assume that “all else is equal” - it is the equivalent of the atmospheric physicist who makes models based on the assumption that gravity doesn’t exist. In the real world, the simple predictions made by the intro economics textbooks never materialize. Great abuses have been carried out in the past 20-30 years in the names of those juvenile models.
I will just leave you with this. There were two predictions that were staples of economics textbooks in the 1970s and 1980s that later turned out to be absurdly false:
1. “If you pay customers interest on checking accounts, the entire financial system will collapse” - untrue, of course
2. the Phillips Curve - if unemployment drops below 5.5%, inflation will result; in the 1990s this was proven to be false - and yet there are many economists that still cling to the Phillips curve (their arguments are absurd and unconvincing). Their arguments are also politically motivated - they make these arguments because they are against full employment as a national economic policy. If full employment were pursued, workers would gain advantages over employers - and force employers to accept higher wages, lower profits. Powerful industry concerns are behind keeping the Phillips curve in economics textbooks.
There are many outstanding websites on economics as a discipline -surf away.
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Watching CNBC to learn economics is like watching the news to learn history. They are interesting but most of the editorial comments are biased in favor of what is good for investors in the short term or for a particular firm or industry. However they do offer insight on how investors and money managers really make decisions which adds detail to what you learn on economic classes about how the economy and money markets work. Some good sites for reading about economics are listed at
http://www.gongol.com/lists/bizeconsites…