Thomas Sowell — Basic Economics

Thomas Sowell has studied and taught economics, intellectual history, and social policy at institutions that include Cornell University, UCLA, and Amherst Co…

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14 comments

  1. Oh gotta love how he didn’t answer the question regarding the economic boom
    during the clinton years. He started talking about the surplus which wasn’t
    the question. The question was why was the economy still able to boom when
    taxes had been raised when you CLAIM that raising taxes by even a small
    percentage hinders economic growth

  2. Dillon Thompson

    It’s so funny how Thomas Sowell always immediately says it was the
    governments fault, not the private sectors lol. I wish more people would
    listen to this man. 

  3. louiethegreater1

    This is how Sowell stays in the 1% club. The interviewer is a Hoover
    representative. So Hoover gives Sowell a platform to sell his books, and
    speaking engagements, and he spreads their globalist ideology for them.
    This is just laughable. 

  4. I have recently read Basic Economics and this is a great interview with its
    author!

  5. Austrian Economics is such a joke

  6. Dillon Thompson

    Basic Economics is an excellent book. Very interesting.

  7. Message from the President of the United States
    To the Congress of the United States:
    Unhappy events abroad have taught us two simple truths about the liberty of
    a democratic people.
    The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the
    people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes
    stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is
    fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any
    controlling private party.
    The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe, if its
    business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute
    goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.
    Both lessons hit home.
    Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is
    growing.
    This concentration is seriously impairing the economic effectiveness of
    private enterprise as a way of providing employment for labor and capital
    and as a way of assuring a more equitable distribution of income and
    earnings among the people of the Nation as a whole.

    I. THE GROWING CONCENTRATION OF ECONOMIC POWER

    Statistics of the Bureau of Internal Revenue reveal the following amazing
    figures for 1935:
    Ownership of corporate assets: Of all corporations reporting from every
    part of the Nation, one-tenth of 1 percent of them owned 52 percent of the
    assets of all of them.
    And to clinch the point: Of all corporations reporting, less than 5 percent
    of them owned 87 percent of all the assets of all of them.
    Income and profits of corporations: Of all the corporations reporting from
    every part of the country, one-tenth of 1 percent of them earned 50 percent
    of the net income of all of them.
    And to clinch the point: Of all the manufacturing corporations reporting,
    less than 4 percent of them earned 84 percent of all the net profits of all
    of them.
    The statistical history of modern times proves that in times of depression
    concentration of business speeds up. Bigger business then has larger
    opportunity to grow still bigger at the expense of smaller competitors who
    are weakened by financial adversity.
    The danger of this centralization in a handful of huge corporations is not
    reduced or eliminated, as is sometimes urged, by the wide public
    distribution of their securities, The mere number of security holders gives
    little clue to the size of their individual holdings or to their actual
    ability to have a voice in the management. In fact, the concentration of
    stock ownership of corporations in the hands of a tiny minority of the
    population matches the concentration of corporate assets.
    The year 1929 was a banner year for distribution of stock ownership. But in
    that year three-tenths of 1 percent of our population received 78 percent
    of the dividends reported by individuals. This has roughly the same effect
    as if, out of every 300 persons in our population, one person received 79
    cents out of every dollar of corporate dividends, while the other 299
    persons divided up the other 22 cents between them.
    The effect of this concentration is reflected in the distribution of
    national income.
    A recent study by the National Resources Committee shows that in 1935-36 :
    Forty-seven percent of all American families and single individuals living
    alone had incomes of less than $1,000 for the year; and at the other end of
    the ladder a little less than 1 ½ percent of the Nation’s families
    received incomes which in dollars and cents reached the same total as the
    incomes of the 47 percent at the bottom. . . .

    Franklin D. Roosevelt
    The White House
    April 29, 1938

  8. Marx said all wealth comes from labor, I would like to hear Sowell’s
    thoughts on that.

  9. Questions to consider:

    1. What is the true nature of a business?
    2, When did a business come about? When was the first business?
    2. When did businesses began “competing” with one another?
    3. Is competition good?
    4. What is competition exactly?
    5. Is everything about true nature, meaning things change shape and come
    about? 

  10. TheGreatOliphante

    Perhaps this was already noted, but the US doesn’t have the highest GDP per
    capita of any major country unless you exclude every other fully developed
    major country or you put the bar for “major” somewhere above Canada and
    Australia. I’m one minute into this video and already scratching my head;
    Americans have a lot to be proud of but highest GDP per capita is such a
    strech. In this context “major” country should mean something like:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-20_major_economies
    Surely the two gentlemen in the video are geniuses but I thought I’d
    understand this at least into the third minute.

  11. Years ago, I read “Basic Econmics” by Dr. Sowell. It’s a very easy,
    primitive read. However, I would not suggest taking Dr. Sowell’s word
    verbatim, as there are some myths and falsehoods that have been debunked
    within.

  12. watch The Question of Hierarchy

  13. 9:24 POWER NAP

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