Tim Harford

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Tim Harford, Financial Times columnist and the author of The Undercover Economist Strikes Back:  How to Run - or Ruin - an Economy (Riverhead Hardcover, 2014) explains macroeconomics to the layman, including how to deal with recessions, inflation and unemployment. 

He says the book doesn't put political spins on economics. “The idea of the new book was to make it less political, less polemical and kind of fun.”

Caller Walter in Monmouth asked about the changing nature of jobs in today’s economy, and Harford partially agreed with him. “Manufacturing employment in China is falling, it’s been falling for years,” he said. “So if it’s falling in China, how on earth do we think we can keep it up in the Europe or America?”  

But he also gave a sunny view of our economic future. He said people often mistake short-term problems for long-term problems.

"We've had five years, six years of bad news, and I think a lot of people now think, ‘well, things will never be better. The economy is structurally damaged, and it’s game over,'” he said.

“I don’t believe that. I think there are long-term issues to solve but ultimately I’m an optimist. I think technological progress and human ingenuity is going to put the economy back on track and we will get there in the end.”

He closed the interview by reminding us that “all crises come to an end.”