IDC Engineering Pocket Guide 3rd Edition Book

Thomas Sowell is a god. I'm a big fan of his writing style because it's clear and concise. Basic Economics is highly informative and easily accessible. This book should be required reading, not just for econ majors or business majors, but everyone.

Big ideas:
1. Economics is about trade-offs, not solutions.
2. Every policy or law has consequences, many of which are negative and unforeseen.
3. Capitalism is the least oppressive or racist system for allocating resources; very few people will refuse to prosper because of their dislike of an ethnic group.
4. Economic efficiency is critically important to increasing standards of living and general happiness.
5. Government interference in free markets is almost always bad because it overrides millions of people's decisions and creates unintended negative consequences.
6. Transactions among willing, informed participants are mutually beneficial.
7. The price system conveys information more quickly and efficiently than any alternative.
8. Economics is about the allocation of scarce resources that have alternative uses.
9. Economics is not about money; it's about the underlying resources that money and prices represent.
10. There are only noneconomic values because economics is not a value in itself; rather, it is a system that supplies information by which decisions can be made.