re: Economics Book Club (EBC): Book 4 Starts Aug 21 (The Smartest Guys in the Room)

Great points. To bb88's good suggestion earlier, we can always assess after book one whether we like the TD format or want to take it external. My immediate thought re: protocol is that Monday we begin reading and discussions can commence at will. While I plan to maintain a running outline with notes from all the books we read, I plan to discuss throughout each section and not just hoard it all for the end. Frankly, when I get to something interesting, I'm going to want to come on here and start talking about it. In my view, that's the general idea. By having open discussion early and often, I think we'll all tend to pace together as well. In addition, the moderator would probably also tend to be a pacesetter of sorts.

I've already found some really interesting information on our first author. Goodreads is a great source of supplementary information, as is, in this case, the Mises Institute. I'll be posting some interesting quotes and factoids about Mr. Hazlitt in the next few days to hold us over until Monday.

It might also be useful before we get into this first book to kind of set the stage a bit. We've obviously heard this term Austrian economics and also classical economics. Here are some rhetorical questions to noodle on a bit:

First off, what is Austrian economics? What is it's history and why and when did this movement begin? Presumably, it has something to do with the country of Austria? Who are some of its modern-day mantle bearers? What is its "market share," so to speak, in the marketplace of ideas? What are its primary competing ideologies? What is classical economics?

I don't think we need to necessarily have these answers beforehand, although any of you who know the backstory by all means feel free to enlighten the group. Regardless, I do think it's a good idea to go ahead and contemplate some of the things that will start becoming apparent as we move along.

Finally, I thought our spider chart in the OP turned out pretty much as we collectively planned. Heaviest emphasis on economics, followed by a decently heavy emphasis on finance and then sprinklings of some adjacent topics / subject matters.