Books on my table......

I can rival a tortoise when it comes to reading. There are currently three books on my table that I have been reading on and off. One, Mental floss history of the world, fascinating book, authors have tried their best to make historical facts as interesting as possible. I never knew the basic plot of the movie Spartan was true. I always thought it was fiction, partly because of visual effects (Come-on, history to Bharat ek khoj, types hoti hai). Two, Against the gods, history of risk taking by mankind. There is so much one can learn from reading history. For example, biggest contributors to the probability theory and risk management, were part time mathematicians whose full time job was to "Gamble". I am sure there will be books who will talk about virtues of Wine but if you are interested in learning how Casinos and Gambling played a great role in development of mankind this book is the one. Third and last is Fault lines by Raghuram Rajan, an exemplary author and a economist of highest caliber. Written with extreme skepticism towards Keynesian economics, this book explores the root cause of sub prime mortgage crisis. I will write a bigger article on the book in detail (don't count too much on it). I do agree with the premise, that economic problems in US are more structural. Instead, of relying extensively on monetary solutions, there should be great emphasis on policy level efforts. Education and Immigration reforms are two things that come in my mind. In all fairness, I am not denying that Fed has any choice but to do whatever it can do revive the economy. Its more on the politicians to see beyond today and take tough decisions.