Economists’ Logic of Spending, Saving, and Borrowing

The guys at the Freakonomics blog can always be counted on for some interesting conversation starters.  Today, Steven Levitt pits conventional wisdom about saving money against advice on the topic from Milton Friedman (via Jose Scheinkman).  Conventional wisdom (taking the form of Levitt’s wife) holds that one should prudently save money from all income, no matter how small, whereas the economist’s advice is that it doesn’t make sense to save much during lean times if one expects future times to be fatter.  Thus, "[w]hen times are good, you should save, and when times are bad, borrow." There are at least Continue reading Economists’ Logic of Spending, Saving, and Borrowing