False Economies ― The Strangest, Least Successful and Most Audacious Financial Follies, Plans and Crazes of All Time

When it comes to matters of the economy, have you had enough of ‘experts’ and their foolish, untrue predictions? If so, then you could read about the financial ideas of the following lunatics instead. Their notions may be every bit as wrong as those of the money-men, but at least they might boost your own interest rate in the topic. Economics is often dismissed as the ‘Dismal Science’, with its predictions frequently amounting to little more than pseudoscientific guesswork. However, you don’t need to know your Karl Marx from your Adam Smith to be able to tell that the following proposals are as dodgy as a twelve-pound note. From the idea of ‘vegetable-money’ which rotted away in order to discourage the hoarding of coins and capital to the optimistic notion that it might be possible to destroy the North Korean economy with chocolate biscuits, from a madman’s quest to abolish charity to the US presidential candidate who accepted tax advice from outer space, this book tells the story of some of the loopiest monetary ideas of all time. What do extraterrestrial business ministers think of planet Earth’s financial system? How does the ghost of the founder of Panasonic assess the current state of the Tokyo Stock Exchange? Is a world of free money really possible? Can you keep your prior credit rating following reincarnation into another body? What are the hidden relations between gravity and share prices? How can eating haunted paintings improve the Russian economy? Is Jesus Christ a secret Pakistani economist working undercover in the NHS? Why has Margaret Thatcher’s transgender spirit risen from the grave? Do coins become spherical in space? Was Hugo Chávez really serious? Is Jeremy Corbyn really serious? What happens if you wobble an economist’s brain? Oh, and why did Brexit happen? Buy this book or pay the high price of not finding out! Forget Freakonomics – prepare to meet the freaks.

S. D. Tucker is an author and journalist. He has written three books for Amberley and writes a regular column in Fortean Times magazine. He lives in Widnes, Cheshire.