Seykota new book "Govopoly"
-
- Roundtable Fellow
- Posts: 97
- Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2008 3:28 pm
- Location: Southern California, USA
Seykota new book "Govopoly"
What's everyone's opinion on Ed Seykota's new book "Govopoly"?
Firstly, the aesthetics;
A reasonably heavy book due to the very good quality gloss paper used.
Each page features a pleasing-to-the-eye colour picture that acts (most times) as a metaphor for the content on that page complete with Ed’s trademark dry style of humour evident here & there. (which I enjoy)
It’s a somewhat pricey book but as I say heavy glossy paper ‘n all so you gonna be paying.
Secondly, the content;
The message in a nutshell is basically that as an economy matures and the government grows, free competition is stifled & crony capitalism increases. This results in/from increased public debt, rising prices & loss of freedom with no incentive for entrepreneurs to do what they do best (i.e. innovate, invent, create)
Eventually the whole thing collapses due to the government becoming so large that it consumes almost all of the productive resources in an economy. (Think of the predator-prey model)
In the book he uses the metaphor of duckweed growing exponentially & taking over a pond of water and eventually killing all life in that pond. You don’t notice the weed initially (when you could’ve done something about it) and by the time you do notice it’s too late to do anything about it. Such are the properties of exponential growth.
All of this is all illustrated via the ‘systems dynamics’ point of view which is a method of trying to make sense of complex systems & the main variables that interact with each other within that system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_dynamics
I have a lot of time for the system dynamics way of thinking. It appeals to me since much of it is counterintuitive and it often amazes me how a small tweak to one variable can have a profound impact to the system as a whole (Think of your own trading systems)
This is probably why I enjoyed the book as much as i did
Thirdly, my thoughts.
I thought it was a very enjoyable & simple read and by simple I don’t mean ‘dumbed-down’
Seykota seems to have followed the Einstein motto of “make things as simple as possible but not simplerâ€
A reasonably heavy book due to the very good quality gloss paper used.
Each page features a pleasing-to-the-eye colour picture that acts (most times) as a metaphor for the content on that page complete with Ed’s trademark dry style of humour evident here & there. (which I enjoy)
It’s a somewhat pricey book but as I say heavy glossy paper ‘n all so you gonna be paying.
Secondly, the content;
The message in a nutshell is basically that as an economy matures and the government grows, free competition is stifled & crony capitalism increases. This results in/from increased public debt, rising prices & loss of freedom with no incentive for entrepreneurs to do what they do best (i.e. innovate, invent, create)
Eventually the whole thing collapses due to the government becoming so large that it consumes almost all of the productive resources in an economy. (Think of the predator-prey model)
In the book he uses the metaphor of duckweed growing exponentially & taking over a pond of water and eventually killing all life in that pond. You don’t notice the weed initially (when you could’ve done something about it) and by the time you do notice it’s too late to do anything about it. Such are the properties of exponential growth.
All of this is all illustrated via the ‘systems dynamics’ point of view which is a method of trying to make sense of complex systems & the main variables that interact with each other within that system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_dynamics
I have a lot of time for the system dynamics way of thinking. It appeals to me since much of it is counterintuitive and it often amazes me how a small tweak to one variable can have a profound impact to the system as a whole (Think of your own trading systems)
This is probably why I enjoyed the book as much as i did
Thirdly, my thoughts.
I thought it was a very enjoyable & simple read and by simple I don’t mean ‘dumbed-down’
Seykota seems to have followed the Einstein motto of “make things as simple as possible but not simplerâ€
It's amusing to see "The Trading Tribe" available on Amazon used for $225 to $1900+ while Ed sells it new for $125.
-
- Site Admin
- Posts: 1493
- Joined: Fri Sep 12, 2003 10:32 am
- Location: Austin, Texas
-
- Roundtable Fellow
- Posts: 72
- Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2005 5:54 am
-
- Full Member
- Posts: 21
- Joined: Fri May 08, 2015 8:40 am
Re: Seykota new book "Govopoly"
good book and great podcast