"...Europeans worked 'almost 50 per cent less', 18 hours per week instead of 25 hours per person of working age. ... I'm not sure how the math works out. Fifty percent of 25 would be 12.5, no?"The original writer probably wrote, "American worked 50% more than Europeans, 25 hr instead of 18hr;" an inattentive editor then switched it around carelessly.
-- Don Davis, February 19, 2010
Don: I linked to the original paper cited by Lanchester (you can read it for yourself). There are three authors from Harvard. The paper does not appear to have been professionally typeset and from that I would conclude that it was not professionally edited. So the arithmetic or writing error (depending on how you look at it) cannot be blamed on anyone other than these three geniuses from the world's greatest university. Moreover, the paper is published on the authors' own Web site and has been sitting there for five years. At any time during the preceding five years they could have noticed the error and corrected it (if they believed that it was an error).
-- Philip Greenspun, February 21, 2010
"Traders, Guns & Money" by Satyajit Das (2008) is also a good book about the financial mess we are in. It focuses on derivatives and banking, however, not on the economy as a whole. Explains securitization and leverage in humorous, simple english. The book might be complementary to the I.O.U. book. For FT and other fiancial news sites, the author writes online columns. Check them out.
-- Knut Behrends, February 21, 2010