Croecko Publishing

Yesterday the following piece was published by “The Daily Observer” in Pembroke, Ontario, concerning the LIBOR interest-rate fixing scandal.

Confidence and Lies submitted version

As well, I would like to inform people that as my distributor will be returning from holidays soon, he will likely be shipping orders placed since the end of June in the next week to ten days.

After these orders are shipped, I anticipate that I will only send orders from Oman twice more – likely in early- to mid-September (for late orders to schools in the Northern Hemisphere) and again around the first of December (for schools in the Southern Hemisphere).

After this point, I will have the remaining stock of books in Oman sent to me here in Canada, which will mean that I will no longer be able to use the economical “printed matter” international postal rate offered by Oman Post. As such, I expect that I will have to raise prices and/or charge for shipping starting in 2013. For orders greater than 15 books I anticipate a fixed charge of $12 per book (including postage) to addresses within the US and Canada, and a charge of $10 per book plus airmail postage to addresses overseas.

Thank you again for your support and interest in the book. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch by email.

On the OCC last month I asked if someone could explain to me why the source of the externality matters when drawing externality diagrams. Thankfully, Peter Rock sent my question along to Ellie Tragakes, who in turn was very gracious about corresponding with me at length over the course of a few weeks on the issue. Long story short, it matters because the price results that arise when one expresses externality problems differently depending on the source of the externality (production or consumption) are more accurate than the price results that arise when the distinction is ignored. For a more detailed treatment of the issue, please look at:

Representing Externalities

…from Dr. Michael Burry, who, by asking the right questions that exposed some erroneous assumptions about the inevitability of housing prices always rising, successfully predicted (and made money from) the collapse of the housing bubble. His advice that one should as much as possible take on short-term risks in the pursuit of long term benefits while avoiding as much as possible taking on long-term risks in the pursuit of short-term benefits is excellent. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CLhqjOzoyE&feature=player_embedded

As the 2011-2012 school year winds to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a restful vacation. I would also like to thank all of you for choosing to use the book this year – so far almost 2300 books have been distributed worldwide. While the textbook situation facing IB economics teachers is now much improved as compared to last year, I am pleased to report that I have received orders in the past couple of months from schools that did not order the book last year, so hopefully the book’s combination of clarity, concision and affordability will continue to resonate with teachers and students.

Concerning orders, as my distributor in Oman is due to go on holidays in a week or so, I expect that I will not be having him send books out again until the first week of August. However, as the bulk of the copies are there (1500 books as opposed to just 200 or so here in Canada) if you are a North American customer and are interested in ordering a large quantity of books, please let me know right away so that I can have him send them to you from Oman before he goes on vacation.

Lastly, I am anticipating a second printing in the spring of 2013 for the 2013-2014 school year. Based on my experience this past year producing “Economics for Canadians” I am committed to engaging a graphic designer to make the second edition as visually attractive and engaging as possible and to printing a teachers’ guide containing the solutions to the exercises as well as teaching ideas and suggestions for additional resources.

However, beyond that I am quite open to suggestions from you, the users of the book, about how to make it better. Some things I am considering are:

1) Printing the lessons and the exercises in separate books, so that the former can be re-used in successive years

2) Just printing the exercises while releasing the lessons only in electronic form (I am considering using the new Apple textbook platform) to reduce distribution costs and to support e-learning initiatives

3) Releasing the entire book (lessons and exercises) electronically using the new Apple textbook platform (I still need to play around with the software, but if the exercises can be made interactive this might be a great way to go)

Again, though, if you have any ideas or suggestions as to how to make the second edition better, please feel free to share your thoughts with me by email.

This past weekend the following article was published in The Daily Observer in Pembroke, Ontario, relating to the process of debt deleveraging we are now going through:

The Great Deleveraging 2nd Draft

As well, as my Canadian economics textbook is now at the printer, I will be sure to get some additional macroeconomics exercises up early next week.

Lastly, I am curious as to how many schools are using the resources on this website, including the PDF files of the book itself. If you are using the website to support your learning, please comment on this post with your school name and anything else you might want to say. Constructive criticism is especially welcome!

I would like to point out that the book is available from a number of vendors with whom you may already have a relationship. While I will gladly fill any orders emailed to me directly, if you prefer you may also order books through:

International Schools Services – for a very modest fee, they will ship the book along with any other materials you request in a consolidated shipment from the U.S.

Amazon.com – While I have to charge a much higher price in order to absorb Amazon’s greater-than-50% ‘take’, this may suit your needs better than a direct order.

Or, in various countries, you may want to order books from:

Australia – Pronin IB, Hornsby, NSW or Campion Education, Mitcham, VIC

India – Scholar Book Centre, Mumbai or PBC Distributors, Mumbai

Singapore – Title Text Marketing or Teamway Educational Resources

Hong Kong – Swindon Book Company, Tsimshatsui

The U.K. – The IB Bookshop, Heath Books, Sutton, Surrey

Switzerland – Librairies La Fontaine, Lausanne

Poland – Omnibus Trading Sp., Poznan

Greece – Evripidis Books, Athens

Italy – Libreria Venti Settembre, Genova

Colombia – Books and Books, Bogota

Lastly, to order books directly from me here in Canada, simply send me an email stating the number of books you require, the complete address you would like the books sent to, and your preferred method of payment (bank transfer, credit card/paypal, or cheque drawn on a US or Canadian bank).

Today I was sent this link to a letter to the editor that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen back in 1984 about economic issues of the day:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2194&dat=19840723&id=lKQyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UO8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=1434,1167409

Meanwhile, last week this column was published in The Daily Observer here in Pembroke about the risks to the banking system posed by credit default swaps on outstanding Greek government debt.

Why what happens in Greece matters to Canadians – revised

Lastly, I am finishing up my Canadian textbook project and so should be able to get some macroeconomics exercises up here after this upcoming week. Thank you for your patience.

I was in Asia for the past couple of weeks and was therefore not checking my email every day (no, I do not have a ‘smart phone’). Upon returning home yesterday I learned that my email account had been hacked and used to send out junk mail concerning various ‘get rich quick’ and Viagra schemes this past week. I have changed my password to a more secure one so hopefully the flow of spam will now stop. Please accept my apologies.

Over the past couple of weeks I have written 4 lessons looking at the origins, nature and likely future path of the ongoing global financial crisis. While I wrote the lessons for inclusion in a book I am writing for Canadian high school students, if you feel your students may be interested to learn more about the crisis, I have placed the lessons (in PDF form) at the bottom of the page containing the PDFs for the book.
Happy holidays!

As IB1 students are going to be writing their first semester exams and their first commentaries soon, I have uploaded a number of additional exercises, a model commentary, and more IB-style questions and model answers. I will likely not upload anything further for the next month or so, but if you have any specific needs, feel free to write to me and I will do my best to respond.