I personally like to recommend this book: Naked Economics

I should probably petition for it to be on the official reading list. It is part of the undergrad introductory course at the University of Chicago (which is probably most prestigious economics program). It is an easy read and has been updated with new additions several times.

The problem with The Armchair Economist and The Undercover Economist from the reading list is that they are a little bit outdated. Its not that stuff in them is wrong, but its harder to relate to the examples they use, and its often awkward when books/textbooks were written before the Financial Crisis because it has had such a huge effect on certain facets of economics.

You might notice that last point yourself as when study finance. I had a corp fin professor who let us use old versions of the textbook (gave the pages/problem numbers for the last 4 editions)...but man, reading that book was sometimes weird since the examples were so out of touch with current reality. The theory was unchanged, but damn did the repercussions of the financial crisis change the way certain things are talked about (for instance, the risk free rate made a much bigger difference in your calculations back when 5%+ was normal vs near zero for the last decade).

Taxes are frequently engineered to align with incentives -- particularly when it comes to shared resources.

For example: large, heavily-polluting vehicles. If we all pay equally for roads and environmental health, there's no reason I should care how much damage my vehicle does.

If, however, the government taxes vehicles by weight or fuel consumption, the cost is borne most significantly by those who do the most damage.

For more information, I highly recommend the book Naked Economics.

Freakonomics (and sequel) are entertaining, but they don't actually explain economics--they try to use economics to explain other things. In doing so, they explain a few economic concepts, but that was never their goal.

If you want some enjoyable reading that actually aims to teach econ, I highly recommend naked economics. It is well written, easy to understand, and a number of elite undergrad econ classes use it as a companion to a "real" textbook (like Mankiw) because it does a really good job building intuition. Covers micro and macro, and I might not have majored in econ without having read it in my intro class.

You can get older editions super cheap on amazon...I can't say what the differences are, but they probably all cover the basics. What you'd miss out on by using an older edition is probably refined explanation of the financial crisis (which might be worth the extra few bucks).

Let's be clear about what you posted.

1. An economics blog explaining collusion
2. A White House blog about the meat packing industry
3. An article about the DOJ investigating collusion
4. Elizabeth Warren talking to NPR about collusion

This is not sufficient evidence to prove your claim. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. You think you're right? Prove it.

Collusion existing in the economy does not mean a causal relationship between collusion and inflation exists. Which is the claim you are making and the claim that flies in the face of established economics. Here's a book recommendation on the basics of economics for the layman.

Since you don't seem to know what constitutes acceptable evidence for this claim let me help you out. You need a published, peer-reviewed paper, that establishes a causal link between anti-competitiveness or collusion and inflation. Particularly it needs to prove that it is a driver of inflation.

Further, I am taking the default position in the field of economics that inflation is a result of changes in monetary phenomenon. Here's an MSNBC article where they interview actual economists explaining what they believe the causes of inflation. You'll notice that muh greedy corporations aren't a primary or even secondary driver here.

So if I have to choose between leading economists in the field telling inflation is a result of primarily the pandemic followed by secondary causes like the overstimulation of the economy with fiscal stimulus and overly online chucklefucks who've never done a piece of social science research in their life who do you think I'm going to pick?

https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Economics-Undressing-Dismal-Science/dp/0393356493/ref=sr\_1\_1?crid=3SYF7FHRAIC1W&keywords=naked+economics&qid=1648212856&sprefix=naked+economics%2Caps%2C83&sr=8-1