NOW, THAT MAKES SENSE

explores and explains not only the conventional concepts of economics but also the concerns confronting our contemporary lives. These include our environment, inequality, work, ownership, money, growth, competition, ideology, and population diversity issues, among others. The various topics are introduced as they would be in a conversation and are placed in the context of stories and experiences that are likely to be familiar to the readers. By recruiting the findings of other scientific and historic fields of study, both the seasoned economist and the baffled college freshman will find plenty to entice and enlighten them as they read this book.

The author, Martin Gerhard Giesbrecht, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Northern Kentucky University, began playing the clarinet in the fifth grade in 1943. He hasn't quit since. This hasn't impeded the pursuit of his primary field of study in America and abroad. He earned a doctorate in economics at the University of Munich while on a Fulbright scholarship, not the first nor the last of his fellowships and grants. In his forty-plus years in higher education, twenty-nine of which were at Wilmington College in Ohio, he has taught over 10,000 students, regularly provided economic commentary on National Public Radio and Public Radio International, and published over a dozen economics books and many articles, some of which have appeared in German and in Chinese translations. Professor Giesbrecht makes his home in Villa Hills, Kentucky. He has three grown children and five grandchildren. He currently plays a Luis Rossi rosewood clarinet and uses #3 Vandoren V-21 reeds on a Ralph Morgan #28 mouthpiece.