Christopher E. Baecker



Articles by Christopher E. Baecker

History vs Economics: Explaining the Causes of the Great Depression

“Who controls the past now, controls the future. Who controls the present now, controls the past.”
That is from “Testify,” a song by newly minted rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Famers Rage against the Machine. I don’t know if Phillip W. Magness of the American Institute for Economic Research is fan enough to be familiar with that, but I bet he knows the original source: George Orwell’s 1984.
Whether or not it informed a recent study he coauthored is unclear, but that line has been ringing in my head ever since I read Magness’s summary.
Magness, along with Jeremy Horpedahl and Marcus Witcher, professors of economics and history respectively at the University of Central Arkansas, discovered differences between how college-level introductory economics and history textbooks document the causes of the

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Protectionism and “Weak Dollar” Trade Policy

Until disco came back to me at dance clubs and via the great “boogie nights” in the 1990s, I didn’t recall a whole lot from my childhood in the 1970s. Trying to build my own “Speed Racer” and being in awe of the rock group KISS stand out.
“Too many dollars chasing too few goods” was another.

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