Learning Economic Theories

Already a couple of days in, and I'm learning that there is a lot more to learn. I've been focusing on the article of The Great Depression in Wikipedia to kind of give me an overview. This also is a big area that economists have spent a lot of time researching.

The article also tries to educate on the various theories of economics such as Keynesian, Classical, and Neoclassical. These are all academically created theories, but it is interesting to see how they have influenced government policy.

The Great Depression spurred governments to make drastic changes in policy, in particular the US government. The adoption of new policies in the United States seems to have dramatically changed our culture over the past 75 years or so. This is going to be worth exploring further for me, but I'll try to highlight a few points here.

Keynesian economics advocates active fiscal policy, which means the government gets involved in trying to smooth out normal business cycles in the economy. We see this in government deficit spending today during times when the economy is slowing.

Monetary policy also changed dramatically, by moving away from the gold standard in currency. Essentially, we moved to a system where a 'dollar' is measured on it's own and not in relation to gold. This allows the government to control what the value of a dollar is. I have a lot more to read here, but we essentially see this today with the Federal Reserve when they change their interest rates.

Clearly, I have a lot more to read to get a grasp on this stuff. I remember a bit of it from high school history, but just a bit. These are just the basics that I'll have to build on, so I'm not going to be able to jump into big stuff right away. I'm looking at the theories right now, but I think I'd like to tackle the topic of Debt first -- and understand how it's used today, and how that has changed over the years.

Economics

All the hubbub about the economy lately has reignited my interest in economics. I'm probably paying too close attention in an election year, but the media keeps yammering on and my head keeps trying to make sense of everything coming my way. So, I've decided to take a foray into history and try and see if there are any correlations with current events. I'll probably be relying heavily on Wikipedia for this endeavor, but I may bring in a few other sources as I have time. Here's a rough outline of what I'd like to look at over the next few weeks:

• Current Trends and Policy
  • Consumer Debt
  • Government Debt
  • Government Budgets
  • Trade Deficit
  • Immigration / Outsourcing / Non-Immigrant Work Visas
  • Effect of an Election on the Economy
• Past Causes of Economic Downturn (including the Great Depression)
  • Debt
  • Inequality of Wealth and Income
  • Business
  • Deficit spending
  • Trade decline
  • US Federal Reserve
• Causes and Effects of Inflation

The goal of all of this is to connect the dots, envision what could happen today, and what to do about it. Ambitious, I know, but at the very least I'll be clearing the cobwebs out of those old high school history and economics knowledge.

Omnivore's Dilemma

I recently just finished this book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, which I found very interesting, so I had to share it.

One passage in the book just stood out to me, about Polyface Farms, and how they have created a farm that produces food by allowing the animals to do what they do best, yet they all work in a symphony that creates a better environment for everyone. Food production is not a zero-sum game. I found a video, up on TED, where the author goes through this exact passage.

This pastoral view of the world reminds me of my preferred view of the future, which I derived from a poster I saw in the fourth grade. If I ever find a picture of that poster, I'll put that up here...

Also, the passage above with the chickens reminds me of some friends and their stories of chickens in their garden.