I’m 15 pages deep into Economics 201 I don’t know near enough to figure out what has and hasn’t work in our economy in the past few years. I’m sure that with one to two more years of study I still won’t know enough to figure it out. What I do know is that the “talking heads” on our 24hr news stations surely can’t grasp a problem as large as the one we face. There are simply too many variables involved. Normative economic principle (how people should behave) and positive economic principle (how people will behave) both come into play. How many people have put off spending money because of the “economy”? How many of these people are salaried and haven’t seen a drop in their income nor an increase in their cost of living? Why would they stop spending at their normal rate (unless they decide to pursue a different monetary goal)?
Questions like these are why I love economics – huge, broad, expansive questions with long detailed answers – answers that we may not get correct. Sure, our policy makers are educated and their advisors often have PhD’s in their respective fields but the problem is simply massive. By the time we’ve collected and analyzed all of the data the situation will have surely changed.
Look at the weather, for example, how often have we been told that that the mean temperature on our planet is rising. How much bizarre weather have we all experienced in the past few years? Isn’t it strange that Seattle had its warmest and driest summer ever but is experiencing one of its coldest winters so far? Our climate, much like the economy, is a massive system with millions of variables. To think that we can figure out what is causing it and “solve” the problem completely is ridiculous. I think that we can find solutions that will improve our situation but I doubt we can “stop” the warming like we can stop our cars in front of a stop sign. It’s simply too big. If we ALL changed – today – forever – we could start a gradual change in both the economy and in our climate. Without everyone involved its simply going to take time.
Wait a minute? I remember a speech from our President shortly after he came into office saying that it would take some time for our economy to recover. Hmmm… good advisers? Wise choice of words? Absolutely! Recent indicators show that we are on our way out of this hole that we have dug – we’re not out of the woods yet but we’re headed into the right direction.
Just my two cents.
Recent Comments