The short answer – it is important for people to be informed about economics.
The longer answer – economics is a part of life, whether we acknowledge it or not. Wouldn’t our lives be better if we understood economics? Would we make better career choices? Would we make better decisions on what we purchase? Would we be better investors? Would our political choices change? Alas the long answer is more questions – important questions.
If there is anything that I have found to be a glaring deficit in modern education it is the total lack of knowledge in economics. You scarcely find it in the high schools and it is clear to me that it alludes college students. It is no surprise that young people today commence their adult lives by making bad choices in education, diving deep into debt with little or no understanding of the near impossibility of overcoming the challenge of paying off student loans. Would an understanding of economics have helped them?
Politically, our country has grievously indebted the future generation because many of our politicians ignore economics. They can do that because economics is not a concern of voters. Voters, not just politicians, need to engage economics. Being a bit knowledgeable about economics can inform the voter, where the questions they ask of politicians are more difficult, less sexy than the hot-button topics we tend to follow.
My journey in economics began when I was in college. I found it a fascinating subject. But I was on a pre-law track back then and introductory economics was one of the electives I had to take to complete my degree. Yet the seed was planted in Econ 101. Cross-eyed vision derailed my law ambitions, making the consumption of volumes of reading material difficult. Economics, however, held some possibilities and I enrolled in the agricultural economics graduate program at the University of Missouri. While it is true that economics is “theory”, agricultural economics is an arena where tons of real-world data can prove or disprove economic assumptions. The atmosphere at the university was energizing. We mixed it up with professors who advised presidents and leading business journals. We worked closely with our professors, chief of which were the morning gatherings around a long table in the garret next to the copy center where coffee and donuts were readily available. It would be here that young minds would be challenged to engage savants. Socrates would have been pleased.
I would like to invite you to the table.