Economic Miseducation

I have taught basic principles of economics for thirty years to groups after groups of college students who were often cross-eyed, bored, running late, playing with their phones, angry that I gave them too many notes, “hard tests,” and too many assignments which interfered with their busy social lives. Continue reading

The Bright Colors of Freedom

Wikipedia palette of nature Nature’s palette Photo: Wikipedia
The shelves are bursting at the seams with colorful merchandise. Spring is here and there is something new for everyone’s budget, no lines anywhere. I picked my favorite color, teal, and took it to the cash register. The young man, a Millennial no doubt, smiled and casually asked me if I liked bright colors. Continue reading

Price, Bananas, and a Pesky Soil Fungus from Asia

banana_fruit_healthy_223064Keynesian economists tell us that under perfect competition, if there is no government interference and no central planning or directing, producers and consumers make uncoordinated decisions to produce exactly the quantity of each good that satisfies the equation MC=MU and scarce resources are allocated efficiently.
Marginal cost (MC) is the cost incurred by producing one additional unit of a commodity while marginal utility (MU) is the maximum amount of money a consumer is willing to pay for one more unit of a commodity. Continue reading

Lauren’s Success and the Failure of Common Core

Lauren was really proud of her accomplishments. She belonged to the baby boom generation who had experienced hardship. She valued land and working with her hands. Every extra dime she saved, she invested in agricultural and forested land. When she won a coveted $25,000 award in the early 1990s, she bought more pasture land.
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