When I taught history at Iowa I tried to have my students take away at least two economic points:
1. Countries do not trade with each other; individuals and firms trade with each other. Countries may compete with each other militarily, diplomatically and in terms of pride, but they don't compete with each other economically because trade--and more importantly economic growth--is not a zero-sum game, and indeed it's better to have rich people to trade with than poor people. 2. Real incomes per person in the western world--the amount of food, shelter, clothing, transportation and idle entertainments--has risen roughly 25 times (in the US) since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution; even the poor in the west are wealthy by historical standards; indeed the average welfare recipient in 1990 consumed as much income as the average middle-income American did in 1955, etc. David Levenstam In a message dated 2/2/03 2:47:48 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >I will be giving a 15-20 minute talk to a bunch of journalists and > >proto-journalists ( most of them are editors of student university > >newspapers) about what economics has to offer journalism. I am > >interested in the suggestions of list members as to what the most > >important lessons economics has to teach. I have a number of thoughts > > >myself, of course, including > > > >comparative advantage (veneer of competition hides much cooperation) > >public choice (qui bono? look for the organized exploiting the unorganized) > >tradeoffs/all good are economic goods (e.g. safety) > >amazing economic/business stories that are not told (I have in mind here > > >"I Pencil"/"How Paris is Fed" stories about the great complexities of > >modern markets that people take for granted. > > > >Other ideas? Thoughts? Specific examples? > > > >Alex
