An Introduction.

I couldn’t tell you what initially sparked my personal interest in economics. Before I had any formal education on the subject, it was nothing more to me than a word thrown around but never thoroughly explained.

In my opinion, while terms like “economics” and “the economy” are ubiquitous in daily conversation and media, most people lack a clear understanding of their meaning. This disconnect is concerning. Important economic concepts are not widely understood, making it difficult for society to have informed discussions about the economy’s real nature and what a healthy one should look like.

Everyone talks about the economy on the news, assuming we’re all vaguely on the same page about what that word means. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but there is some small part of me that’s tempted to believe the lack of mainstream economic education exists to enable talking heads, media pundits, and politicians to say whatever they want.

Think what you want about fact-checking, censoring, or “cancelling”. It’s no secret that news sources are far from objective and more beholden than ever to political agendas and social issues.

If a talking head on FOX News or CNN boldly proclaimed, “This just in, two plus two equals seven!” There would (hopefully) be an uproar of common sense from Americans who know with certainty the correct sum is four. We all learned basic addition as children and agree that it’s a fundamental skill for navigating the world. Because of this, we wouldn’t let a public figure get away with saying something so outrageous and so obviously wrong.

But we do it every day with economics. If you are a taxpaying, voting American, taking mainstream media at face value is just as ridiculous as accepting that two plus two equals seven.

Nobody should learn about economics from the news (I don’t think anyone can). As a young person, I wanted to gain sufficient education to understand economics as a science and thus be able to evaluate what people said about the economy in a more informed manner.

At some point, those terms that previously blended into the landscape of our culture stuck out to me. I started wondering: “Wait, what is the economy?” “What do people mean by inflation?” “Why is everyone upset about gas prices?” “Has there really never been a better time to buy gold?” etc. You might have some of those questions too. If so, this blog is for you.

I am not an economist, and I don’t have a degree in economics. I cannot solve an integral on demand. I am just a person with a laptop and internet access, writing about something I enjoy - and I’m still learning.

It is my firmly-held belief that you don’t need an advanced degree to decipher what’s going on in our economy (or what people are saying about it), just like you don’t need to be a mathematician to know that two plus two is four. This blog is meant to make economics accessible and relatable, no matter what your previous education may be. This is a guide for the layman.