Here are the questions may choose from to respond on the blog:
- Do the issues affect your life? Directly or indirectly? On a daily basis, or more generally? Now or in the future?
- What are the implications for the future? Are there long- or short-term consequences to the issues raised in the book? Are they positive or negative, affirming or frightening?
- What solutions does the author propose to any problems mentioned? Who would implement those solutions? How probable is success?
- How controversial are the issues raised in the book? Who is aligned on which sides of the issues? Where do you fall in that alignment?
- Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad. What was memorable?
- What have you learned after reading this chapter? Has it broadened your perspective about a difficult issue—personal or societal? Has it introduced you to a new idea or way of thinking?
Although the introduction was rather short, there was one passage in particular that stood out to me most. It was "Most of the great ideas in economics are intuitive when the dressings of complexity are peeled away. That is naked economics". This excerpt stood out to me because it means that the root of economics are simple principles that everybody should be able to understand - thus giving me hope that I will be able to understand complex economics after reading the rest of Naked Economics.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find to be very interesting is the allusion to 'behavioral economics.' I think that as human trends and behaviors become more quantifiable, as they are on track to, there is a possibility that such crises as those they mention (obesity, flying) will be better understood. The possibility that human behavior won't overcome these views is equally intriguing to me. I would hope/ expect the book to expand on those comments.
ReplyDeleteI believe that economics affects me more daily than I'm aware of. One issue that I believe affected my life directly would be when the economy turned sour around 2008. We didn't have any free money around that time. My mom always told me that the economy was bad but I never really understood in full what that meant to me. I remember having to skip out on hangouts with friends because I knew I wouldn't have enough money to see movies or go bowling with them.
ReplyDeleteI thought the passage in the introduction where Wheelan compares the downside of "unfettered markets" to the American lust for the automobile was very interesting. He mentions that we don't pay the full cost of driving them. These were things that people don't normally think about, but had a big impact on society, like pollution and road repairs. I think that this book (and economics in general) will be full of the things that people don't normally think about and how they relate to us.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading about the people advocating for insurance companies to pay for an extra night stay for new mothers in the hospital. This idea sounds considerate and is an attractive idea to mothers, but when the long term effects are analyzed it turns out this is a horrible idea that will force insurance companies to raise premiums and will cause some people to not be able to afford health insurance. I enjoyed reading this because it is a great example to thinking about everybody involved and thinking about the long term effects of an idea. So often people passionately support an idea that sounds great and considerate to other people, but they don't realize that there plan economically does not work.
ReplyDeleteThis post was done by Thomas Ostrem. I don't know how to change my "Steve" profile from last years English project.
DeleteI really enjoyed reading about the people advocating for insurance companies to pay for an extra night stay for new mothers in the hospital. This idea sounds considerate and is an attractive idea to mothers, but when the long term effects are analyzed it turns out this is a horrible idea that will force insurance companies to raise premiums and will cause some people to not be able to afford health insurance. I enjoyed reading this because it is a great example to thinking about everybody involved and thinking about the long term effects of an idea. So often people passionately support an idea that sounds great and considerate to other people, but they don't realize that there plan economically does not work.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the part where Wheelan talks about affirmative action was really interesting. I had never thought about the fact that only the best of the majority suffer from affirmative action policies. In this case, the majority would white individuals applying for a job, though it could apply to men vs women, and age when applying for a job as well. These are both categories that begin to become relevant as soon as we enter the workforce.
ReplyDeleteOverall the introduction actually made me interested in reading the rest of the book. But one of the lines that stuck out was " This book is not economics for dummies; it is economics for smart people who never studied economics (or have only a vague recollection of doing so)." I took this as saying that economics isn't essentially 'difficult' or hard to understand, you don't really have to dumb-down anything because it is all intuitive and logical. You don't have to be an expert or eventually be going into economics to be knowledgeable on the subject. But rather this information (that will help anyone who is willing to listen) is to be told to the average everyday man, to help them make better decisions and to better understand their decision making process.
ReplyDelete