So I’ve been through the readings for unit 2, and honestly, my whole concept was off as to the idea of what the different economic systems were. The first lesson here was pretty eye opening.
First lesson I took from this, is to forget everything about economics that is taught to me by the news, or political debates. There are bits of truth in those discussions, but most of what I’ve learned through that type of conversation is bias, not anything factual. I’m starting from a clean slate now, and more interested that I was before.
The first concept that I understand here is my idea of money isn’t what it should be. It’s simply a system of rationing. You earn your rations, and get to chose how you consume it, but essentially, it’s there so you can’t consume without limits. I’ve never considered it from that point of view, but it makes a lot of sense.
Now I’ve just got to get through the concepts of all these different systems, and especially the downfalls of our most prominent systems. I’ve been taught for a long time about how strong our system was, but somehow never connected the idea that our system is the cause of the fairly regular recessions/depressions that occur. That’s not to say 3 weeks in to my first econ class that I have any better ideas, but I can attribute some weaknesses to what currently exists, and not just chalk those things up to bad luck.