The Economics of Attaching to the Wrong Thing

The woman and her child. This is beautiful attachment.

“What is economics?”

The professor dangled the question in the opening minutes of Introduction to Macroeconomics. Arms folded, face flat, he waited.

“The study of money?” a girl on the front row suggested.

“Yes, but not exactly.”

Another took a stab. “The understanding of financial systems?”

“In a sense but incomplete.”

Each potential answer was a clay pigeon. The professor was a dead shot. The question-answer carnage continued for what seemed...