Status Updates From Basic Economics: A Common S...

I’ve been reading this for like three years—I’m committing to FINALLY finishing this by the end of March

Left on chap 12
Sowells exploration of price capping is so interesting. He brings up many reasons why letting prices control themselves is best for everyone especially the lower economic classes. His discussion about the relationship between minimum wage and unemployment is also amazing. So many things I had never considered before. Like how as minimum wage increases, employee met in lower economic classes decreases.

Started reading the whole text whereas I listened to it before

A banger

I didn’t expect to like economics this much

Chapter 3: Price Controls. Price controls sound fair—but history shows the real cost. Ceilings spark shortages, hoarding, and black markets; floors create wasted surpluses and inflated prices. From 16th-century Antwerp to modern Zimbabwe, interfering with prices misallocates resources, hurts the vulnerable, and fuels political favoritism.

Excellent! Must read for anyone who wants to understand how Economics impacts their daily lives.

ITS getting better, remainds me of the austrians

Dry empirical questions are seldom as exciting as political crusades or ringing moral pronouncements.

But empirical questions are questions that must be asked if we are truly interested in the wellbeing of others, rather than in excitement or a sense of moral superiority for ourselves.

“None of this is rocket science, but it does require stopping to think.”

“Much confusion comes from judging economic policies by the goals they proclaim rather than the incentives they create.”

“In a world of positive-sum transactions, it is understandable why rent control laws lead to housing shortages, and minimum wage laws increase unemployment.”

And yet to this day politicians get voted in by promising to do exactly this!

Privileges which harm others must be distinguished from achievements which benefit others and advance society as a whole.

Exploitation may be an intellectually convenient, emotionally satisfying, and politically expedient explanation of income differences between nations or between groups within a given nation, but it does not have the additional feature of fitting the facts about where profit-seeking enterprises invest most of their money.

In university, I had economy 1 and 2. Yet my understanding of it was superfluous. In this book, it talks about the logic behind its thesis rather than going deep into the number, and in doing so, it reaches more people.

Up to now, I learned a few things, some of the things that I knew, it became clearer.

Chapter 2: The Role of Prices, studies how scarce resources with alternative uses require trade-offs. Supply rises with price; demand falls. There’s no fixed “need” or “real” value—prices reflect subjective choices. Competition and prices guide efficient resource use. Unmet needs persist because resources are limited. Economics is about balancing trade-offs, not solving all problems.

I might change my mind in the near future

Qué lindo sería que la gente entendiera que, no existen brechas de género en los salarios de los trabajos, ni que los precios en ningún mercado son al tuntún?

- greed is kind of the problem w the economy, not by policy makers or business owners, but by those taking advantage of policies/incentives in place
- harm: thinking intentional causes are what brings on systemic effects (insurance costs in impoverished areas, ...affirmative action)
- substitutes for price allocation (control, floors) reduce the incentive for self rationing (reason for point no.1)

Price control will not fix anything; people will hoard (especially housing/ apartments) and quality deteriorates. Price floors are also not v helpful to gov, poor, and tax payers, but very helpful to the individual group that it’s for. Price floors lead to poor having none or less than necessary, tax dollars used to pay for surplus, and surplus is rotting.

Q Does international trade solve this?

Learning about economics over the course of three years with my high school students!

After the stock market crash in October of 1929, the unemployment rate peaked at 9% two months after the crash, then gradually decreased to 6.3% in June 1930.

Then, after a series of major unprecedented government interventions, the unemployment rate soared over 20% for 35 consecutive months.

Interventions started with Hoover, continued by FDR.

Interesting thought: sometimes best to let economy recover itself.

By the end of the year, I will have listened to the Fourth Edition over and over and eye read the Fifth Edition. I’m really hoping my AP English students are prepared to have most conversations come back to economics!

Trying to get caught up by the time I start school 😅

Es raro leer economía sin fórmulas ni gráficos, pero es muy agradable que esté escrito con peras y manzanas

When honest landlords stand to lose money under rent control, while dishonest landlords can still make a profit, it is virtually inevitable that the property will pass from the former to the latter.

Shrewd and unscrupulous landlords have made virtually a science out of milking a rent controlled building by neglecting maintenance and repairs, defaulting on mortgage payments, falling behind in the payment of taxes, and then finally letting the building become the property of the city by default. Then they move on to complete the same destructive process with other rent controlled buildings.

In New York City, landlord arsons became so common that the city responded with special welfare allowances. For a while, burned out tenants were moved to the top of the list for coveted public housing. That gave tenants an incentive to burn down their buildings—they did, often moving television sets and furniture out onto the sidewalk before starting the fire.

#rentcontrol

Those who create incentives toward widespread dishonesty by promoting laws which make honest behavior financially impossible are often among the most indignant at the dishonesty, and the least likely to regard themselves as in any way responsible for it.

One example -> rent control laws

Listening to the audiobook while jogging when I’m not blasting Rhianna