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

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Played/heard: 7h57m.
Chapter 9 begins: 20h09m remaining.

Look I've been waiting for the library to finally get this so Milgrom will have to wait

self interest is good, due to self-interest, people work better in the work place for promotions, businesses improve their product for the sake of the consumer and etc

Behind: 4h20m
Ahead: 23h46m
Chapter 5

pricing mechanism so based

Teaching this with some students at Wildwood Learning Center online.

3%
1h04m listened
27h01m remain

1% = 21m47s.
Remaining = 27h44m.

Almost a fourth through!

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?