Economics: How Economies Work
The economist's toolkit, micro and macro, taught on October 2026's numbers: scarcity and opportunity cost, trade and comparative advantage, supply and demand, elasticity, what markets do for welfare and what taxes and price controls cost, firms and competition, market power, externalities and public goods, information and behavior, wages, interest, and rent, how the whole economy is measured, inflation and unemployment, booms and busts, the schools of economic thought, money and central banks, budgets and debt, and long-run growth. Written as of October 2026, after the Federal Reserve held its rate on October 28 and the first estimate put third-quarter growth at 3.4%, in a year when an oil shock, new tariffs, and a rent freeze put the textbook to the test. Where economists or the public divide, from tariffs, rent control, and the minimum wage to carbon pricing, the inflation of 2021-23, how much debt is too much, and whether AI will raise productivity, each side makes its case before the evidence. Opens with a snapshot of the economy, its market prices from one day's close, and its worked examples run on October's numbers, from the full cost of a college degree and a tax on one market to the Taylor rule and the debt ratio's path.