Economics II

 

You’re The Man

Don't give us no peace sign
Turn around, rob the people blind
Ah, economics, who is the issue
Do you have a plan with you?
'Cause, if you've got a master plan
(Got the vote for you)
You're the man.

Is economics the key to the master plan?

Economics is often called the dismal science.  This is a reflection that economics often throws cold water, reality, on what we want to do, because we can’t afford it.  This is true of ALL sciences.  Science is about discovering rules on how things actually work, which is often not how we wish they would work.  “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” 

The three laws of thermodynamics can be humorously,  but dismally, expressed as:

You can’t win.  (energy can not be created or destroyed in an isolated system.)

You can’t break even. (the entropy of any isolated system always increases.)

You can’t quit the game. (the entropy of a system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero.)

Economics is often interpreted as setting a price so that there is a profit.  It actually is much more than that.  It is about setting a price that allocates resources, even when there is no profit.  Hear that Postmaster General DeJoy?  The US Post Office is a government SERVICE that is not supposed to make a profit.  Minimizing a loss is NOT the same as ensuring a profit.  If you want to be the man, learn the rules.