I am excited to see this community here on livejournal

[marissaelyse]

Hello everyone,
I am so excited to see this community here on livejournal! I am an aspiring economic student and plan on pursuing economics as my course of study once I graduate high school. I am stoked that this community is already set up and I look forward to reading posts! I am seriously interested in expanding my knowledge of economic terms and

Comments

[ninboydean]

You appear to be a leftist and interested in economics. That's good since so many ideologues* refuse to actually study the field which would uncover, prove or disprove crucial facets of their idea structures

[tisiphone]

Frustratingly (and as a leftist economist myself) that's true. There are some really good heterodox economists out there though. Sam Bowles comes to mind as someone that integrates ideology and practice well.

[marissaelyse]

I am defiantly going to do some reading up on Sr. Sam Bowles, thanks for the recommendation!

[marissaelyse]

Yay! thank you so much for the reading recommendations! I am still very interested in Marx, not so much because I am a big angry communist yet, I honestly think I am to young and understudied to have such strong opinions, but I know for sure that I disagree with the system I currently live in and that I want to read as much as I can to be an informed intelligent decision maker when I do decide to throw my all into something. Or make something new up on my own that works? lol

[ninboydean]

I'm not sure about Keynes and trickle down. Reagan supported 'trickle down' at the behest of Friedman. I'm certainly not suggesting any reading because I necessarily agree with it.

Probably one of the most important things to keep in mind is that history has a compelling effect on economics. The changes that occurred in the late 80s and 90s (and even today) are drawing finances further and further away from production (though a the same time, supposedly unrelated financial decisions are more and more consequential to commodity-values). That is to say that the financial world is discovering how to make money without producing things. Understanding capitalism quickly leads to the realization that the commodity phase of an exchange is a "necessary evil" to accomplish the real goal: valorization of capital, or profit.

The government used to require that banks keep losses on their accounting sheets (which impacts the value of all sorts of things, especially houses). This means that banks had to actually account for losses.

Now, banks

[goumindong]

"Reagan supported 'trickle down' at the behest of Friedman"

Not really, no. Reagan used Friedman et al in order to promote his ideology. But his ideology was not economic. Reagan wasn't even remotely close to Friedman's research or large ideas.

Or, to quote Greg Mankiw, an adviser for GWB and likely the guy that wrote your textbook (if it wasn't Samuelson) . Supply side and Trickle Down Economics have always been bunk.

[capthek]

Actually, before jumping into Marx directly you may wish to read another author who can help you in more modern terms. I highly suggest David Harvey's "Limits to Capital" who summarizes all of Marx's works.

[goumindong]

I agree with this. Though i haven't read the book recommended, getting into Marx without really understanding the underpinnings of Socialism as a movement in the 1850's is pretty tough (especially if you read the manifesto and not Das Capital)

[goumindong]

I understand the intent behind this, but its pretty much just wrong

[p2thej]

I somewhat disagree on Keynes, I found the General Theory to be surprisingly accessible and even entertaining. Of course, it probably isn't worth reading until after completing at least a freshman econ sequence, but I feel cheated as I fell prey to such assessments and delayed reading the original until after undergrad.

[goumindong]

Maybe it was just the copy I had. My was edited in the late 40's iirc. And it was pretty labored reading. Some of it was fun, but him making fun of Ricardo probably doesn't mean much to non-econ folks.

[goumindong]

For instance, a lot of people think that Friedman disagreed with Keynes. But that is not really true. Monetarism doesn't make any sense outside of the framework of the Keynesian system. What Friedman disagreed with was that using fiscal policy to stabilize aggregate demand was a good thing, that a fixed monetary policy of slight but constant expansion was better. But this main point turned out to be false just as the idea that fiscal policy was the be all end all policy level turned out to be false. (but frankly, Keynes never thought that, rather that it was a better lever than monetary policy... which is entirely arguable