Posts Tagged ‘macroeconomics’

Economics is…

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Economics is the study of how people choose to allocate scarce resources. Every resource is limited in some way – wood , metal, food, even your time – and economics is the study of how people distribute these resources. Modern economics is broken into microeconomics (study of individuals) and macroeconomics (the study of large-scale economies).

Capitalism is…

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Capitalism is an economic system based on profit and private property. Through free exchange, people and companies are able to trade goods pretty much as they please. In a capitalistic marketplace, nearly everything is privately owned by profit-seeking entities rather than a government (such as with socialism). Capitalism is practiced in the United States and many other countries.

A Plutonomy is…

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

A Plutonomy is an economy that is driven and controlled by an extremely wealthy minority. The word was coined in 2005 by an analyst at Citigroup. According to the laws of Plutonomics, the rich – because they spend a lot of money – make up such a large proportion of national spending that they mess with national spending statistics.

For example, if you asked everyone in the country how much they spend on designer clothes each year, and averaged that number, you would get an inaccurate picture of how well America is dressing. Why? Because one person spending $10,000 a year on couture while 9 other people spend $0 still makes it look like everyone is dropping $1,000 on their “collection” every year.

Macroeconomics is…

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Macroeconomics is the study of overall trends in the economy: unemployment, interest rates, price levels, and growth rates.

Inflation is…

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Inflation is a rise in general price levels that causes the value of your money to decrease.  In other words, if you can buy a bag of groceries for $25, inflation is when that same bag now costs $35.