Friday, December 20, 2013

How Your Christmas Wishlist Tells You Everything You Need to Know About Economics

Actually, this is one of those 20 minute videos that will teach the beginner more about economics than three college classes will.



I have also coined the new degree:

"Masters in The Avoidance of Math"

I kill me!

Remember, if you enjoy the videos, buy something through the Wal-Mart affiliate plan.  You can click on it in the right side bar.

11 comments:

Cogitans Iuvenis said...

Agreed Captain, and this is why I think the Chinese are the biggest suckers on the planet. We give them worthless government securities in exchange for shiny new air craft carriers and submarines.

Cogitans Iuvenis said...

Agree 100% with your concept of wealth. This is one of the reason why I think the Chinese are in trouble because they have exchanged their stuff for our 'dollars'. On top of that they are 'investing' their money in ultimately worthless government securities and we use that money to buy air craft carriers, missiles.

On another tangent I think there are the components that make up wealth, resources. This is why China is scrambling to buy up mining rights in African nations while we here in the good old USA import energy despite having some of the largest reserves in the world.

The Civilizationalist said...

Hi Cappy,
I've got a new post: http://humancivilizations.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/humans-have-been-naturally-selected-for-capitalism/

Would love to hear your thought.

Anonymous said...

"If you are an independent person, you are producing something of value, you are producing some kind of wealth, you are producing some kind of material or good or service that is DEMANDED."

True independence is being alone on a deserted Island and living solely off your grunt work of hunting, fishing, cultivating and gathering.

To depend on the demand of others is not independence. You depend on others demanding your stuff. This is not independence at all. This is not going your own way.

And under such an arrangement, you don't produce the stuff all by yourself, you needed stuff to produce that stuff. Stuff that others produced etc.

Interdependence is not independence.

True independence is autarky.

Anonymous said...

To be an employee, flipping burgers.

People want hamburgers but they don't want hamburger flipping employees.

It's even tough to be hired at McDonalds as a hamburger flipper.

There is no dignity at being an employee, let alone a job seeker.

If people want hamburgers so much then why not start your own hamburger joint where people will buy your hamburgers.

Compete against McDonalds.

Anonymous said...

Why do I have to provide for others in order to be "independent" ?

Why, in order to be "independent", must I be held hostage to what others demand ?

True independence is to provide for myself. To flip my own hamburgers that I alone will eat.

Is the customer "independent" if he has to buy from you ? Then you are not independent if you have to sell to him !

Why can't I provide by myself and for myself and circumvent the whole selling and buying crap ?

Kenny said...

Hey Cappy. When's your new book coming out?

Anonymous said...

Reminded me of this quote by MLK, that a lot of young folks obviously wouldn't understand.

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

Paul, Dammit! said...

Cogitans luvenis- slight inaccuracy in your assumption on why we import our energy supply- fuel oils are a 100% globalized commodity. Ignoring short-term burps in speculation-driven prices, oil pricing and availability is one of the only truly global markets, and the cost of transportation is so low (about 1.5 cents/gallon by the time oil goes from the middle east to a US refinery, is made into gas, then to a ship or pipeline, then a truck, then your gas station) that it really doesn't matter where the crude is when you buy it. This is why political issues affect price so strongly. OTOH, Everyone wants easy-to-refine American sweet crude oil, so it's a premium product compared to sour, cheap crude from Venezuela. Still, if you have a refinery and some excess capacity, you'll buy whatever you can get.

Just some guy said...

All I want for Christmas is for the hvu.to to go back to 9000+.

Torgo said...

I looked up my old GRE records the other day and the average Verbal score for Education majors was lower than that of Engineering majors. The Education and Business majors were scraping the bottom of the barrel in the Analytical scores as well.