Thanks for the Lessons in Economics

    Like the sources of physical power and energy in the universe, such as gravity, time, and electro-magnetism, money and wealth are also hard to see or understand, but economics very much determine enormously how our world, actions, perceptions, and forces move, how we react and behave, and make decisions. I believe that we understand the physical and hard science laws, principles, and phenomena of known existence more than we do capital, as in money, the wealth that we spend, invest, earn, and grow in modern world.

    Much of the endowments and natural wealth that we enjoy, share, or fight about derives from the past. We need to be aware and understand power and history over time to better comprehend what is going on today, in the current world. Could the Hebrew or Jewish people over the last few millennia  be better off now, in 2024, economically and mentally, because of the immense wealth and power of King Solomon from 1,000 B.C.? The Romans rose eventually to tax those ancient peoples, while other empires before and since moved wealth and riches, resources and control over territories. The Greeks, the Persians, the Ottomans, and across the continents the Songhai, the Chinese, the Guptas or Moguls. Later the Japanese and Holy Roman Empire rose, as did the British, the French, the Russians, the Germans. Spain, Holland, Belgium, and Portugal and other European nations asserted their power overseas, especially in the newly colonizing areas like the "Global south", as we know it today. The languages of the southern hemisphere particularly reflect that. Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, French, English.

    All these countries, in particular the inheritor colonies of the United States, which we find ourselves in today, plus some commodity wealthy nations like the petroleum and gas rich countries of the Middle East and a few others, are creating and developing and maintaining markets and economies and militaries and governments and corporations that move the world as we know it. The billions of the citizens that share the planet, along with our pets, domesticated animals, trees, plants and flora and fauna of all kinds, to include the life within our rivers, lakes, seas and oceans, and under-earth crawlies and growing things. To include our highly valued metals and gems, and rare-earth elements.

    I have not mentioned sugar, and coffee and tea, and drugs and tobacco, and alcohol and other stimulants and sedatives. All these products play their roles in how all of make decisions, earn our livings, avoid or embrace addictions, habits, glean awareness and knowledge, perhaps develop professions and skills that lead to further successes or failures as individuals or families, communities or states.

    My professors of economics and history at UCLA were very smart; they knew how to track so much of the world and how it behaves. There are hundreds and thousands more of them the world wide over.

    What should we know? How do things work?

    Are we Keynesians or monetarists? Yes, no, maybe so?

    Do we follow any of the Austrian school of economics? How do we run our economies? How do we tax ourselves, protect ourselves and others?

    Where do we put our money and life investments? Do we fritter them away? Do we invest in ourselves and others?

    Whom do we serve, as Joshua of the Old Testament challenges us?

    How do we serve God, and not mammon, yet survive and thrive in a secular world?

    We need to learn micro, macro, personal and public economics.