Don't feel too bad. I have a Princeton Econ degree and don't find it too much more reassuring. Neither do my fellow econ buddies. I means it's almost gotten to the point where it's fictional at the macro level.
I wouldn't feel too bad about it. Remember, Alan Greenspan was viewed as genius and he over-saw what one friend of mine believes was nearly the destruction of modern day society. Once people lose faith in the system, we are in big, big trouble.
It's funny to see what was written about Greenspan as recently as 20009:
Now this is being written about him:
Everyone Is Laughing at Alan Greenspan Today -
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/03/everyone-laughing-alan-greenspan-morning/36212/I think if you can handle the math, everyone should take econ 101/102 but maybe that book will do the trick.
The basic concepts are fantastic. Sunk expenditure, externalities, marginal cost, utility are all great things that people may have not thought about directly.
Basically, you'll end up learning why theoretically free trade is good for all.
But at some level, it seems to me that the macro guys think they can just invent it so that everyone is rich.
Here is a question for MIT grad guy. Do advanced econ people recognize the fact though that fundamentally money/work represents time from people.
When I think of money, I think of ultimately, it lets me get things that other people built or have people do things for me.
In my mind, we can't all be rich, unless we build things that last a long time or the population reduces a ton over generations.
Let's say the fed made it so everyone in the world woke up and had $10 million in their bank account. We'd all be rich but then prices would spike really, really quickly and we wouldn't be rich.
But if one has things that last longer, then we can have more and feel richer. In Baltimore, the pipes from the 1890s are bursting thus they are spending billions to have city workers/contractors fix those. If they lasted 200 years instead of 120, then those workers could work on other things.
If I buy a car for $30,000 and it lasts 10 years, that's good. If it lasts 20 years, then that's better as I have money for other things.
It's incredibly intertwined at the macro level though as that isn't good for car makers.
Like imagine for a minute nothing ever breaks. Then what, we sit around and do what all day?
But let's say we all worked in housing and we built 1,000 ten million houses. If the population sank to 1,000, then eveyrone could live in one of these houses. But, the eonomists like population growth as it funds govt. retirement plans.
I'm getting a headache thinking about it.