Economics For Dummies, 4th Edition

Introduction

Economics is about humanity’s struggle to achieve happiness in a world full of constraints. There’s never enough time or money to do everything people want, and things like curing cancer are still impossible because the necessary technologies haven’t been developed yet. But people are clever. They tinker and invent, ponder and innovate. They look at what they have and what they can do with it and take steps to make sure that if they can’t have everything, they’ll at least have as much as possible.

Having to choose is a fundamental part of everyday life. The science that studies how people choose — economics — is indispensable if you really want to understand human beings both as individuals and as members of larger organizations. Sadly, though, economics has typically been explained quite badly. As a result, people tend to either dismiss it as impenetrable gobbledygook or stand falsely in awe of it. After all, if it’s hard to understand, it must be important, right?

I wrote this book so you can quickly and easily understand economics for what it is — a serious science that studies a serious subject and has developed some seriously good ways of explaining human behavior in the (very serious) real world. You’ll understand much more about people, the government, international relations, business, and environmental issues after reading these pages. Economics touches on nearly everything, so the returns to reading this book are enormous.

About This Book

The Scottish ...