What I Learned In Boating School Is _______

I didn't really know what to expect going into economics this nine weeks. I figured it would be confusing and I wouldn't really know what was going on and above all else, I assumed it would be boring. As it turns out, boring is probably the last word I would use to describe eKernomics this term.   Whether we're pointing out the obvious flaws in the Bachelor (that show has really taken a beating in this class) or discussing the economic logic of marrying rich, nine weeks of economics has actually flown by pretty fast, and not only did I enjoy it but I actually feel like I learned a lot, and in the next nine-isa weeks I hope to learn about more topics (maybe something about how taxes work?) Here I'll list some of the most important lessons I'll be taking away from this nine weeks of economics, and in case all the blatant sucking up I just did isn't quite enough to get me an A on this blog, I guess I should actually try to demonstrate some economic understanding within the things I list.

Lesson One: If you're ever arguing for a planned economy, "stability" is your best friend.
Right off the bat, we were thrown the challenge of arguing for a planned economy. Not only did no one in my group actually support the idea of having a planned economy, but we also had only had like two classes so far, so our understanding of how economics even worked or what can be considered good or bad policies was pretty limited. Alyssa and me trying to understand what any of the Wikipedia page about planned economies meant was pretty pathetic, if you can even imagine there ever being a time when me and Alyssa weren't complete economics experts. Fortunately, our friend The Stability Argument really came in handy. Whenever growth isn't happening, argue for good ol' stability. The economy might be wrecked, but at least it's wrecked consistently. (It makes sense if you don't think about it.) And hey, don't be afraid to break out some shining examples like North Korea and Turkmenistan.

Lesson Two: Eating 12 donuts in a row is a terrible idea.
The spiel about "too much of a good thing" isn't just a bunch of nonsense our parents made up to avoid having to spent money on things we want. It's a real thing, although in economics it's called The Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns. While we may think that because we get a certain amount of utils (a unit of measurement we all use but weren't really aware of until like 7 weeks ago) from a single donut, 11 more donuts will give us 11 times that amount of utils. However, all those 11 extra donuts will get you is many, many regrets. After a while, eating donuts stops being awesome and starts being horrible, which goes to prove that economics really can ruin anything.

Lesson Three: We are now at the point in our lives when we spiral into crippling debt.
When seniors think of college, normally they think of the awesome things like new friends and fun classes and independence. But thanks to economics, I now have plenty of paranoia and anxiety about the fact that college is an extremely expensive investment that takes a billion years to pay back, assuming you can even find work after college because apparently there are three different types of unemployment.

Lesson Four: The 2016 election doesn't really matter because Janet Yellen is our secret overlord
If you had asked me who Janet Yellen was in December, I would have had no idea who you were talking about. Now, it feels like I'm constantly talking about Janet Yellen. Janet Yellen comes up in conversation all the time. Janet Yellen controls all of our futures with monetary policy, which I didn't even know was a thing, and none of us were even aware she was a person with this much control over our economy. Adam Smith was right, it seems. There is an invisible hand in our economy, and that hand belongs to Janet freaking Yellen.

Lesson Five: When in doubt, just ask Zo.
I pride myself in having learned a lot about economics these past nine weeks, but I still have to acknowledge that there have been an uncountable number of times that I have needed Zoe Truong to explain things to me. For long periods of time. Very, very slowly. Zo understands economics like nobody's business, so we better all be super nice to her, because some day she will be the new Janet Yellen, which means we'll all need her to get us out of the aforementioned crippling debt we've gotten ourselves into.

I've learned a lot of things in eKernomics this term. I think the most interesting thing was probably the business cycle (even though it looks more like a wiggly line and circular flow looks more like a cycle. not saying I should be the one to name economics things, just saying I would be better at it). I think it's interesting how all the good things in an economy can also be bad things and we want to be spinning fast but not too fast and the way economists and policy-makers try to balance all that is really cool. If not that, then maybe scarcity. After all, scarcity is always the answer.


*Bonus lesson: a good blog should always have pictures and links.

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