All the Economics You Need to Know in One Lesson by Michael D. Yates
Cheap Motels and a Hotplate CHEAP MOTELS AND A HOTPLATE: An Economist's Travelogue by Michael D. Yates ORDER THIS BOOK This essay complements my forthcoming book: Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate: an Economist's Travelogue (Monthly Review Press). We Meet an Economist Karen and I were hiking in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on the Atalaya Mountain Trail, which begins in the parking lot of St. John's College. This college, like its sister college in Annapolis, Maryland, is dedicated to a "Great Books" program. Students read and discuss the "great books" of Western Civilization, beginning with the ancient Greeks, while at the same time studying languages and sciences. The goal of the college is to provide an education that seeks "to free men and women from the tyrannies of unexamined opinions and inherited prejudices. It also endeavors to enable them to make intelligent, free choices concerning the ends and means of both public and private life." Economics as taught in our colleges and universities and propounded by our pundits and politicians is a good example of a tyranny of "unexamined opinions and inherited prejudices." Ironically, on our hike we met a man who embodied this tyranny. We had stopped to catch our breath on the steep path. Santa Fe is more than 7,000 feet above sea level, and we had not yet acclimated to the altitude. An older man was hiking with some friends, and when he saw us he said "hello." We struck up a conversation, and he asked me what I was doing in Santa Fe. I told him that I was a writer and journalist and we were traveling around the United States gathering information for a travel book to be written from the perspective of an economist. He asked us what we had been observing in our travels. We told him that the three things that stood out most were environmental degradation, suburban sprawl, and growing economic inequality. I could tell by his demeanor that he did not agree with what we were saying. When we finished, he said that he had a different take on things. He thought that almost everything was getting better. He said that he had been born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1934, and the air was better today than then, even though there were two million more people there. People were living longer and were healthier than ever before. What especially impressed him was the remarkable distribution system developed by modern retailers. People could get almost anything they wanted anywhere in the country, quickly and efficiently. "Why," he said, "almost everyone in the country lives within an hour of a Wal-Mart Supercenter." After we said that organic food was expensive and hard to get in much of the country, he launched into a long story about his battle against prostate cancer. He said that he had radically altered his diet and was eating natural foods, including organic vegetable juices purchased cheaply at Wal-Mart Supercenters. He suggested that anyone could do the same. While we were talking, two more of his companions joined us. One of them said, "I see you have met the professor." My interlocutor also had a PhD in Economics and had also taught in a college for a few years. I thought to myself, "Well, that explains a lot." full: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/yates141006.html
