Nathan Rowley, Chapter 9, Question 6

I had known we were in an economic recession in 2007 before reading chapter nine. What I didn't know was just how serious it was, and how much of an impact it probably has on my life. To think that we very easily could have had a second Great Depression is scary. It was thanks to our knowledge of history that we avoided the mistakes that would have set us on that path again. And that got me thinking on how much we actually know about economics.

Part of the reason why I have found economics so fascinating since beginning this course is that it is a relatively new field in its current form; the large-scale economies that create the business cycle and other global effects are only a couple centuries old, hardly a blip even on the time scale of human existence. We have had so very little time to adapt and learn about how to manage such large entities, and in the process we've made mistakes; the Great Depression is the first to come to mind. But it is a testament to how much we have learned that we avoided the same mistakes in the 2007 housing crisis. And the paradigm shift from rational self-interest to behavioral economics is a testament to how much we still have to learn. I am attracted to fields likes economics precisely because they haven't been around very long, because there is still a large body of unknowns to discover. It makes me excited, that there are so many things that we have yet to learn.