Harry Truman is credited with the statement, "Give me a one-armed economist," because economists are likely to say, "On the one hand, . . . on the other hand." Why do economists "waffle" more than physicists or chemists?
Economists describe human behavior, which cannot be predicted as accurately as physical or chemical reactions. Waffling can be found at the frontiers of all sciences, but the media pay more attention to economic debates, such as the effect of supply-side tax cuts on tax revenues, than to the debates of physicists (are quarks the smallest particle of matter?) or chemists. Value judgments also play a larger role in economic debates, since economics often deals with matters that directly affect the welfare of large numbers of people.
You might also like to view...
An unregulated electric company is a monopolist and faces demand of Q = 50 - 10P. If the company has zero marginal costs, its profit-maximizing price is
a. 0 b. 1 c. 2.5 d. 5
If a nation produces less than it spends what do we know about: A. its net exports? B. its net capital outflow? C. its saving in relation to its domestic investment?
Household savings rates:
A. were fairly constant at about 5 %in the United States from 2000 to 2010. B. were roughly 5% in the United States in 2016. C. were 10% in the United States in 2016. D. have been roughly 15 % in the United States for the last 30 years or so.
If nominal GDP is $600 billion and the money supply is $200 billion, the velocity of money is
A. 0.33. B. 1.2. C. 3. D. 12.