The study of Economics was always a chore for me.  My high school economics teacher (mandatory class) strolled around the room, hands in his pockets, stared out the window, and bored us to tears.  What I mostly remember from that class was trying to find ways to stay awake.  My lowest score in college was the economics class I took.  I just could not care less about economics so why did I take this course?

Almost every year since I began teaching I would hear about the fabulous economics course that fellow teachers took.  There were tests but you could get together with others to do them plus people seemed to have fun while they learned.  As I got older I also realized I needed to know more about how the economy works, especially so that I could carry on a fairly intelligent conversation with a spouse who spouts off about how “the hard times are coming” and why “we have to get the house paid off” or why we gotta “lower the thermostat” to one degree above freezing (slight exaggeration) so I took the class.

I discovered that I do know something about economics - $200 and 3 credits!  Yeah!  I couldn’t pass it up.  Would that be my Equilibrium price?  In our first lesson Kyle mentioned the Diamond vs Water paradox and I immediately thought of a time Mr. Spouse and I were in Hawaii planning a hike over a lava field.  We didn’t have much water and no way was he going to pay the ridiculously inflated price that was being charged at the entrance to the field so we didn’t buy more water.  The sun was hot, the black lava even hotter.  The molten lava that Mr. “Geologist” Spouse wanted to see was much, much further away than what we anticipated.  On our return trip all our parched minds could think about was that water and we were willing to pay 4 times as much, maybe more, for that very valuable water at that little shop that was now CLOSED! 

When Lee Huskey brought up the housing bubble of the ‘80s I again recalled my personal experience.  We were upside down in our mortgage on a house that was too small for us however the banks were willing to lend us money for a new place as long as we had renters who could make our mortgage payments for the old house.  Thinking about it now I don’t believe that was good business practice.  It was just like the latest lending practices that caused so many homeowners to not be able to make their mortgage payments because they never should have been approved for a loan in the first place, as Vernon Smith pointed out.

I believe I am gaining an understanding of how this economics thing works.  Now I question “What to do?  What to do? What to do? Everyone wants their “stuff” but no one seems to want to deal with the reality of what the consequences of having that stuff means.  Do we mess up our own backyards or do we do it overseas for cheaper costs?  If it goes overseas it doesn’t mean that we in the U.S. will be protected from polluting factors because the earth is dynamic and the pollution will eventually make its way here.  The environmental regulations in other countries may be less stringent than ours are so the pollution they pump into the air or dump into the water will eventually get to us.  “The solution to pollution is dilution” only works for so long. With regards to the Pebble project, the gas pipeline, renewable energy, what is best for Alaska, etc. what are we to do?  For example, lots of copper is used in windmills that could pump out electricity (when the wind blows). Electricity flows through copper wire and is used in all those electronic gadgets people want to have.  A 3 Mw windmill typically incorporates between 4 and 4.5 metric tons of copper, worth about $40,000 at current copper prices ($4.30/pound, $9.50/kg).  Where does the copper come from? Ethan Berkowitz kept referring to Pebble as a gold mine, but it is mostly a copper mine.  Pebble would be an excellent source – $247,000,000,000 worth according to my notes at today’s prices, which are rising. But we all know that with mining comes the chance of a major pollution incident.  Do we possibly contaminate a pristine fishing area and ruin the fishery there or go for the copper and other necessary metals used for human’s stuff?  If we didn’t demand so much, there wouldn’t be a need to supply so much. 

Shari Durocher