Our alumni, and now the instructor of the most interesting courses – Elisabeth Nudelman

в реальности я не влюбилась ни в одну из десятка экономических дисциплин будучи студенткой, но little did I know, что внезапно влюблюсь в экономику спустя 10 лет, будучи матерью 120 детей т.е. будучи вынужденной найти волшебный способ с первого взгляда влюбить этих 120 детей в экономику

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SO, WHAT MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND & WHY ECONOMICS CAN BE A SUPER-COOL MENTAL JIUJITSU | Collection Highlights

♦️ IF YOU WANT TO THINK LIKE AN ECONOMIST — SIMPLY THINK LIKE YOU DON’T

If everything you see when you look at economics confirms your initial view of the world, then you’re doing it wrong / Paul Krugman

♦️ECONOMICS IS ABOUT PEOPLE

and specifically — about how they make their way in the world | that makes economic theory mostly just a collection of stories translated into the language of mathematics

♦️PEOPLE ARE PREDICTABLE ENOUGH TO MAKE THE WHOLE SYSTEM RUN

you predict that when you go to the supermarket, there will be eggs & milk for sale, while the supermarket predicts that their distributors will deliver eggs & milk regularly, while the distributors predict that farmers will offer eggs & milk for sale | who controls this process? actually no one, aka the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith

♦️ PEOPLE WILL NEVER HAVE ENOUGH

when some of our needs are satisfied, some others appear: continuous development of needs is the driving force of human progress which, in its turn, stimulates new needs appearance again & again | economists name this process the “law of rising necessities”

♦️PEOPLE ALWAYS RESPOND TO INCENTIVES

hundred dollar bills don’t lie in the street very long — people will pick them up | in other words, people will take advantage of opportunities to be better off — and that’s one of two basic principles which most economic thinking comes down to

♦️ EVERY SALE IS ALSO A PURCHASE

that’s the second of two basic principles which most economic thinking comes down to

each economic transaction has equal give & take: each side gets something & each side gives something up | when we buy things, we give up money for the things we want, when we go to work we make things in exchange for money

therefore, the economy can be thought of as two cycles moving in opposite directions and
both cycles are needed to make the economy work | the disruption of this movement, as a rule, ends up in economic recession

♦️NOTHING’S PERFECT

the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money — so, if socialists understood economics, they just wouldn’t be socialists / Margaret Thatcher feat. Friedrich Von Hayek

communism is in conflict with human nature: communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff / Ernest Renan feat. Frank Zappa

the trouble with capitalism is capitalists — they are too damn greedy / Herbert Hoover

♦️ EVERYBODY’S THE SAME

do you know the difference between capitalism & socialism? in capitalism, man exploits man — and in socialism, it’s the other way around / Marcus Isaacson

♦️SAME, SAME — BUT DIFFERENT

the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings | the inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries / Winston Churchill

capitalism makes people unequally rich | socialism makes people equally poor / Thomas L. Friedman

♦️EQUALITY IS A MYTH

50% of all the money on Earth belongs to 1% of its population

income & wealth inequality is, for sure, one of the biggest economic challenges facing us today

♦️THE NEW WORLD ORDER IS DISORDER

a two-week old study by Deutsche Bank, one of the largest banking institutions of the world, argues that the Era of Globalization that began in the 1980s has come to an end and has given way to a new Age of Disorder

it will be characterized by a grandiose breakthrough made by the Chinese economy, as well as by the growth of global debt, the policy of “helicopter money” implemented by key banks, the growing concern about the planet’s climate problems, a new technological revolution & the growing competition between generations: namely between the old generation that used to run the world so far (used to run or to ruin? — that’s a big question) which is the generation of Baby Boomers VS. the two new generations — the generation of Millennials and Gen Z (which is quite a perfect match, I believe)

♦️DIFFERENT IS THE NEW NORMAL

ask five economists — and you’ll get five different answers (six, if one went to Harvard)

♦️ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

love makes the world go round, but I’m pretty sure money has something to do with it, too / Jim Benton”