Econ 101 part 0 (preface)

The economic ignorance exhibited here at Unclaimed Territory exceeds all bounds. This was highlighted recently on a thread were our resident lawyer R. R. Heard declared he "hated" gold. (I have never worn any of the stuff, nor has the wife, but we don't "hate" it) The real topic was "what is money" even when that was not explicitly stated in that long exchange of views on economics. Many letters did explicitly talk about "money".

Since "money", "gold", "the FED", how we pay for wars, and other such topics infuse almost all of Glenn's posts to one degree or another, even if you don't notice it right off, I intend to run an economics 101 class for progressives or beginners. In 101 we are mainly going to talk about money and inflation, as this is not about the views of the various schools of economics. (we might do that later if I live long enough and Glenn does not make economics off limits at UT) This is intended to be understandable to even young people (and hence useful for more than just yelling on UT) and not a series of papers suitable for post-grad work.

I had hoped to do exactly 10 posts, each building on the last one without any comment to others in whatever tread is was posted in and I might still make it 10 but I might also have to go one or two more. The reason is that some here don't seem to even understand the real function of money and so that will need to be addressed also I guess.

Please note that one need not have any of a thing to be able to recognize it. People who sell jet airplanes often don't own one themselves. Also, I really don't expect all that many to read this since I intend to post everything well after Glenn posts on a topic and many comments have been made. Say after page 15 or so.

Note: I consider this to be very "on theme" and will stop if Glenn disagrees with that assessment. (but not, of course, if he simply disagrees with my material)