Facts and Theorists. Of course you cannot do laboratory experiments in economics, but there is such a thing as economic history. The theorists just ignore the historians. Sometimes, however, the theorists make grand predictions, and quite often these predictions do not come to pass. When someone is rude enough to point this out to them, they smile their superior smiles and say How could we possibly know that people would behave so irrationally? In other words, rational people would naturally do what the economists predict. If we don't it is because, well, we are just plain stupid. It is clearly our fault that their predictions do not pan out.

Well, there actually are a few economists who care about facts. In the discussions that follow we will pay attention to them and to some simple, basic, economic ideas, mostly based on common sense. We will not be concerned with complex mathematical contortions based on ideology, although we will look at how ideology shapes economic ideas.

Everyone really should have a basic understanding of economics. It is important to understand that the economic ideas presented to us by those “experts” who are trotted up by the news media are mostly lies or half-truths. The purpose of the lies and half-truths is to blind us to the fact that we ordinary people are being robbed. To fight back we need the truth.

Basic Economics. But if you still feel intimidated or bored by the idea of learning economics in any depth, here are a few basic facts that absolutely everyone should know. It is not exactly what you will read in the text books.

[Basic Economics for Bleeding Hearts]

Yet if even that is too much for you, and you would rather learn by way of an imaginary trip to a fabulous realm:

Check out a travelogue to The Fabulous Land of Geltvelt.

But if you want to go the roots of economic thinking, to understand the unexamined assumptions that warp the “science” of economics, you might want to check out
The Roots of Our Economics.