[Looking at history and our area’s unique political and religious attitudes.]

Economics. Oh, I see your eyes roll. Is there a much more boring word in the language?   Yet it discusses a topic critical to everyone’s survival. Economics is a subject that everyone on television has an opinion or comment – newsreaders, pundits, politicians, bureaucrats, and bankers. The problem in all the expression is the person typically has a hypothesis based on lack of historical information, inadequate training in the surrounding science, or political bias. Seldom does the expert get it right. The man in the street and women in the shop seldom get to express their experience.

Economics is the study of the time value for money. What does that mean? Money changes value based on time of day, time of month, and time of year, and number of years. Those who are older understand inflation: the same item costs more later. We compare costs based on commodity items, what is the price of milk and bread?

Inflation is built into economics. Those who invest want interest from their money. Other than high-tech, interest is nominally two to three percent. With disruptions, the long term inflation, for example since the base year of 1967 has been 4-percent. That does not sound like much, but $1 when I first graduated had the buying power of $9.62 today, i.e. about ten times. It is easy to see. The first house we bought in Tulsa, today sells for ten times the amount on Zillow.

What happens to the value of a stock? Does it change? Neither the stock nor the company has changed, but the market still goes up and down. Therefore the value of the money relative to the stock changes. The bankers, stock traders, and pundits cannot explain it, but that surely does not keep them from ranting an opinion. It is legalized gambling and manipulation.

An old aphorism is ‘history repeats itself.’ The events are not the same, but the natural laws which precipitate the results are the same. History understanding is built not just on the facts, but analysis of the surrounding circumstances, and the influence of natural law. Natural law absolutely states that the same actions will produce the same results.

Economic analysts often grasp just enough to get in trouble. We regularly affirm the First Law, ‘there ain’t no free lunch.’ The formal statement is ‘the sum of the energy in a closed system is zero.’ Progressive philosophy argues that if you ‘give a tax break, it costs revenue.’ To a cursory look that sounds right. But history has shown it not true. The late, great Rush Limbaugh often responded that ‘economics is not a zero sum game.’ Why the dichotomy? Notice the phrase in the First Law about ‘in a closed system.’ A closed system is one without outside energy.

Economics are not closed, there is always outside energy, ‘the effort people put in.’ If people derive a benefit for their effort, they will do amazing things. Many politicians on both sides of the aisle, as well as bankers like the Federal Reserve’s Powell have bemoaned tax reductions will reduce revenue and the President’s use of tariffs in negotiations will increase costs causing inflation. Is that true? For the first 125 years, our country financed itself with tariffs. But in the government effort to control, three things happened almost simultaneously: tariffs began to be phased out, the income tax was instituted in 1913, and the Federal Reserve bank was instituted in 1913. Coincidence? What is a purpose of the Federal Reserve, to control interest rates? Their track record has been dismal.

Look at trending headlines from last week. “Golden Age: Trump Tariffs Deliver Surprise Budget Surplus. The $27 billion surplus reported Friday by the Treasury Department stood in stark contrast to forecasts for a $50 billion deficit.” Another “Trump Effect: US Posts Budget Surplus Due To Tariffs”. It is just like history.

The President is an economist by education, an entrepreneur by profession, and a negotiator by passion. He understands money, product, and people. He is unique. The only other president since 1900 who understood economics and people, but not product, somewhat similarly was Reagan.

Think about it. Virtually every small business entrepreneur understands economics. If he or she can make good money, they will move mountains. If their people have similar options, they will work for the rewards. Get government out of the way, then small-business, its employees, and the economy will flourish. The data are there.

OK, where do we get off writing about such an arcane science? I studied economics with my science in undergrad, my graduate was half business and engineering, and as a professor I taught courses in economics and in management. Then my second research degree was heavily history with philosophy. We still operate a small business.