Apr 23, 2019

Article #4 in a Series >>>>> Essential Information, Micro-Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education >>>>> Economics


So wretched is the education in the Minneapolis Public Schools that I have been motivated to put my talents as a teacher and researcher into motion for the production of two monumental tomes:  Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education and Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect.  The latter exposes the deficiencies of the Minneapolis Public Schools in factual, analytical, and philosophical detail;  the former delivers to my students the education in economics, political science, psychology, world religions, world history, American history, African American history, other ethnic history, literature, English usage, fine arts, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics that they do not get in the public schools of Minneapolis.

 

In order to meet various student time frames and immediate needs as to knowledge acquisition, I have generated various versions of Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, from very concise to the longest edition at approximately 500 single-spaced pages.  I am currently working with an exquisitely talented grade 11 student who has high capacity for information acquisition and is moving rapidly in quest of Advanced Placement mastery and superior ACT performance.  I have for her generated a middle page-range length of text in all chapters, which readers may find if they scroll on down to my blog entries of late winter and early spring in this very year of 2019.

 

In these next few entries I provide to my readers a list of essential terms to be understood in informational context for detail and significance, providing these for several of the chapters of Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.

 

Please, then, peruse the first list, pertinent to a middle page-range version of my chapter on economics:

 

>>>>> 

 

Essential Information, Micro-Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education

Economics

 

Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.

Director, New Salem Educational Initiative

 

I.  Microeconomics

 

Essential terms, to be understood in historical context for detail and significance:

 

wage

salary

goods

services

market

producers

consumers

supply

demand

Law of Supply and Demand

the economy

Consumer Confidence Index/ CCI
Consumer Price Index/ CPI

durable goods

nondurable goods

stock

bond

principal

interest

real estate

 

II.  Macroeconomics

 

Essential terms, to be understood in historical context for detail and significance:

 

inflation

deflation

fiscal quarters

economic growth

GDP (Gross Domestic Product)

GNP (Gross National Product)

standard of living

median income

federal fiscal policy

federal monetary policy

federal budget

balanced budget

federal budget deficit

federal budget debt

 

mandatory spending (71% of federal budget)

               

>>>>>  Entitlement Program spending (47% of federal budget)

 

discretionary spending (29% of federal budget0

 

>>>>>    military spending (16% of federal budget)

 

III.  Federal Reserve System

 

Essential terms, to be understood in historical context for detail and significance:

 

federal monetary policy

12 district banks

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

reserve ratios

money supply

three ways of regulating the national money supply >>>>>

 

1)  raising or lowering reserve ratios

2)  raising or lowering interest rates

3)  selling or buying bonds

 

Milton Friedman

monetarists

 

IV.  Three Great Economists

 

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

 

V.  Additional Concepts

 

Essential terms, to be understood in historical context for detail and significance:

 

GDP growth in advanced economies

GDP growth in developing economies

recession (two successive quarters of zero or negative economic growth)  

depression (prolonged, multi-quarter period of zero or negative economic growth)

economic liberals, moderates, and conservatives

labor unions

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