Why The Rural Economist

I have been facinated by economics since in high school. I was blessed to have an excellent teacher. He took what many people think to be one of the most boring subjects and made it very interesting. Thank you Mr. Green.

When ever you talk to most people about economics they think about money, the government, and trade. Some people even think that economics doesn't really affect their lives. This is not these people's fault.

The Mirriam-Webster dictionary defines economics as a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis or the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Dictionary.com the science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, or the material welfare of humankind.

Answers.com the social science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services and with the theory and management of economies or economic systems.

Economist.com the "dismal science", according to Thomas Carlyle, a 19th-century writer. It has been described in may ways, few of them flattering. The most concise, non-abusive, definition, is the study of how society uses its scarce resourses.

The last definition is the only one that does not scream money. All of these definitions are at least partially correct, but all seem so far away. I have found if something is not interesting, or if I do not see a clear connection to me or my family I am not interested. I believe many of you are the same way.

Of the definitions above the last one is my favorite, but I would like to expand that definition a little.

The Rural Economist definition of economics: the study of how and why an individual, family, group of people, city, county, state, or nation utilize their available resourses.

All of your resourses no matter if it is money, time, effort, talent, or thought, are economic resourses. All resourses are mutually exclusive. To explain, if you have $10 and you decide to use that money to buy ice cream, that money is gone to you, you can no longer use that money for anything else. Everyone would agree that what a person does with $10 is an economic decicion. The same thing applies to time. You have a day off; you have a decicion to make. You could go swimming, biking, work in a garden, fishing, or watch tv all day. Once you use that time you can no longer get it back. While swimming and biking have a physical benefit and gardening and fishing can have a positive impact on your grocery bill, all of the possibilities are economic choices. This is using your resources, this is an economic decision. Which ones are benificial are dependent on the individual. This is individual economics. When you increase the population reviewed, we can create a clearer picture of economics. I believe the more people that understand these principles, the more power we have over our own situation.

That is why The Rural Economist. Please check back. I will be covering divers topics from a rural economic point of view. Thanks.