I hesitate to even ask this question. As an econ major, after all, there are very few things that I don’t understand. Like all econ majors, I was born as an econ major. Dare I say it, I was conceived as one. I came out of my mother’s womb in a Patagonia vest with a smug expression on my face. It was, of course, no great surprise to anyone when my first words were telling my preschool teacher that she was a “social planning commie” for telling me to share. But, as Ray Dalio — probably — once said, “nobody knows everything.” So, here’s the exhaustive list of things I still can’t wrap my head around as a senior econ major.
- Why can’t we just print more money and not tell anybody?
It makes total sense to me that we can’t just print more money. But what if we did it secretly? There’s no reason why prices would increase if nobody knew that we added a couple trillion to the total money supply.
- Empathy
This emotion feels economically inefficient to me. As my first crush and hero, Ayn Rand, once put it, “the only way civilization will survive is if we reject the morality of altruism.” If everyone simply looked out for themselves, then wouldn’t the world be better off?
- Economic depression
If the economy is depressed, have we tried looking at the root of the problem? We should try asking if it’s been outside lately and gotten enough sunlight. If that doesn’t work, we could always just accept that it’s going through “that time of the month.”
- Why people dislike econ majors
This is possibly the wildest thought to me. Why wouldn’t people love us? You need us. Who doesn’t love being told that their experiences don’t matter because of a graph I found on Reddit? Or that diplomacy is overrated? Econ majors are the best devil’s advocates you could ask for, in no small part because we’re huge advocates of the devil.
- Why don’t women throw themselves at me?
This is the most baffling concept to me. Do they not know that I survived Price Theory and that, as a result, I can slowly and painstakingly explain why everything they think is wrong? Do they not know that as an econ major, I am a paragon of all that is good and intelligent in the world, and have much to offer them in regard to assisting their moral development, as they are incapable of doing so themselves?
Please let me eat my crayons in peace. When I’m finished, I’ll talk at you to explain why Milton Friedman is practically God and why the wage gap is commie propaganda.
