So, I’m in this microeconomics class.
You may have taken a microeconomics class before, and you may read this and think that I am a whiny, self-pitying pain in the butt, and that is occasionally true. At any rate, I’m going to give you a rundown of the first two chapters of my lessons:
Nebraska and Iowa grow corn and wheat, right? (Understand that this scenario may or may not have any kind of basis in reality, but I don’t care.) Anyway, they grow corn and wheat, and they each grow specific amounts. But who grows corn better? Who grows wheat better? Why? Could one grow corn or wheat better than the other if they stopped growing the other crop? What if they only grew part of the other crop? What are they each missing out on by taking the time and money and resources it takes to grow the amounts of corn and wheat that they grow? What if they combined forces and became some kind of Midwestern corn/wheat superpower? Or what if they both stopped all growing of any kind and started making Blu-ray players?
Yes. These are all actual questions. And if all these questions seem crazy or boring (or crazy and boring), you are not alone, my friend. Now obviously there’s a lot of math involved with answering these questions. Frankly, it’s a lot like easy algebra, which should make life easy as well, right?
Unless the book sucks, and the formulas in it suck.
It’s not so much that the information is wrong, but that it’s oversimplified. It’s oversimplified to the point that you can use any of the formulas the textbook provides, and get the same (super wrong) answer!
Have any of you had this kind of problem with a textbook? What did you do?
Help me!
Don’t believe me? I’ll give you an example from my book:
E= % Change in Qd
% Change in P
Seems simple, right? Well, it is. Anyway, here’s the second example that can be found everywhere else:
So technically it’s the same thing, but the textbook version is so oversimplified that it makes it almost impossible to get the right answer.
One thing I do know, after this, I have no interest in eating, buying, selling or seeing wheat or corn.
