How The Economy Works Flashcards
What are the 3 forces of our economic system?
- Productivity Growth
- Short Term Debt Cycle
- Long Term Debt Cycle
You can use these to tract economic movements and see what’s happening now.
What are transactions?
Every time you buy or sell something you’re engaging in a transaction.
Each transaction consists of a buyer exchanging money or credit with a seller for goods, services, or financial assets.
All cycles and all forces in an economy are driven by transactions. They are the building blocks of the economic machine.
If you can understand transactions you can understand the whole economy.
What is an economy?
The sum of the transactions that make it up in all of its markets.
If you add up the “total spending” and the “total quantity” sold in ALL of the markets you have everything you need to know to understand the economy.
What is the “total spending” of an economy?
Total money + credit spent = total spending
The total amount of spending “drives” the economy
How do you determine the price of a good, service, or financial product in a market?
Total spending ➗ total quantity 🟰 Price
What is a “market”?
A market consists of all the buys and sellers transacting for the same thing. Example: stock market, real estate market etc.
Who engages in transactions?
People, businesses, banks, and governments.
Who is the biggest buyer and seller?
The government, which includes 2 important parts:
- Central Government - that collects taxes and spends money
- Central Bank - Which is different than other buyers and sellers because it controls the amount of money and credit in the economy.
How does the central bank control the availability/flow of credit and money?
- Adjusting interest rates
- Printing new money
Why is credit the most important part of the economy?
Because when a borrower receives credit he’s able to increase his spending… and spending drives the economy. This is because 1 person’s spending is another person’s income.
When you spend more someone else earns more. When someone’s income rises it makes lenders more willing to lend them money.
This reinforcing pattern leads to economic growth and is why we have CYCLES!
What’s the difference between lenders and borrowers?
Just like buyers and sellers go to the market to make transactions SO DO “lenders” and “borrowers”…
Lenders usually want to make their money into more money
Borrowers usually want to borrow money to buys something they can’t afford like a house or a car but sometimes to invest in something that will increase their earning capacity like starting/buying a business.
What’s the difference between principal and interest?
Principal is the amount that a borrower gets from a lender
Interest is what they pay on top of what they owe so that the lender makes money off of giving them a loan.
How do interest rates affect borrowing?
When interest rates are high, borrowing reduces because it’s more “expensive” to borrow money.
When interest rates are low, borrowing increase because it’s cheaper to borrow money.
How is credit “created”?
When borrows promise to repay and lenders believe them, “credit” is created 🪄💰
Any 2 people can agree to create credit out of thin air.
What are the 2 names of “credit”?
Credit and Debt
Debt is an asset to the _____ and a liability to the ______.
Asset to the lender and a liability to the borrower.
What does a “Credit Worthy” borrower have?
- The ability to repay - having a lot of income in relation to his debt gives him the ability to repay
- Collateral if he can’t - assets that can be sold to settle the debts.
What is productivity growth?
Overtime we learn and that accumulated knowledge raises our living standards.
Those who are inventive and “hard-working” raise their productivity and their living standards faster than those who are complacent and lazy.
Productivity growth matters most in the long run while credit matters most in the short-run because productivity growth doesn’t fluctuate much so it’s not a big driver of economic “swings” or “cycles”
Why does credit/debt affect the economy the most in the short run and cause economic “swings” and “cycles”?
Because it credit/debt allows us to consume more than we “produce” when we acquire it (growth) and it forces us to consume less than we produce when we have to pay it back… (restriction)
What are the 2 cycles where “debt swings” occur?
One takes about 5-8 years (short term) and the other takes about 75-100 years (long term)
These swings are created based on how much credit there is.
What’s a simple way to think of the “power” and “leverage” of borrowing?
Think of borrowing as simply a way of pulling spending forward… Or borrowing from your future earnings
Any time you borrow you create a…
Cycle… because while your income temporarily rises (increasing spending) you have a subsequent period of also needing to pay back that same money (restricted spending)
What separates credit from money?
When you use money to transact the transaction is settled instantaneously
Yet when you buy with credit you’re promising to pay in the future creating credit which is both an asset (to the lender) and a liability (to the borrower). It’s not until you fully pay out what’s owed that the transaction is settled or collateral is exchanged for the inability to make the payment.
Most of what people call money, is actually…
Credit, because (as of 2013) the total amount of credit is about 50 Trillion vs the total amount of money being $3 Trillion.