Economics in One Lesson

I am the first to admit that reading a book about economics is not at the top of my list. But once I got into it, I kept reading and reading! The first edition of this book appeared in 1947. Author Henry Hazlitt revised it in 1961 and again in 1978, but don't think for a minute that the information is not relevant to our world today. I found myself drawn into reading about the broken window fallacy. That is, if someone throws a brick through a bakery window, and the owner has to pay a glazier $250 to fix it, the brick-thrower has created work for the glazier. But this is a fallacy because prior to the brick through his window, the baker had a whole window and was planning to use the $250 to buy a new suit. So, the tailor actually lost work due to the brick-thrower. The overall economy is no further ahead due to the brick, get it? There are consequences we can see, such as the glazier getting a $250 window replacement job, and those we cannot see, such as the tailor who never got to make the baker a suit for $250. It's stories such as this that helped me understand economic principles like how need does not equal demand. Building a bridge to create jobs vs. there being a need for a new bridge; it was getting fascinating and kept my attention! Hazlitt made me think of the immediate vs. long-term results of a money decision. I was nervous at first that the language was too sophisticated for most students, but as I got into it, I adapted to the vocabulary and I think a high school student would too. Pb, 14pp. ~ Sara