he knows a lot about all kinds of stuff
professor
dave explains
over the past few centuries human
civilization has grown exceedingly
complex
unlike the primitive bartering of
ancient cultural centers
we now deal with a monstrous global
economy
which necessitates the handling and
transfer of currency
often via physically intangible forms in
this
information age but as abstract as this
seems whether we realize it or not
economics affects us all so what does it
mean
upon hearing the word economics one
would certainly think about money
but more specifically the manner in
which wealth is distributed or perhaps
immediately personal and relatable
concepts like wages
and taxes then there are slightly more
large-scale
concepts like recessions gross domestic
product
and the stock market however most of
these concepts belong to the realm
of macroeconomics which involves looking
at national and global
economies in this series we will start
out with an in-depth survey
of microeconomics which involves
studying how
economics affects individual decisions
the kind that we all make
every day this will give us the context
and foundational knowledge
to then expand into macro economics
such that all of these larger concepts
will suddenly be more relatable
and finally to wrap up the series we
will look at personal economics
which involves examining how we use
economic foundations
to navigate our lives that means we will
go over budgeting
bank accounts and even things like how
to use a credit card
but before we get to all of these topics
we have to start at the very beginning
and boil down to its essence economics
all comes down to choice
for example if you are watching this
video you made a choice
to watch it now it's possible that a
teacher may be compelling you to watch
this right now
but regardless someone made a choice you
could be doing a thousand other things
at this moment
like riding a bike or making tortellini
but out of all of those things
you're here on my channel first thanks
for watching of course
and second the fact that you made the
choice to watch this video
is a fantastic example for demonstrating
what
economics is on the fundamental level
economics is the study of how we make
choices
based on scarcity one of the most
important concepts in economics
is scarcity scarcity is a term that
simply refers to the fact that we have
endless wants and needs but a limited
amount of resources
to fulfill those wants and needs to be
clear with our terminology
a resource is anything that is useful to
us
this doesn't strictly refer to natural
resources like water
this term could refer to your teacher
this video
or the pen and paper you take notes with
presuming that you are taking notes
right now like a good student
but regardless of the type of resource
they all have limits
if there was an endless supply of
everything economics would not exist
we are constantly weighing our wants and
needs to make
choices due to scarcity and the three
most
common examples of limited resources are
time money and energy for example
let's say that you need to learn
economics
perhaps you don't have the time to watch
all of my economics tutorials
because you're busy at your job perhaps
you don't have the money to pay for
economics instruction at a university
or perhaps you don't have the energy or
the patience
to sit and practice working through many
difficult economics problems
the limited amounts of these resources
can have an impact on one's ability to
fulfill this
need of learning economics to define
some more terms
we satisfy our wants and needs with
goods
and services goods are the physical
stuff
that we produce like food clothing and
electronic devices
services are actions or activities we
perform
like delivering food dry cleaning
articles of clothing
and fixing electronic devices all goods
and services
are said to be scarce because they are
necessarily
in limited supply this is because the
resources used to make
goods and the time required to perform
services are inherently limited now to
be clear scarcity does not specifically
refer to a shortage
a shortage occurs when consumers want a
larger quantity of a good or service
than producers are willing or able to
make available at a certain price
unlike shortages which are
circumstantial scarcity always
exists simply because resources and
humans
are not infinite in number this is why
economics
will always exist and since we can't
escape it we'd better learn about it now
hopefully we now understand a bit more
clearly what the field of economics
studies and why it is of such universal
concern
just as with many scientific principles
that we interact with every day
whether we are aware of it or not
economics
shapes the world we live in and the
choices that we make
so together let's learn all about
economics such that we can better
understand why we make the choices that
we do
and potentially make more informed
decisions in the future
thanks for watching subscribe to my
channel for more tutorials support me on
patreon so i can keep making content
and as always feel free to email me
professor dave explains gmail.com
do
[Music]
you