It’s at a community college. Here is the course outline: Eco 105.
What sorts of fallacious ideas should I be on the watch for here (considering it is highly unlikely that the professor will be of an Austrian bent – heck, it’s not even likely that he will even mention Austrian economics)?
Section XII might be a doozy to get through. He will probably instruct me in the Keynesian theories of inflation I think they are called cost-push and demand-pull). I don’t know how to refute those theories.
Any advice? Even a break-a-leg type comment would be cool.
if you read Human Action before going in. you will be fine. This class just sounds like a combination of intro to micro and macro combined. in my experience community college professors are not very smart, at all, so if you are at odds it will be shooting fish in a barrell.
Chances are, you will need to say things that are against your knowledge and principles in order to do well in the course. That’s what I mean by “encapsulate”: memorize the material as a chunk of abstract data, then put it on your exams and in your essays.
Or if you have the time (and it won’t confuse you), digest the material from a critical standpoint and extract points of argument against anti-market theory for later use.
Unless you’re lucky enough to have a professor who actually wants genuine discussion or for you to actually say what you think.
Supply and demand for money causes every price to change based on the purchasing power of the dollar. Individual prices can be changed by supply and demand.
Refute cost-push by showing how price is determined by supply and demand, and this will determine costs. Demand-pull inflation should instead be renamed as an increase in the demand for money.
My advice is to not worry about the fallacies that will be taught in the class, anyone with a backround in Austrian economics will be able to see them sans effort. In addition remember: know thy enemy.
Not really. I am taking an industrial electronics technician course, and we have to take an elective. I was going to take history, but I have heard from reliable sources that the history department at this school is openly Marxist.