Over the course of the last couple of years, and in part due to my time working in Singapore’s Economic Development Agency, I have since developed a fond interest in the economy/ field of economics.
In this context, I generalise and speak about the “economy” simply as anything related to the way value is exchanged. Going deeper, this topic touches on a wide range of concepts - economic history, firm competition, human behaviours, labour, government policies - all of which carry an incredible depth in their own right.
It was this depth that attracted me - particularly so at a time where there are many tensions and uncertainties. These are manifest in our daily news - churn in unemployment, the trade war, alternative currencies, new technologies, digitisation, and many more - all of which have a deep transformative impact on the way the economy works.
Curiosity in hand, what helped me along was also being equipped with the right tools to better understand a complex topic. For example, by looking at such topics through the lens of systems thinking while also trying to think systematically about intangible concepts.
However, I must concede that I have absolutely zero academic knowledge of (actual?) economics. Never took it in school, never touched it in University. I’ve heard of something regarding a supply and demand curve…?…uhh i’m afraid my understanding remains far too rudimentary.
That said, I suppose an outsider perspective is not necessarily a bad thing - it was clear during my work a that the field of economics is under siege. Within the more general push-back against “experts” in today’s trend, economists are also treated with distrust - particularly when things don’t work. If, in the past decades, the notion of “right” or “wrong” policies had already been rather grey, then surely none of it makes sense in today’s context.
This is demonstrated through two trends. First, that there are inexplicable surprises that no economist truly has been able to answer well - evident fact that there have been countless articles about the same damn thing (e.g. trade war and alternative currencies), with differing opinions, and a shit-show of a war zone in the comments box. Second, is the continued proliferation of KNOWN problems that are still getting worse - sustainability and inequality to name but two.
Given this, the following series of posts on economics aims to build on several governing themes that I have initially struggled to understand:
- Why are some areas hot, and others not - even though the former doesn’t perceivably create value for society?
- Why are some long standing issues, still issues?
- What does the future economic structure hold?
A skeleton on some of these themes were penned in my earlier post, but has since been re-ordered for flow. Also, the timestamps for each of these are not quite accurate - this was recompiled at the end of May 2021.