Answers (1)
Economics is the English form of Greek oikonomia which means a household. The Engllish word means management, as in the class "home economics". Since management always comes down to pinching pennies, the word takes on the meaning of money management, and by expansion, the total of all money transactions in a given area.
Next, people are always trying to pretend they have discovered something new, so they make up a name to describe it. They say we have "positive" economics which describes the way things are, and "normative" economics which describes the way things ought to be. That is nonsense, since "ought" is only somebody's opinion. This is the sort of approach used by people who want to get laws passed to deny your right to pay a fair price, which is whatever you are able to negotiate in a free market.
Go to wikipedia.com and search "Normative economics" to see what you can learn. You can also go to google.com to see what other information is available.
Howard Katz:
OK, how can we be smarter than the other guy? How can we make money in the markets by taking it from him? Well, there is one thing about economics that a lot of people do not understand. In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas said that every good had to sell at its fair price.
Now this is wrong, dear gold bug. Adam Smith taught that there was no such thing as a fair price. The only "fair" price was the price agreed upon by buyer and seller. However, most people do not understand this. They are back in the 13th century with Thomas Aquinas. So we believers in Adam Smith are smarter than the believers in Thomas Aquinas, and we are going to use these smarts to take their money.
www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_08/katz081709.html