Have you ever noticed that economic majors tend to understand political issues better than anyone else? I think it's because they are forced to identify all of the different results of a particular decision. For example, Argument: Raising the minimum wage will raise the quality of life for thousands of families in this country. Rebuttal: No, raising the minimum wage will cause unemployment for thousands of families in this country. Mr. Economist, what say you? Their answer...yes. It's not this black and white, total good or total bad decision. Every political decision has multiple layers of consequences, and it's an economist's job to understand all of the ramifications, and choose the greatest good. While this decision is still subjective, it's much more rational than how the majority of Americans base their political stances. And frankly, I'm dying for an economist to show up and take their place in this political battle.

Protectionism is the concept of securing American jobs/industries by raising tariffs on competitive import goods. This is a temporary solution that ignores the inevitability of globalization, and is one of the only policies that ALL economists are adamantly against. Because, simply put, the good that it does for those people in that industry is FAR outweighed by the higher costs that ALL Americans have to pay for the goods from this industry we're protecting. Typically, Republicans have been on the "economist" side of policy, which often comes across as "uncompassionate". But, a few years ago, Bush introduced a tariff on foreign steel to protect the ridiculously struggling American steel industry. Why? All economists agree that this is wrong. But, steel industry employee who have to switch to a different manufacturing job would be angry at Bush if he didn't create the tariff, and American citizens won't really think about the fact that they're paying this increased price for a commodity because of this political action. So, staying in power is always more important than doing what you know to be right. That's the lesson for the day.