This book is the result of reading and reflecting about economics in order to discover answers to the five questions given below. Those answers shed light on economics in general. In economics (as in many other areas of life) mechanisms that contribute to a particular set of goals in particular circumstances often become taken for granted as necessary and important in themselves. They take on a life of their own or seem very natural. If circumstances or goals change, or if additional goals arise, the original means or mechanisms may become an impediment, and yet not even be suspected as a problem. Old habits are not only difficult to break; they are often more difficult to recognize as unnecessary or as likely sources of problematic consequences. The questions below, and the answers to them that form much of the rest of this book, help show some of the hidden assumptions about economics and economic mechanisms. 

It will turn out that economic and financial instruments or mechanisms (such as, money, credit, stocks, bonds, etc., including trade in general) have many different kinds of consequences, not all of which are desirable, and they have many kinds of unrelated functions, not all of which are compatible, and not all of which are well-served at any given time. Many of these functions involve intangible, though important, values, and some of these values are ethical ones. Unfortunately, when significant conflicts or problems arise between economic and ethical or other intangible values, the mechanisms responsible for that generally are at a deeper level than where remedies are usually sought.

(2) Politicians, political economists, business leaders, etc. always seem to emphasize costs when they are talking about programs they do not like, and they emphasize increased economic (employment) opportunities when they talk about programs they do like. But all increased employment costs someone money when employment is paid for, and all the expenditures of one person or group are income for the person or group it goes to. Purely from the standpoint of spending or saving money -- of money simply changing hands or not, which is the total of what such political or business arguments involve -- arguing that we need certain programs because they create jobs and that we ought not to fund certain jobs because they cost money is inconsistent or hypocritical, since the programs that create jobs also cost money and the ones that save money also cost jobs. There has to be more at issue. What is "that more"? 

(3) How can a depression or recession begin or end relatively abruptly, simply because of money matters, when the amount of work to be done and the people and the physical resources to do it do not change that much? For example, why was 1928 such a great year and 1930 such a terrible one in the United States even though there were almost no physical differences between them -- there was not destructive war or catastrophic plague. There were not more mouths to feed nor fewer people to feed them. There was not less house building material nor fewer houses needed nor fewer people to build them. [Since asking this question I have read John Maynard Keynes' explanation of the cause of economic depression, but if I understand his view correctly, there is a more general explanation, of which his addresses only one specific case (see Chapter 6 -- "Economic Progress and Real Progress"). Further, he realized there were ethical (or political) issues involved as well as purely financial ones. But he was troubled by how to bring certain financial matters more into balance with ethical ones. I think that is the wrong way to look at the problem. I will show later that the financial aspect of economics is actually, in the modern world, only a part of what economics is about, not the whole, and that ethical ideas are, or ought to be, an inherent part of economics not an external source of conflict. The difficulty is getting the best economic policies that successfully do what we need them to, not getting the most financially rewarding policies and then trying to resolve them with our opposing moral views. When looked at that way, many of the kinds of financial policies that lead to ethical conflict would never have seemed the most attractive economic policies to begin with.]

(4) It has long seemed that some work pays more than it is somehow worth and that some work pays much less than it is worth, and that, moreover, somehow the work that paid the most also often garnered greater esteem in the community, even though the product or service frequently was less valuable than that contributed by work that did not earn such esteem. For example, even a relatively mediocre professional golfer may earn much more money and more adulation or respect than a very competent medical researcher, even though medical research seems more important than golf, or medical research may be much more difficult in many ways than playing golf. Or the wealthy owner of a number of tobacco stores or greasy fast food restaurants probably will make more money and be accorded more community esteem (particularly if he contributes some portion he hardly would miss for community projects, charity, etc.) than a nurse, school teacher, librarian, coal miner, truck driver, or garbage man. Even at a low economic scale, a person who sweeps up at a hamburger joint is frequently valued as a far more contributing member of society than is someone who collects welfare or "sponges off his parents" in order to write poetry or paint pictures he cannot or does not sell. How is work valued monetarily? (It is not just supply and demand. For example, in the United States teachers or nurses in short supply will never in my life time, earn as much as doctors or movie stars even if doctors and movie stars were in great supply.) And why does the earning of vast sums of money for work frequently also earn disproportionately more respect or admiration, and power, than the doing of work which seems at least as hard and/or at least as important but which is not as financially rewarding? 

(5) Can everyone make a profit? Can everyone make more money than he/she spends, or does one person's making a profit necessitate that someone else must therefore have a loss? Is everyone's profit someone else's loss? If so, does that mean we are destined to have winner's and losers, even if from time to time some winners and some losers may switch places?