Griffin Snow ~ Chapter 6 ~ Question 7ish

I really enjoyed reading about how economists think, especially when trying to solve problems of equality differences or wealth related issues. It stood out when Wheelan said, "The most insightful way to think about poverty, in this country or anywhere else in the world, is as a dearth of human capital. True, people are poor in America because they cannot find good jobs. But that is the symptom, not the illness" (129). He goes on to explain fighting poverty and unemployment at the source, not trying to find people with little or no necessary skills a job. Better teaching in schools or giving people better resources to learn would help the future of the nation more efficiently than creating meaningless jobs for people who are unable to work anywhere else. On the idea of scarcity, I really enjoyed the small section on Robert Solow, and his winning of the Nobel Prize. Wheelan asked him if it bothered him that he was making less money winning the Nobel Prize than Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens, to which he replied "No. There are a lot of good economists, but there is only one Roger Clemens"(128). The idea of being the "best" in your field of work (puns), whether it is pitching for the best team at the time or owning a billion dollar company, shows the small but prominent opportunity that we still have for reaching goals of wealth and prosperity in America.