Economics

The concept of Economics is quite fascinating. On the surface its more or less demand and supply. But if you scratch the surface an infinitely complex world lurks underneath.
Lets take my dinner yesterday, which was Pizza office delivered, the complexity of that process. I read the Pizza Hut offers,
the pamphlet PRINTED by some company,
ad campaign and pamphlet layout DESIGNED by another company,
PHONE call made through a service provider,
ORDER registered on a PC provided by some hardware company,
running an OS designed by someone,
on a software CODED by someone,
the pizza DELIVERED by the delivery guy
and finally payment made through SODEXHO coupons and this was just scratching the surface. If you dig down further its a way too complex mesh of interlinked business and people.

My day job is to build software, which my company sells across the world. If the customers see value in the software that we build, then they will buy it, they might even ready to pay a premium. This might translate to more surplus incomes for me as a result of more profits to my company cause of more profits for the consumers who use the software.

I am not going to dig a pit and bury the cash, I am going to spend it. That in turns translates to more business for the companies providing various goods and services, which I consume. They will ofcourse make money which translates to more income for their employees. If I invest it my money will be used by the bank to finance some other economic activity by some other business/individual, a home loan, a car loan . Its like a reinforcing cycle with the same set of actors the same set of goals, everyone wants to have a 'better' quality of life.

What puzzles me is how the system completely fails down, in times like this. WE have the bail out and mergers and acquisitions but quite literally no one saw it coming, or if they saw it coming, no one did anything about it. And now the whole world is staring at recession.

This inefficient system probably stems from the fact that very few people actually care to understand economics. THey just play the game , dont feel the need to understand the dynamics. Everyone today who deals with money, will be affected. by dealing I meant to exclude people who are totally self sufficient, But very few care to understand.Every one is so tied up playing the little games in their backyard, they just dont see the need to make sense of the bigger picture. And even if they see the bigger picture, whats the point , I cant change anything, so why bother. 'Ignorance is bliss, let me worry what I will have in canteen for lunch'. Fair enough in a way.

Like the pizza yesterday I sometimes concern myself with the bill, being from a software background , I sometimes value that, encapsulation of logic, compartmentalization of complexity, abstraction. Like software its easier to deal with life, if you abstract certain things.I use the net everyday but I wont be able to tell you the internals of TCP/IP.But this approach has its risks too.

In such a scenario the whole system is hijacked by a very select group of 'experts' who do what they think is right. I am not questioning their intention, I have no reason to believe that they want to screw up intentionally. But if we get more people to think of economics, if we can build up that awareness, I am not saying everyone needs to be an expert, just a little more conscious, we will definitely have better ideas which should lead us to a more 'perfect' set of financial practices. ANd a more stable and predictable In pursuit of 'Happyness'