In his op-ed regarding the wholly unbalanced training of today’s economists (because so many of them are not getting any training in price theory), Steven Landsburg, an economics professor at the University of Rochester, wrote that he puts a question to his students, all of whom get the correct answer, and to  variety of smart lawyers, accountants, entrepreneurs, and scientists, nearly all of whom do not.

The question:

Apples are provided by a competitive industry. Pears are provided by a monopolist. Coincidentally, they sell at the same price. You’re hungry and would be equally happy with an apple or a pear. If you care about conserving societal resources, which should you buy?

Landsburg’s answer:

In a competitive industry, prices are a pretty good indicator of resource costs. Under a monopoly, prices usually reflect a substantial markup. So a $1 apple sold by a competitor probably requires almost a dollar’s worth of resources to produce. A $1 pear sold by a monopolist is more likely to require, say, 80 cents worth of resources. To minimize resource consumption, you should buy the pear.

Maybe. Maybe not. The monopolist is unlikely to be using his resources efficiently; competition will drive that producer to maximize efficiency in resource usage. On a per fruit item basis, it may be that the two are using resources the same. Maybe the competitive producer is using fewer resources per fruit item.

The more accurate answer is that there isn’t enough information in the question to provide an answer.

The editors of The Wall Street Journal closed their Friday editorial on the threat of an “election recession” and who’ll get blamed if one occurs with this:

They [the Federal Reserve Board] don’t deserve to be scapegoats for a recession, if one is coming. What we’d like to hear from one of the candidates isn’t blame but an agenda for faster growth and stable prices.

That first part is correct. That last is evidence that the editors haven’t been paying attention. Former President and current Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, and his running mate, current Ohio Senator JD Vance, have been crystalline on this.

They’ve repeatedly touted their mantra of “drill, baby, drill,” their intent to open up drilling for oil and for natural gas along with their parallel push to reduce regulatory impediments to drilling, transporting the goods, refining them, and transporting the refined products, and the sale of those refined products.

They’re openly—explicitly—pushing that because with energy at the heart of our economy, reducing energy costs will reduce inflation and allow wage growth to catch up, which reduces real prices. To which I add: reduced inflation and stable pricing will by themselves produce full and stable employment, another of the Fed’s Directed Operational Capabilities.

Progressive-Democratic Party politicians, led by Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden and his soon to be Party-anointed (not voter-selected) heir, Progressive-Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris, insist that our economy is going like gang busters, inflation is down, and on and on. After all, they shout,

The stock market is soaring, household wealth is at record levels, and investment income has never been greater.

And yet,

…some families’ pandemic-era savings are running dry, and delinquencies on credit card and auto-loan payments have jumped.

Thus, I have questions. No show of hands, the questions are intensely individual and personal, and so are your answers. Just think your answers; talk among yourselves, if you wish.

1. Is what you’re paying for groceries today more or less than what you paid just a few years ago, pre-pandemic? Has your take home pay kept up with that, or are you paying a bigger chunk of your take home for those groceries?
2. Is what you’re paying today for gasoline or diesel for your personal cars and trucks more or less than what you paid before? Has your take home pay kept up with that, or are you paying a bigger chunk of your take home for these?
3. Is what you’re paying today for electricity or natural gas to heat or cool your homes or to cook those expensive groceries more or less than what you paid before? Has your take home pay kept up with that, or are you paying a bigger chunk of your take home for these?
4. Are you eating out less than you used to?
5. Are you able to keep your credit card paid off every month or your balance stable from month to month, or is or is your balance growing?
6. Are you able to put as much, or any, money into savings or a rainy day pile as you were before?
7. Are you able to put as much money into your employer’s 401(k) program, if he has one, or into your IRA as you were before?

You can think of other things on which you spend or would like to spend (a home, perhaps, or a slightly bigger one to accommodate your growing family or the one you’d like to start) that are more expensive today than before, especially as compared to your take home pay.

Those Party politicians are not talking to you when they talk about how wonderful the economy they’ve constructed these last 3+ years is and how much they want to do even more over the next 4 years. They don’t care about you; they don’t even notice you exist.

The other party will address these problems directly. At the core of its economic plans is bringing down the cost of energy. Energy lies at the heart of everything we produce for sale and wish to buy, from energy for production, through transport to points of sale, through those sales. To get at the cost of energy, that other party will get regulatory blocks to production greatly reduced, and it will encourage increased drilling for oil and natural gas, as well as construction of nuclear power plants.

Worried about atmospheric CO2 production from increased oil and natural gas drilling? Keep in mind that CO2 from American hydrocarbon production and use is already at world lows, per capita; our technology keeps CO2 emissions at a minimum. The CO2 emitters are Russia, the People’s Republic of China, and India. Nuclear power plants produce no CO2 emissions in their operation, and very little in their construction.

The answer to those seven questions and to your additional ones will be much more favorable with Party’s Big Government-is-the-answer politicians no longer in a position where their ignoring you matters.