economics

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22151
"What To Do"
by Paul Krugman
December 18, 2008
The New York Review of Books

Krugman lays out his prescription for a way out of this current economic crisis. He concludes with the following sentence:

"Some people say that our economic problems are structural, with no quick cure available; but I believe that the only important structural obstacles to world prosperity are the obsolete doctrines that clutter the minds of men."

This is interesting. It's been a while since I've had any formal study of economics, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt, but: I remember hearing economics defined as the study of the distribution of scare goods and services. These days, that strikes me as wrong. I'd rather say that economics is about the study of incentives. Consider Germany in the 1930's. Their economy had pretty much gone to shit, with hyperinflation etc. And then one day (more or less) everyone went back to work and a few years later they'd conquered continental Europe (which took an enormous amount of resources). How in the hell did that happen?