Olivia Barr, Epilogue, Question 2

While reading this book throughout the duration of the semester, there have been some chapters which highlighted topic that clearly affected my life, and others that didn't have clear connections what so ever. Through reading the epilogue, the topics that seemed very distant from my own life, and therefore having any affect on it, have become much more clear. Through reading the last seven questions of the book, all of the things that were less clear began to culminate in my mind to help me realize that no matter the physical distance, the economic circumstances of every country have some affect on my life, no matter the scale or directness of the affect. For example, it might seem like a waste of time for someone in America to concern themselves with the economic situation in Burkina Faso (or any other country with a bad economy), but if Burkina Faso continues to struggle they may look to the United States for aid, which in and of itself can contribute to the National Debt, and aside from that we begin to question if we will ever reform our methods of providing aid to foreign countries so that it can be more beneficial in the long term for the development of the country in need, etc. These connections are not limited to foreign involvement, but it is becoming more and more clear that there will need to be some type of reform in politics so that people seeking office with hopes of combating the national debt will not be laughed off of the stage as soon they say they want to raise taxes. All in all, studying economics might make an individuals thought process more complex, and sometimes provide a jaded view of the world, but it helps to create people who are willing to look at the hard questions and see that hard questions often have difficult answers, and sometimes it takes a long time to fix them; additionally, studying economics helps to develop citizens who are able to look through media slants and find that sometimes raising taxes, or interest rates is the most logical thing to do, despite the fact that they might seem like a bad thing from the surface.