[abtinf]

> So many graphs with the independent variable on the Y axis

I was perplexed by this as well and none of my profs could cogently explain it. The classic example are supply and demand curves, with price as the Y axis.

I finally realized they are actually trying to communicate that price is not under the control of the buyer or seller, but that the market dictates the price given a level of production. This kind of “spherical cow” thinking made me develop a healthy contempt for conventional economics.

[abdullahkhalids]

Indeed, one of the main problems with econ education is that at the most basic level they teach a model for the "spherical cow" free-market. Which is all that most people end up learning. And then those people try to apply this reasoning to real world markets - the vast majority of which do not satisfy the assumptions of the free-market model. So almost all public discussions of micro-economics is totally useless.

[freedomben]

I mostly agree, but I hardly think it's useless. Much like beginning your understanding of physics with Newtonian equations, it just needs to be qualified. But it's shocking how many people don't understand the basic idea of supply and demand and how the relate relative to some rationing system (usually price).

If you don't understand that foundational idea, then considering the effects of different rationing systems is utterly impossible. For example, that gets you a whole lot of people who make decisions that exacerbate housing crises by creating rent controls or building restrictions, and then being utterly perplexed when there isn't enough supply to go around (because they decoupled the signalling mechanism that the suppliers use (aka price) from what the buyers use (who got there first, or who is luckier with timing, or who is more politically connected). This is not to say that price controls are always bad, because real life is much more complicated than econ101 concepts lay out. But with nearly every other subject we expect people to have a basic level of understanding (like biology, history, english, etc) because we recognize it's importance for society and individuals to have at least a basic level of understanding in many different subjects. One that has as big an impact on life as economics seems like one of the worst to omit.

Just like we tell 8th grade physics students that "in the real world, cows aren't spherical so it's a little more complicated than this, but this gets you 80% to 90% of the way there" I don't see why we shouldn't do the same for economics.

[pas]

... microeconomics works amazingly well!

scroll down and look at that graph! https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/center-drug-evaluation-and-res...

also go to and read about the studies https://www.noahpinion.blog/i/142905737/the-evidence-is-in-f... and you can see the exact numbers from the datasets, these are all spherical cow parameters basically!

[jandrese]

I took both micro and macroeconomics in school. I had a similar thought, microeconomics is dealing with systems simple enough to be reasonably well modeled in mathematical terms. Macroeconomics seemed to be more about giving the rich cover when they screwed over the poor. Micro is a weird math class, Macro is a politics class.