I agree basically. Economics is basically, oh the economy is heating up too fast and inflation is rising...we need to slow down the economy. How do we do that? Well, there are dozens of ways! Ok let's do this and see what happens. Oh, the economy slowed down too much? Ok, well let's use policy to get it going again, again there are dozens of ways to do this, oh that didn't work as well as we thought? Uh oh, better drop interest rates even more. Oh no, the economy is again heating up too fast, but it looks like it's enough to self correct and any policy we do will likely have too big of an impact. Let's just let things continue. Shit. For whatever factor, the economy continued heating up and now there's too much inflation again or our currency is too expensive and that causes certain issues. Let's enact policy to slow things down.

It's literally a never ending cycle of nudging things back and forth to try and take away extremes because you are never going to completely be able to stop the business cycle and the ups and downs that come with the business cycle.

I think that's the healthiest way to look at macroeconomics. But that's the reason why there is so much argument because there is so many different ways to slow down or jump start the economy, but in doing so...you are likely causing another shock to the market that you will again have to manage.

Microeconomics since it's at a more individual scale, I think, you can be slightly more certain about. But again, it's all based on people acting rationally and if you know anything about humanity it's that people do not always act rationally.

Does Piketty make any comments on the different rigidities of the market in America and in Europe and the different challenges/benefits/circumstances (however you want to put it) that comes with those differences?

Anyways, I've been looking for a community like this with thoughtful discussion that doesn't have all of the things that a site like Reddit has that I think pushed most users here. I've been reading a lot of the discussions and I think I'm hooked! Thanks for the reply!

Going to have to give those books a read too.

*PS

The one thing, reading your posts, I think I disagree on is the complex language. You do have a point and I get what you are saying and it's not that you are wrong. But I think the terms you use are the ones you would use to describe to a laymen or average person who doesn't understand some of the intracacies of economics. I do think that language is important to distinguish different things because like another poster said, although the average person might not know it, the Fed and the Government act differently. Monetary and Fiscal Policy are two very distinct and different things. Quantative Easing or Open Market Exchanges can only be done by the Fed for example and are examples of Monetary policy. While, a tax rebate is Fiscal Policy.

I don't think the way you explained things is wrong, it's essentially what is happening, and for all intents and purposes, for the majority of people...that's all they really need to know...and if they could understand economics even in those terms, that would be helpful. But at a higher level, for people who study economics and experts and all of that and economists, it is important to distinguish between the two and the "complex" language is, to some extent, important. Does that make sense?

Made an account to add something to the discussion that hasn't been added. I apologize in advance for formatting because I am typing on my phone.

My Economics Professor, I think, summed up Economics well. Economics isn't meant to be a truth or a science. An Economists job is to smooth out the ups and downs of the business cycle and get things moving back towards YFe or basically a healthy economy. It's not meant to make things perfect. All it does is contract the gap when the economy is heating up too quickly and will take too long to correct itself back to YFe or use expansionary policy options if the Economy turns too sluggish for it to be able to correct itself in a timely manner. This of course, is a basic understanding of macroeconomics. But economists aren't trying to be perfect they are just trying to push things back toward the middle one way or another. Their are continuous shocks to the economy and those shocks can be both positive or negative. All you are doing is reacting to those shocks accordingly. That's economics. Not a hard truth or science.