Understanding Economics

Understanding Economics

Here's a question: If there's a disaster, a war, a severe drought or some other calamity that restricts future supplies of a commodity -- such as oil, coffee or corn -- what is the intelligent thing for people to do right away? If you said "use less now and try to produce more," you'd be absolutely correct. That's not rocket science, but understanding the machinery involved in getting people to do so is a bit more challenging.

The best way to get people to use less and produce more is to allow prices to rise. For example, say a...