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DEPRESSION: An extended period--a decade or so--of restructuring and institutional change in an economy that's often marked by declining or stagnant growth. During this period, unemployment tends to be higher and inflation lower than a regular, run-of-the-mill recession. Moreover, a depression usually lasts in the range of ten years, often encompassing two or three separate shorter-run business cycles. The most noted depression in the U. S. economy was the Great Depression of the 1930s.
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THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM: Another term for scarcity, which is the pervasive condition of human existence that exists because society has unlimited wants and needs, but limited resources used for their satisfaction. In other words, while we all want a bunch of stuff, we can't have everything that we want (see free lunch). In slightly different words, this scarcity problem means: (1) that there's never enough resources to produce everything that everyone would like produced; (2) that some people will have to do without some of the stuff that they want or need; (3) that doing one thing, producing one good, performing one activity, forces society to give up something else; and (4) that the same resources can not be used to produce two different goods at the same time. We live in a big, bad world of scarcity. This big, bad world of scarcity is what the study of economics is all about. That's why we usually subtitle scarcity: THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM. See also | scarcity | first rule of scarcity | unlimited wants and needs | limited resources | satisfaction | resources | wants | needs | production | consumption | economics | opportunity cost | scarce resource |  Recommended Citation:THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM, AmosWEB GLOSS*arama, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2026. [Accessed: September 14, 2026].
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LONG-RUN TOTAL COST The opportunity cost incurred by all of the factors of production used in the long run (when all inputs are variable) by a firm to produce a good or service, including wages paid to labor, rent paid for the land, interest paid to capital owners, and a normal profit earned by entrepreneurs. Unlike short-run total cost, long-run total cost cannot be separated into fixed cost and variable cost. In the long run, all inputs are variable, so all cost is variable.
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BLUE PLACIDOLA [What's This?]
Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time flipping through mail order catalogs trying to buy either a large green chalkboard shaped like the state of Maine or a replacement battery for your pocket calculator. Be on the lookout for florescent light bulbs that hum folk songs from the sixties. Your Complete Scope
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The 1909 Lincoln penny was the first U.S. coin with the likeness of a U.S. President.
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"The true idealist pursues what his heart says is right in a way that his head says will work. " -- Richard Nixon, 37th US president
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PRO RATA According to the Rate (Latin)
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