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FACTOR MARKETS: Markets used to exchange the services of a factor of production: labor, capital, land , and entrepreneurship. Factor markets, also termed resource markets, exchange the services of factors, NOT the factors themselves. For example, the labor services of workers are exchanged through factor markets NOT the actual workers. Buying and selling the actual workers is not only slavery (which is illegal) it's also the type of exchange that would take place through product markets, not factor markets. More realistically, capital and land are two resources than can be and are legally exchanged through product markets. The services of these resources, however, are exchanged through factor markets. The value of the services exchanged through factor markets each year is measured as national income.
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                           DISMAL SCIENCE: A term for the study of economics developed during the late 18th and early 19th century when economists concluded that continued population growth would push wages and living standards to a minimal subsistence level and keep them there. It persists to the present time because economics continue to point out that actions result in opportunity cost, that nothing is free, and that eventually society has to pay the price for what it does. The notion that economics is a dismal science emerged out of the work of several late-18th and early-19th century scholars, most notably Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo.As Malthus, Ricardo, and their contemporaries pioneered the development of the economics discipline, they pondered (among many things) topics like population, the supply of labor, and worker wages. In so doing, they concluded--erroneously as it turns out--that continued population growth would push wages and living standards to a minimal subsistence level and keep them there. According to these early economists, the prospects for humanity were bleak, miserable, and well... downright dismal. Not Too DismalWhat they failed to adequately consider, however, were technology, capital investment, and limited population growth. Technological advances, by improving the quality of capital and increasing the skills of labor, made workers more productive, leading to increased wages and boosted living standards. Continued capital investment had a similar result. In addition, as living standards rose, people chose to have smaller families, which resulted in lower rates of population growth, which also led to increased wages.Dismal ScarcityAlthough the human condition is not nearly as bleak as anticipated by Malthus and Ricardo, economic dismality persists largely due to the persistent problem of scarcity. Combining unlimited wants and needs with limited resources means that everyone cannot have everything that they want. While politicians and others are fond of telling people what they can have, economists are generally in the position of telling people what they cannot have.The bottom line is that the human condition can improve and living standards can rise, but complete utopia is unlikely.
Recommended Citation:DISMAL SCIENCE, AmosWEB Encyclonomic WEB*pedia, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2025. [Accessed: January 25, 2025].
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Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time at a garage sale seeking to buy either software that won't crash your computer or any book written by Stephan King. Be on the lookout for poorly written technical manuals.
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A thousand years before metal coins were developed, clay tablet "checks" were used as money by the Babylonians.
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"The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. the You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself." -- Alan Alda, Actor
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OAPEC
Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries
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