CDZ Making use of knowledge and information (or let's play 17 Questions)

[320 Years of History]

Recently I created a pair of related threads:

1. Information
2. What adults should know about the world

In those threads, I presented the following progression of main themes, respectively:

1. Too many folks these days are bereft of the information they need to make good decisions, particularly good political decisions, "good" being well informed by extant facts and understandings as humanity currently knows them.
2. There is a body of knowledge that one can obtain to overcome that knowledge and cognitive shortcoming. That body of knowledge is obtainable entirely for free over the course of one's 9th - 12th grade education.

In this post, the most easily approached of the three, I am presenting a small assortment of questions taken from tests given to high school students. The questions call upon one to synthesize the knowledge one has gained from a class on macroeconomics (among my favorite topics, so that's why that subject).

The reason why I'm presenting them is not to find out who does and who doesn't know the answers; I don't care who here specifically can or cannot answer any of them correctly. The point is to show how having acquired the information/knowledge needed to answer them correctly, one is then in a position to apply that knowledge to the things one may hear (or not hear) from political candidates and determine based on what one hears whether what one has heard aligns wholly, somewhat, or not much with what one knows to be so.

So with that said, here are the questions....

Which of the following groups would most likely gain from unanticipated inflation?

(A) Landlords who own apartments in cities with rent controls
(B) Individuals who have fixed retirement incomes
(C) Individuals who earn high incomes
(D) Individuals who have borrowed money at fixed interest rates
(E) Banks that have loaned all excess reserves at 21 fixed interest rate​

An increase in which of the following is most likely to promote economic growth?

(A) Consumption spending
(B) Investment tax credits
(C) The natural rate of unemployment
(D) The trade deficit
(E) Real interest rates​

Which of the following would indicate that economic growth has occurred?

(A) The production possibilities curve shifts to the left.
(B) The long-run aggregate supply curve shifts to the right.
(C) The aggregate demand curve shifts to the right.
(D) The Phillips curve becomes flatter.
(E) Business cycles no longer exist.
​

Which of the following is most likely to occur if the Federal Reserve engages in open market operations to reduce inflation?

(A) A decrease in interest rates
(B) A decrease in reserves in the banking system
(C) A decrease in the government deficit
(D) An increase in the money supply
(E) An increase in exports​

Which Federal Reserve action can shift the aggregate demand curve to the left?

(A) Lowering the federal funds rate
(B) Lowering income taxes
(C) Lowering reserve requirements
(D) Raising the discount rate
(E) Raising government spending on national defense
​

Which of the following policy choices represents a combination of fiscal and monetary policies designed to bring the economy out of a recession?

(A) Decreasing both taxes and the money supply
(B) Increasing both taxes and the money supply
(C) Increasing government spending and decreasing the federal funds rate
(D) Increasing both taxes and the discount rate
(E) Engaging in deficit spending and government bond sales​

Which of the following will occur in a competitive market when the price of a good is less than the equilibrium price?

(A) Price will decrease to eliminate the surplus and restore equilibrium.
(B) Price will decrease to eliminate the shortage and restore equilibrium.
(C) Price will increase to eliminate the surplus and restore equilibrium.
(D) Price will increase to eliminate the shortage and restore equilibrium.
(E) Price will remain constant, because supply will increase to eliminate the shortage.​

If the federal government reduces its budget deficit when the economy is close to full employment, which of the following will most likely result?

(A) Inflation will increase.
(B) Tax revenues will increase.
(C) Interest rates will decrease.
(D) Unemployment will decrease.
(E) The international value of the dollar will increase.​

Which of the following can be expected to cause an increase in gross domestic product in the short run?

(A) An increase in the tax rate
(B) An increase in the interest rate
(C) Equal increases in both imports and exports
(D) Equal increases in both taxes and government expenditures
(E) Equal decreases in both investment and government expenditures​

Which of the following will lead to an increase in the United States gross domestic product?

(A) More individuals prepare their own personal income tax forms.
(B) Some citizens begin working abroad as computer programmers.
(C) The government prohibits the sale of alcoholic beverages.
(D) Foreign companies build new assembly plants in the United States.
(E) A million United States households sell their used cars to their children.​

Use the chart below (you may have to click on it to get it to display) to answer the next question.

The theory of comparative advantage implies that Alpha would find it advantageous to:

(A) export grain and import steel
(B) export steel and import grain
(C) export both grain and steel and import nothing
(D) import both grain and steel and export nothing
(E) trade 1 ton of grain for 0.5 ton of steel​

An increase in personal income taxes will most likely cause aggregate demand and aggregate supply to change in which of the following ways in the short run?

(A) Aggregate Demand --> No change; Aggregate Supply --> Decrease
(B) Aggregate Demand --> No change; Aggregate Supply --> Increase
(C) Aggregate Demand --> Decrease; Aggregate Supply --> No change
(D) Aggregate Demand --> Decrease; Aggregate Supply --> Increase
(E) Aggregate Demand --> Increase; Aggregate Supply --> No change​

When an economy is operating below the full employment level of output, an appropriate monetary policy would be to increase which of the following?

(A) The discount rate
(B) The required reserve ratio
(C) The intemational value of the dollar
(D) Open market purchases of government bonds
(E) Government expenditure on goods and services​

Suppose that the government decreases taxes and at the same time the central bank decreases the discount rate. The combined actions will result in

(A) an increase in unemployment and a decrease in the interest rate
(B) an increase in unemployment and an increase in the interest rate
(C) an increase in the real gross domestic product and a decrease in the interest rate
(D) an increase in the real gross domestic product and an increase in the interest rate
(E) an increase in the real gross domestic product and an indeterminate change in the interest rate​

When an economy is at full employment, which of the following will most likely create demand-pull inflation in the short run?

(A) An increase in the discount rate
(B) An increase in personal income taxes
(C) A decrease in the real rate of interest
(D) A decrease in government spending
(E) A decrease in the money supply
​

Which of the following would cause the short-run aggregate supply curve to shift to the right?

(A) An increase in the wage rate
(B) An increase in the interest rate
(C) An increase in the natural rate of unemployment
(D) A decrease in the capital stock
(E) A decrease in the expected price level​

A decrease in business taxes would lead to an increase in national income by increasing which of the following?

(A) The money supply
(B) Unemployment Value
(C) Aggregate demand only of Currency
(D) Aggregate supply only
(E) Both aggregate demand and aggregate supply​

Remember, the questions above are taken directly from exams given to high school economics students. I reiterate that to make clear that the content level above is not advanced or expert grade. All the above covers basic concepts upon with all the rest of macroeconomics is built. That's important to realize because when someone is saying things that defy the conceptual understandings covered above, it means that person has done one of two things:

• Invented a new system of economics. That's fine if they have, but if they have, it's incumbent upon them to share with their audience and expose it to critical review. So, if one doesn't see the book (because that would be a book, a very thick one no less) that person wrote explaining their new model, they haven't got a new model, or a materially different variation on an existing model.
• Saying whatever they hell they think they want to say for whatever reason they think they want to say it. That they are doing so, rather than why they are doing it, becomes the more relevant factor in such situations...and for obvious reasons....Why the heck is someone fabricating and promoting a set of ideas (policies in the case of macroeconomically related statements) that you know damn well cannot be so or plausible, or anything resembling verity or plausibility?

There's also one last point I want to make at this time. It's nothing I haven't said before, but it bears repeating.

Everything one, an American citizen, really needs to know, outside of specific knowledge for performing a given job, one can learn in high school.​

That's really important because it means high school is a critical and defining moment in one's life, but it also means one need not be from any "favored" background to pick up the most relevant and important information one needs for the rest of one's life because it's all given for free via the public education system.

From learning the content that would allow them to answer questions of the sort above (though not solely those questions, for there are other aspects of macroeconomics; for example (but not limited to), quantitative analysis and measurement questions, currency exchange or management questions), adequately high school educated individuals have enough foundational, introductory, information at the ready to judge whether what they hear from would be leaders actually makes sense, which everything either will or will not.

• If it makes sense, one moves on.
• If it doesn't make sense, one reviews what one has already learned, looks a bit more deeply into the matter to find out if it's one or the speaker who's mistaken, and then determines whether what one heard ?read makes sense or not.

That's pretty much it.

I'll conclude briefly by referring to the thread I created a few weeks ago wherein I echoed Barack Obama's now famous quote, "It's not cool to not know what you are talking about." You see, it doesn't matter too much to me why someone is ill informed on a given topic. I care only that folks are honest with themselves about that and that they do something about it as go matters where their input is solicited (most notably in the voting booth) and their input can affect everyone else in addition to themselves.

What matters is that folks have the decency to question themselves and their own ideas enough to bring themselves to the point whereby they do know what they are talking about, and that's not hard to do for each and every one of us knows what kind of education we earned...not what someone tried to teach us, but what we as individuals actually learned...learned how to do, the physical performance and mental analysis skills we perfected (or didn't), etc. over the course of our lives.

 

[320 Years of History]

People's penchant for seeking more information always comes down to why should they and what effect it will have

Isn't "wly" always so that one is accurately informed enough to make a sage decision rather than merely deciding?

The world in which we live these days is not so "black and white" as it was when the world and its people were less interconnected. Accordingly, for many topics -- e.g., economic, environmental, foreign relations -- we each these days have a burden to consider them in two general dimensions:

• "How does 'such and such' affect me?"
• "How does 'such and such' affect everyone else?"

As I suspect you've seen me write before, I believe in following the Golden Rule, so the impact on others is usually as important as the impact on me. Sometimes, what's good for oneself isn't good (or better) for everyone else. I think part of being a "good" Christian requires one to sometimes make choices that are in others' interest even when they aren't in one's own interest. One cannot very well do that if one isn't very well informed on a given matter of importance.

What effect will getting informed have? Well, in some ways/cases that depends on the individual, and in others it doesn't.

• It positions one to make "good" Christian decisions.
• It positions one to see for sure whether ideas advocated by leaders hold a little, some, or a lot of merit on their own.
• It allows one to discern whether the larger share of the positive and negative impacts of a given proposal will fall one oneself or on others.
• It positions one to understand, accurately, the impacts (great, small, near term, long term, etc.) of what leaders propose and do so without being dependent on rhetoric of folks who have interests that may or may not align with one's own. (Recognizing that one can't always know just what motivates another's advocacy or lack thereof of a given policy action. Trust, but verify...or risk one's well being and peace of mind and don't...)

Take NAFTA and what leaders said about it. Being reasonably well informed about the economics of trade and the general terms of the treaty would have indicated that regardless of what leaders said or didn't say, the impact was going to be a big reduction in low skill jobs and a big increase in high skill jobs. Being well informed would have positioned one to realize that no matter one's thinking about whether NAFTA should have been implemented, once it was ratified, if one was low on the "skills meter," one should take steps to alter that circumstance.

Following on the NAFTA example, just how much did one need to know? The answer comes down to three broad categories of knowledge: economics, basic facts, and common sense.

• Economics: Free trade increases producers' access to the levers of production -- land, labor and capital -- in other countries.
• Fact easily obtained: The rough prices of land, labor and capital in the U.S. and that in the other treaty countries.
• Common sense: Whether any of the levers of production in one's own country are, in comparison with those another country, are equally good, worse or better as inputs to whatever good may be produced there.
• Common sense: The final selling price of any good includes the cost the producer paid for the land, labor and capital it used to produce the item plus whatever the producer requires as profit.
• Common sense: One component of competing successfully in a marketplace is, as a producer, being able to produce one's goods/services at comparable or lower prices than can one's competitors.

From there, one need only "connect the dots," which is what one does using one's critical thinking skills. Where does one develop the requisite skills? High school: English lit, English composition, math, history, science are all disciplines that help one develop that skill.

• English lit courses --> Develops innovative/creative thinking skill
• English composition --> Develops thought organization and presentation skill
• Math --> Develops formal logic (deductive reasoning) skill and highly structured methodical thinking skill
• History --> Develops informal logic (inductive reasoning) cause and effect analytical skill and synthesizes the skills noted above.
• Science --> Develops cause and effect reasoning skill, integrates the skills noted above and applies them to less "fuzzy" circumstances than historic analysis generally offers.

 

[Wilbur Right]

From there, one need only "connect the dots," which is what one does using one's critical thinking skills. Where does one develop the requisite skills? High school: English lit, English composition, math, history, science are all disciplines that help one develop that skill.

Statistics
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U.S. Illiteracy Statistics Data
Percent of U.S. adults who can’t read (below a basic level) 14 %
Number of U.S. adults who can’t read 32,000,000
Percent of prison inmates who can’t read 70 %
Percent of high school graduates who can’t read 19 %
Reading Level of U.S. Adults Percent
Proficient 13 %
Intermediate 44 %
Basic 29 %
Below Basic 14 %
Demographics of Adults Who Read Below a Basic Level Percent of Population
Hispanic 41 %
Black 24 %
White 9 %
Other 13 %




I think I found part of the problem. Poor readers will not be inclined to take on the topics you feel should be studied. To difficult if you are not an advanced reader.



When I develope the magic pill that makes every student a proficient reader, the country will be on the way to correcting some of our problems and I'll be RICH. Lol.

 

[320 Years of History]

From there, one need only "connect the dots," which is what one does using one's critical thinking skills. Where does one develop the requisite skills? High school: English lit, English composition, math, history, science are all disciplines that help one develop that skill.

Statistics
FacebookTwitterGoogle+RedditShare

U.S. Illiteracy Statistics Data

• Percent of U.S. adults who can’t read (below a basic level) 14 %
• Number of U.S. adults who can’t read 32,000,000
• Percent of prison inmates who can’t read 70 %
• Percent of high school graduates who can’t read 19 %

Reading Level of U.S. Adults Percent

• Proficient 13 %
• Intermediate 44 %
• Basic 29 %
• Below Basic 14 %

Demographics of Adults Who Read Below a Basic Level Percent of Population

• Hispanic 41 %
• Black 24 %
• White 9 %
• Other 13 %

I think I found part of the problem. Poor readers will not be inclined to take on the topics you feel should be studied. To difficult if you are not an advanced reader.

When I develope the magic pill that makes every student a proficient reader, the country will be on the way to correcting some of our problems and I'll be RICH. Lol.

Did you mean to link to this set of statistics? The first two links I clicked on took me to figures about student loan debt. (The "share" link goes to a literacy statistics "portal" of sorts but each of the sites to which one may go from the portal all want one to log in to access whatever is there.)

Red:
I wasn't empirically aware of the figures you cited. At best I had only an anecdotal suspicion they may have been approximately as cited. I've certainly seen evidence of 43% of the adult population's being at best basic readers. Forty-three percent is shockingly high, a good deal higher than I'd have thought it'd be. That said, seeing the 43% figure, I have a far better understanding of why much about what is said in general political discourse obtains the types of responses it does.

You too have had the same experience I suspect, and at least some of your observations to that effect occurred right here on USMB. Look at how often you write something only to have someone inaccurately paraphrase what you've written. It happened to me just yesterday, but that was not the first time.

• http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/14958127/
  
• http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/15277125/
  
• http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/14959832/
  
• http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/15187479/
  
• http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/14714447/

For the sake of CDZ order:

The point of sharing those links is merely to illustrate instances of folks not having fully comprehended the passages they read, or having not fully read them. I can't tell which "thing" is what was going on with any given poster; I can tell their remarks about the noted passages inaccurately describe the passage(s). I have no aim of discussing the individuals who posted the remarks. Obviously, I've cited individual instances and everyone can have a "moment" in which they don't carefully consider the information/stimuli they encounter.
​

The thing that took my by surprise in encountering as often as I have on USMB instances where folks don't fully "get" the meaning of the content they read is that this is among last places I'd have expected to find that happening often enough to see it as a recurring phenomenon. I can't say that it's never occurred in my "real life," but I also can't readily point to instances when/where it has, and that's the distinguishing difference; it doesn't happen enough to notice. There is one notable exception to that: my mentees aged below 16. But then that's to be expected of such individuals.


Blue:
I suspect you are correct. I'd be surprised to find you are not. I'm not right now going in depth to explore pedagogy and psychology papers to confirm whether yours and my suppositions are largely accurate. The content is there, I'm just not taking the time to read it.

• Effects of Motivational and Cognitive Variables on Reading Comprehension
  
• CLASSIFICATION OF STUDENTS WITH READING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES: THE ROLES OF MOTIVATION, AFFECT, AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
  
• Examining the prediction of reading comprehension on different multiple-choice tests
  
• The Effects of Computer-Assisted Instruction on Different Learners
• SEVEN RULES OF ENGAGEMENT What’s Most Important to Know About Motivation to Read
  
• CURIOSITY IF THE READING ENCOUNTER, AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF SELECTED QUESTIONING PROCEDURES ON CURIOSITY AND ON READING COMPREHENSION

To explain why I think you are correct, I'll expound upon your remark by relating an experience I had many years back when my daughter (my oldest child) began algebra. I bothered to pick up her textbook and peruse a few chapters in it. I was struck by how the text was written in highly structured English. That is to say, to fully understand the information being explained in the chapters, one had to be proficient with reading English. I don't mean just capable of reading the words, I mean one had, for example, to apply the implied meaning that accompanies elements of sentence structure, such as subordinate clauses, appositives, etc. as one read the content. I could tell that if my child was a poor reader, she was not going to "get it."

I then went to my library and checked my own algebra textbook (I took algebra in the 7th and 8th grades just as my kids did) to see whether it was written roughly the same way. It was. I then got even more curious and examined the texts from my other classes in middle school, 9th and 10th grades. They were all the same. Each of them, be they arts or sciences, was written in a way that assumes one has mastered English grammar and the meanings and subject emphasis implied by sentence and paragraph structure/organization.

I then thought about the textbooks my mentees use. Without exception they were (and even now are) written in a less advanced/sophisticated style, for example, no compound or complex sentences, topics broken up into smaller "bites," and so on. The actual content is the same, but the assumed reading skill required to grasp was lower. What I noticed, however, that gets lost is context. That's when I realised that so-called "advanced" texts for a given subject are "advanced" mainly because they require a more advanced reading level in order to comprehend them.

Thinking about the consequences of the difference, I arrived at the following thoughts:

• Non -English grammar/composition texts written in accordance with formal English grammar rules and conventions increase one's reading comprehension skills by what I call the "osmosis effect."
• Less sophisticated writing in non-English composition/grammar texts likely increases poor readers' performance in the specific subject -- math, biology, chemistry, history, economics, etc. -- but does nothing to aid in developing one's overall reading comprehension skill. ("skill" being a measure of "ability" in this context) The result of this is that an aspect of the integration of learning across scholastic disciplines is lost. Using this approach to teaching contributes to
  • Teachers and school districts being able to boost the student scores on standardized tests of given subjects.
  • Students graduating with decent grades, but not really being able to "connect the dots" among the various topics they've studied. This seems to produce students more inclined to think of "everything" as being unrelated to "everything else;" it creates what I call "binary thinkers."
    
    This is part of the lost integration aspect that I mentioned above. I see it manifest in students, most often undergrads, that I interviewed for entry level positions in the firm. A common area where it appeared is in the overlap between economics and business management disciplines. (And, no, I didn't extend offers to applicants who didn't show an understanding -- commensurate with their academic level -- of how things are correlated.)

I think those two factors, along with other less directly scholastic and pedagogical ones, contribute greatly to poor readers refusing to undertake the sort of investigations one must when one isn't well trained/informed on a given subject of political relevance. The content that is available is "hard" to read and comprehend, and it's nigh impossible to make use of information one doesn't understand. That said, it's not incomprehensible; it just takes more effort and time to understand. That's something we all must deal with, but by doing so, we develop the reading ability to do so more adroitly and quickly over time.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but the construction happened more quickly as builders gained more and more experience. Reading and making use of the information one reads works the same way.