Econ & all that.

Turns out that macroeconomics, is still well, macroeconomics. In the past 3 months, prepping for finance interviews, reading the paper, trying to figure out what the heck happened in the past few years with the financial crisis, and what we hope is the early stages of global economic recovery.

Some of my friends and classmates will say "no way," or present logical arguments as to why we are looking at the second half of a "W." I still go with the too often used "cautiously optimistic" because it's the most well rounded story, and for the purpose of interviews, it matched my stock pitch.

BUT, in all of this, I was hoping that taking Macroeconomics would be exciting, interesting, digging into the heart of the Canadian economy, and the impact of interest rates, and commodity prices. While we have touched on some of that stuff, our text book is still computing the CPI using a basket of goods that includes hot dogs and hamburgers.

I completely understand the need to simplify some of the components to clearly explain. But any chance we could ask for something a little more realistic? Even if they simply switch to Sushi & Starbucks, its a little more indicative of what we are dealing with today. I suppose some folks would say "well starbucks wasn't around 20 years ago to make a real relevant comparison... and to them I think I say... embrace the chaos! Accept that there are changes! Today you need to include the cost of a computer in a typical consumers 'basket of goods' how do you account for the 1980 equivalent of that?

That is my Macroeconomics rant for the day. Perhaps it is because Q3 is very difficult to get motivated to do work. Students are in one of two boats right now. Either they have a job through highly competitive campus recruiting, or personal contacts they lined up on their own, or they are still looking for summer options. Either way it is very difficult to make class a number one priority. Nothing like a quiz to bring us back to reality....