Econ 101 is the most important class in the world, and it's mostly wrong

Things learned in Econ 101 the source of more government policies than any other class

The basis of most people's understanding of economics begins and ends with what they learn in economics 101. It's a class taken by people in many disciplines. It might be the most-delivered course in universities today.

And it's wrong. Or at least mostly wrong.

Or at least that's what Bloomberg columnist Noah Smith argues today. It's all based on supply demand curves and 100% rational consumers. It's shaped the views of generations of people on government, welfare, minimum wage and social welfare.

That reality is different from the textbook is no surprise to anyone reading ForexLive but Smith also offers solutions. Economics is headed towards data sampling and using real-world examples and experiments over mathematical theories.

Instead of teaching Econ 101, he argues that classes teaching data and empirical evidence should be the standard.

It's convincing stuff.

When a class can be distilled to a cartoon, maybe it's academia that's a caricature