Looking forward to the 2009 season, I've just posted a new article on my site that offers a beginner-level introduction to economics and the US economy. It's part of my ongoing series "Picking Up: A Debater's Guide"

One of the important skills to gain this year to be successful in debate, especially at the novice level, is a firm grasp of economics. That sentence is going to scare the crap out of some of you. Don't let it. Economics isn't numbers and spreadsheets and TPS reports, at least not at the outset. Economics is the decisions you make every day, the story behind the objects you interact with on a daily basis.

Consider, if you will, a backpack. You probably have one, what would you say it is worth? What value does your backpack posses?

There are obviously lots of ways to answer this question. We could look at a backpack's ability to hold and organize things, we could look at all the work it took to assemble the backpack from raw materials, we could just ask you what it's worth, etc. One particularly useful way to measure value is price. When you went to a store and paid 50 dollars for your backpack, you sent a clear signal that that backpack was worth $50 to you at that place and time...

Read the rest here

--

About the author: Ryan Ricard coaches debate at Rosemount High School in Minnesota, where he competed in debate many moons ago. "I was never one of the best debaters in the country, but I did have the pleasure of debating some of them. I'm not one of the best debate coaches in the country, but I have had the pleasure of working with some of them."