Applied Economics 1 (7360)

Students analyze the difference between needs and wants and develop a personal budget to demonstrate economic abundance and scarcity. Students analyze both how they have made economic decisions in the past and how decision making can be improved. The course covers principles of saving; charts are developed analyzing the difference among credit unions, banks, and savings and loans for investing savings. The differences between simple and compound interest are demonstrated through calculating paying for a car using each type of financing. Comparisons are made between students’ personal budgets balancing needs and wants with the same issues a business, city, or nation faces and choices leaders must make. Graphic/pictorial representation of the relationship between a government’s spending and taxation is developed.