The Curmudgeonly Professor Gives a Pop Quiz

Good morning class.  Please take out ten blue books and pen for a pop quiz.  Explain your answers clearly and in detail.  You must use basic economic principles covered in any basic freshman level economics class to justify your answer.  Here we go.

1. If you had to choose and implement an economic policy that would result in the greatest economic impact, dollar for dollar, which would you choose:  (a) tax cuts, or (b) expenditure increases?  Explain clearly.
2. Would remodeling the U.S. Commerce Department building result in any economic stimulus?  Explain. 
3. Who originated the term "stinking, rotting corpse" to describe the current economic stimulus package? 
4. Discuss the economic effects of a "Buy America" requirement for all funds dispensed under the new economic stimulus package.  Would a Buy America rider result in the desired impact of saving American jobs and stimulating the American economy?
5. List five economic reasons for voting against the economic stimulus bill. 
6. Have  massive tax cuts worked to stimulate the economy since 1980?  Why or why not?  Explain.
7. What is "supply-side economics"?  Has supply-side economics been proven to be either or both a short- or long-term effective economic policy? 
8. Define the term socialism in analytical terms, devoid of biased opinions. 
9. Define the term communism in analytical terms, devoid of biased opinions.
10. What practical policy barriers serve as impediments to promising a balanced budget? 
11. During which Presidential term of office in the last thirty years did the following occur:  (a) the highest unemployment rate. (b) the largest budget deficits. (c) the highest economic growth rate. (c) a federal budget surplus. (d) the highest interest rate. (d) the greatest collapse in economic and financial markets since the 1930s. Explain, in each case, the circumstances underlying each of these economic benchmarks.  
12. Identify the principal areas of deregulation of financial markets during the past three decades.  Explain the economic results of these reductions in deregulation. 
13. What is a subprime mortgage? 
14. Outline the basic ethical and economic standards for loaning money and creating a new home mortgage. 
15. Who is responsible for overseeing ethical and economic standards for loaning money and creating new home mortgages?  The federal government?  The president and CEOs of banks?  The mortgage writers themselves? 
16. Should the federal government "bail out" shoddy and dishonest lending practices by "saving" the banking and financial system?  Or should the federal government just allow the financial system to "go down the drain" and start over again from scratch? 
17. What safety nets were in place to prevent the massive financial and banking collapse?  What additional safety nets and regulations are needed to prevent a reoccurrence of the current financial collapse?
18. What did the FDIC, the SEC, the U.S. Treasury, the fifty state bank examiners, do to protect the economy and the nation from predatory and unethical lenders and to remove or punish them for their decisions and actions? 
19. What is the average level of economic analysis competence attained by members of Congress, political pundits, talk show anchors, and the general public? 
20. Identify major changes in economic tax, budget, and financial policy that have been instituted in the past 30 years.  How many of these changes attained their desired effects?  Explain.       

You have three weeks to complete this exam. This exam is an open-book, open-source exam.  You are free to consult any source you wish to consult, including President Obama, Nobel-prize winning economists, textbooks, other books, the CEO of your local bank, members of the New York Stock Exchange, Suze Orman, Google, financial and economic analysts, the President of the American Economic Association, and the Secretary of the Treasury.  You must quote and cite your sources, and then provide your own objective analysis supporting or disagreeing with what you have learned.  

When you have finished, your exams will be reviewed and examined by a panel of distinguished faculty members, including a group of your peers.  The writer of the best exam will be awarded a Ph.D. in economics and appointed to the President's Council of Economic Advisers.  All others will be required to take a remedial course in elementary economics, to tutor members of Congress in elementary economics,  and to perform unpaid janitor work during spring term.  You may begin.

Comments

[Dorothy Baumer]

If we send you the blue books will you grade them or are you posting the answers?

[grand canyon tours]

If that is not enough, let's not forget about the scenic cruise down the Yukon River.