I’m Jim Luke. This is my economics notebook. I teach college principles of economics, along with the occasional Economic History, Comparative Econ Systems, and Econ Geography. The posts here are mostly examples/stories for my students, notes to myself, or rants to air. I try to translate economics into plain English without over-simplifying it. You’re welcome to read and I hope you learn something. To comment, please click on the bubble. Please keep comments civil.

EconProph is my public blog on economics.  I’m Jim Luke and I teach economics at a college in Michigan.   My primary purpose for this blog is to help my students and anybody else who is interested to understand economics and to understand what’s happening in the economy today.
I have a somewhat different perspective than will be found on many blogs about “the economy” or “economics”.  First, I’m primarily a teaching economist, not a research economist.  If you’re looking for a sophisticated, wonkish exposition of the latest economic models and journal articles, complete with equations and math that only a physicist could love, you’re in the wrong place.  On the other hand, if you want to better understand what’s happening or just to better understand the basic principles of modern economics, I hope to help you. My job is to translate what the wonks say into plain English, and to occassionally correct some of the nonsense one-liners that pass as “popular wisdom” by politicos, radio talk show hosts, and the talking heads on cable TV.

Similarly, while I may comment on markets and investments, that’s not my main focus nor is it my job (now).  I have no investment ax to grind and no hidden agenda.
What you might find here is a different perspective.  My views cannot be easily classified as “left” or “right”, “Keynesian” or “classical”.  Instead, I hope to offer a different perspective.  I spend most of my time trying to make economics intelligible to hundreds of students, many of whom would rather not deal with it at all.  In the past, I’ve run my own consulting business (strategic planning for a wide variety of businesses/industries) and I’ve also been a stock broker.

The views expressed here are my own and have not been reviewed or approved by my employer or the college where I teach.

For more information about my background, see my either my business website or my teaching portfolio site.  You’re also welcome to visit other blogs I maintain:  berniemargolis.com and eproph.com.

If you wish to contact me, feel free to either leave a comment or email me at my college email or my private email.