跟读练习: Once You Learn Economics, You Can't Be MANIPULATED Anymore - 通过YouTube学习英语口语
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I just spent the last two weeks reading a 700-page book by Thomas Sowell, a Stanford economist.
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I just spent the last two weeks reading a 700-page book by Thomas Sowell, a Stanford economist.
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It's called Basic Economics.
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The economy seems confusing and complicated, but it's not.
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Most people never learn how it actually works,
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so they keep getting fooled.
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By the end of this video,
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you will understand why taxing the rich hurts the poor people the most,
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Why making rent cheaper creates housing shortages.
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Why making food cheaper makes it disappear.
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I know it all sounds backwards,
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but once you see the proof, you can't unsee it.
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So, let us start.
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The year is 2008.
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The state of Maryland has a problem.
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They need money.
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So, someone comes up with an idea.
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Let's tax rich people more.
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Maryland had about 8,000 millionaires.
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They do the math and say,
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if we raise their taxes,
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we'll collect $106 million more every year.
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Done!
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Problem solved.
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Everyone celebrates.
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Here's what actually happened.
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Year one, they collected the tax.
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Everything is going to plan.
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Year two, somebody counts the millionaires again.
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There were only 6,000 left.
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2,000 millionaires had just vanished.
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They moved somewhere else.
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Instead of gaining 106 million,
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Maryland actually lost 257 million in total tax revenue.
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Oregon tried the same thing,
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raised taxes on high earners and lost billions over time.
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And here's the lesson.
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And I really want you to get this.
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People respond to rewards, not intentions.
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Maryland intended to raise money,
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but what they actually did was reward millionaires for leaving.
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So the millionaires left, and they took their businesses,
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their restaurants, their companies with them.
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The jobs disappeared.
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Now, you can wish that people would just sit there and accept higher taxes,
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but intentions don't matter.
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Rewards do.
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What this means for you,
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in your business, your relationships, your life.
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Don't ask what you want people to do.
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Ask what you're rewarding them to do.
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Number two, every choice has a cost.
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Let's say you have $10.
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You want a Starbucks, a burger, and a movie ticket.
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Can you have all three?
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No, 10 bucks is 10 bucks.
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You get the Starbucks, you skip the burger.
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You get the burger, forget the movie.
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Every single choice means giving up something else.
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That's a trade-off.
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Economics is not about what you have,
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it's about what you do with what you have.
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And this isn't just with small things,
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this is how the world works.
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For example, Venezuela has massive oil reserves.
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They should be rich, but they're broke.
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Switzerland has nothing in the ground.
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They should be poor, but they're one of the richest countries on Earth.
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The same rule applies to you.
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Every dollar you spend, every hour you work,
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every person you hire, it can only be used once.
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The real question is not, can I afford this?
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It's, what am I giving up to get this?
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For example, you buy a BMW for $50,000.
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Beautiful car.
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Leather seats.
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You feel like you made it.
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But here's what you didn't see.
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If you bought a Toyota Corolla for $20,000 instead and invested the extra $30,000 in 10 years,
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it could almost be worth $60,000.
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In 30 years, you are looking at almost $250,000.
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That BMW didn't cost you $50,000.
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It cost you a quarter million.
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That's the trade-off.
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Every time you spend money,
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you're not just spending money.
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You're spending what that money could have become.
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Same with your time.
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Same with your energy.
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Same with your attention.
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Once you start seeing trade-offs, you can't unsee them.
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And that's either the most terrifying thing you'll ever learn or the most powerful.
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Number three, prices are messages.
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There's this famous story.
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Soviet leader Gorbachev visits Britain and asks Margaret Thatcher,
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how do you make sure people get food?
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She replies, I don't.
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Prices do.
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Think about that.
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London has not grown enough food to feed itself for over a century.
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Millions of people, three meals a day.
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There is no minister of sandwiches.
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No government office decides where the bread goes.
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And yet every morning, fresh fish arrives from Norway,
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beef from Argentina, coffee from Brazil.
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Nobody is coordinating this.
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Prices are.
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Let me show you why no human could ever do what prices do.
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Imagine you're in charge of all the pizza in your country.
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Not one pizza shop.
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All of it.
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Your job is to make sure everyone who wants pizza gets it.
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You would need to know how many people want pizza today versus tomorrow,
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which cities need more, what toppings,
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how much cheese to make,
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which means deciding how much milk goes to cheese versus ice cream,
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how many tomatoes to grow,
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how many ovens to build.
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And all of this changes every single day.
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You cannot know all this.
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No human can.
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No computer can.
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Too many variables changing too fast.
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But this problem gets solved every single day.
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Remote little towns get pizza.
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Big cities get pizza.
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Nobody is in charge.
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Nobody is planning it.
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Prices do it.
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When pizza is scarce, prices go up.
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suppliers rush to make more.
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When there is too much,
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prices drop, suppliers slow down.
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Nobody sends these messages on purpose.
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They just happen, based on how many people want something and how much of it exists.
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The price isn't the enemy.
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The price is the only one telling you the truth.
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So the next time you see a price that makes you angry,
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just pause for a second.
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Ask yourself, What is this price trying to tell me?
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Is something scarce?
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Are too many people chasing too little supply?
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The price isn't the problem.
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It's the only honest signal you've got.
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Number four, price controls never work.
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New York City has thousands of abandoned apartments just sitting there, empty.
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Meanwhile, homeless people sleep on the street right outside those buildings.
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There are four times as many abandoned apartments as homeless people in New York.
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Let me show you how this happens.
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Imagine your school makes an announcement.
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Tomorrow, free pizza at lunch.
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Unlimited.
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Take as much as you want.
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At first, just the kids who normally buy lunch show up.
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Small line, normal.
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But word spreads fast.
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Now everyone shows up.
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Kids who usually bring lunch from home,
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kids from other grades, everybody.
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And everybody's grabbing extra slices, just in case.
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20 minutes later, the pizza is gone.
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The early kids hoarded everything.
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The ones who came late got nothing.
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This is what happens every single time you mess with prices.
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Now go back to New York.
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Rent was getting expensive.
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People were struggling.
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So politicians step in.
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They make a rule.
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Landlords can't charge more than a certain amount.
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Rent control.
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Problem solved, right?
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Wrong.
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At the lower price, suddenly everyone wants their own place.
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The college student who is going to stay with his parents now gets his own apartment.
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The widow who was thinking about moving in with the family keeps her three-bedroom to herself.
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Remember the free pizza example?
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the same thing happens here.
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Everyone grabs extra and the people who actually need it get nothing.
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But wait, it gets even worse.
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If landlords can't raise rent, they stop fixing things.
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They stop repairing roofs.
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Buildings start to rot.
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Eventually, some landlords just walk away entirely.
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And that is how you get thousands of empty apartments in a city full of homeless people.
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Price controls made them worthless to operate.
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Same pattern with food.
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Zimbabwe artificially kept prices low during the inflation crisis.
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Stores emptied within hours.
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Farmers just stopped bringing food to market because selling at the controlled price meant losing money,
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so they didn't sell.
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People starved while crops rotted on farms.
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This is what happens when you set prices too low.
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Now let me show you what happens when you set the prices too high.
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India, early 2000s.
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The government wanted to help farmers,
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so they guaranteed a high price for wheat.
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No matter what happens, farmers get paid well.
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Sounds great, right?
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Wrong again.
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If the government guarantees a high price,
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farmers grow more wheat to make a profit.
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So that is what they did.
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They produced way more wheat than anyone could need.
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And the government had to buy it all.
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11 million tons of wheat piled up in warehouses.
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And then it rotted, while people in other parts of the country we're starving.
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So here's the pattern.
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Set the price too low,
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shortage, people can't get it.
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Set the price too high,
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surplus, product rots while people starve.
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Either way, you mess with the prices, you break the system.
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And here's the cruel part.
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Price controls are supposed to help the poor.
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But when the thing disappears, rich people find workarounds.
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They bribe someone.
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They know someone.
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Poor people suffer the most.
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The solution becomes the problem.
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What this means for you,
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when a politician promises to make something affordable by controlling the price,
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ask one simple question.
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What happens to the supply?
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Number five, profits and losses are directions.
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Picture a school lunch table.
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You notice kids go crazy for fruit snacks.
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So you start bringing extra packs and trading them for stuff you want.
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It works.
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You're making a profit.
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The profit tells you something.
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Keep going.
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Bring more fruit snacks.
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People want them.
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Now imagine you try the same thing with raisins.
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Nobody wants them.
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You cannot give them away.
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That is a loss.
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You wasted your allowance on something nobody wanted.
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That loss also tells you something.
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Stop.
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Try something else.
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Profits say, yes, do more of this.
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Losses say, no, stop doing this.
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Simple, but here is what most people miss.
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Losses are just as valuable as profits.
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Maybe more.
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When a company keeps losing money and shuts down,
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it sounds sad, but it's good for everyone else.
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That company was using engineers,
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steel, electricity, trucks, all to make something people didn't want.
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When it dies, those engineers go work somewhere useful.
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That steel gets melted into something people actually need.
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But here is where governments break the system.
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They say, this company is too big to fail.
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We will give them money to keep going.
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Now the signal is broken.
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The company was supposed to stop.
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Instead, it keeps wasting resources on stuff nobody wants, funded by your taxes.
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It's like paying the raisin kid to keep bringing raisins forever,
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and everyone else just has to deal with it.
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Profits are not the enemy.
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Losses are not the enemy.
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They are the honest feedback the economy has.
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What this means for you.
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Look at your life right now.
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The things making you money,
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making you happy, moving you forward.
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Do more of that and kill that side project bleeding cash for three years.
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Don't feel bad.
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That's not failure.
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That's the market telling you the truth.
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The moment you kill it,
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you get your time and energy back.
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Now you can put all of that into something that actually works.
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Number six, your wage is a price too.
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Why do some jobs pay more than others?
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Construction workers lift heavy stuff in the sun all day.
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They don't make that much.
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Nurses keep people alive.
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They're not millionaires.
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So what's the real answer?
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You get paid based on how much value you create.
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That's it.
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Let me show you.
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You have a lemonade stand.
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You hire your friend Maria to help.
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How much can you pay her?
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Well, it depends on how much extra lemonade she helps you sell.
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Maria's fast.
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She's friendly.
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With her there, you sell 10 more cups at $1 each.
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That's $10 of extra value in your pocket you can pay her up to $10 and still break even.
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Now, imagine you hire your other friend Jake.
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Jake's slow.
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He's on his phone, spills the lemonade.
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With him there, you only sell two extra cups.
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That's $2 of value.
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Pay him more than that and you're losing money every hour he's standing there.
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This isn't mean, it's math.
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Now, here's where people get fooled.
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Someone says, workers deserve a living wage.
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Raise the minimum to $15.
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Sounds nice.
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But what if a worker only creates $10 of value per hour?
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You're now forced to pay $15 for $10 worth of work.
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You lose $5 every single hour.
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No business survives that.
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So what does the business owner do?
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He doesn't hire that person.
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He buys a self-checkout machine instead.
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He cuts hours.
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He closes the shop.
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So here is what this lesson means.
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Your boss isn't paying for your time.
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He's paying for your results.
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More valuable results?
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More money.
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Want to earn more?
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Create more value.
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Learn the skill nobody else wants to learn.
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Number seven.
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Trade makes everyone richer.
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You've got a sandwich.
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Your friend has pizza.
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You each kind of want what the other person has.
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So, you trade halves.
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Did the total amount of food change?
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No. But are you both happier?
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Yes.
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That's trade.
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It creates value without creating more stuff.
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Nobody lost.
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You didn't beat your friend, she didn't beat you.
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Both of you won.
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Now, here's where adults completely mess this up.
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Politicians talk about trade between countries like it's a war.
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We're losing to China.
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They're stealing our jobs.
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We need to win.
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But trade isn't a game with winners and losers.
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If it were, why would both sides keep doing it,
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year after year, century after century?
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One country buys stuff from another because it's cheaper than making it themselves.
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The other country sells because they get paid well.
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Both countries end up with more stuff than if they tried to make everything on their own.
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Both win.
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Now, here's the part that blows people's minds.
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Even if one country is better at making everything,
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trade still helps both countries.
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Think about it this way.
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Imagine you're a lawyer who charges $300 an hour.
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You're also pretty good at cleaning.
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Should you clean your own office?
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No. Hire a cleaner for $20 an hour.
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Use that hour to do legal work instead.
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You make 300, pay 20, and you're way ahead.
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Countries work the exact same way.
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One country might make both cars and shirts better than another country,
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but if their advantage in cars is huge and their advantage in shirts is small,
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it makes sense to focus on cars and trade for shirts.
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Both countries end up with more cars and more shirts than if they each tried to make everything alone.
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That's why economists across every political view have supported free trade for 200 years.
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Trade isn't war, it's cooperation.
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Both sides win.
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Now, what this means for you.
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Think about last week.
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How many hours did you spend on stuff you're bad at and hate doing?
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Emails, spreadsheets, admin work.
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Imagine you paid someone 50 bucks to do all that,
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and you spent those hours on the thing only you can do.
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That's the trade.
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This whole video comes down to one thing.
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Trade-offs.
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Every hour spent on your weakness is an hour stolen from your strength.
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You don't win by fixing what's broken.
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You win by doubling down on what's working.
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That's economics.
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That's life.
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I want to end it by saying this.
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Understanding economics won't make you rich,
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but it will make you impossible to fool.
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You just traded less than 20 minutes of your life to watch this video.
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I hope it was worth it.
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If you want more book summaries like this one,
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check out the playlist on your screen.
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Thanks for watching.
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关于本课
在这一课中，您将通过分析托马斯·索维尔的经济学观念，学习如何用英语表达对经济和社会现象的理解。您将体验到经济学的基本概念，并通过视频中的实际案例学习如何运用这些知识。通过模仿与影子跟读方式，您将提高英语表达能力，并深化对话题的理解。这一过程将帮助您在生活和工作中更好地与他人沟通，有效提升您的英语口语练习效果。
关键词汇与短语
- 经济学 (Economics) - 研究资源、商品和服务的生产、分配与消费。
- 征税 (Taxation) - 政府向个人或企业收取的税金。
- 百万富翁 (Millionaire) - 拥有至少一百万货币资产的人。
- 奖励 (Rewards) - 一种鼓励某种行为的激励措施。
- 意图 (Intentions) - 个人或组织希望达到的目标或目的。
- 住房短缺 (Housing Shortage) - 供应不足以满足需求的住房情况。
- 消失 (Disappear) - 失去存在或可用性。
- 工作岗位 (Jobs) - 为个人提供报酬的职位或工作。
练习建议
使用英语影子跟读方法进行练习，能够帮助您提高英语发音和流利度。在观看视频时，注意说话者的语速和语调。建议在以下几个方面进行专项训练：
- 首先，您可以将视频的播放速度降低至70%-80%，以便更好地捕捉每个单词的发音。
- 逐句暂停，模仿说话者的语气、重音和节奏，尝试复述视频中的句子。这将有助于您
改善发音并增强自信。 - 选择关键短语进行反复练习，例如“征税对富人的影响”，并确保完全理解其含义和使用场景。
- 可以尝试加大语调变化，模仿说话者的情感表达，使自己的语音模仿更有生动性。
- 最后，将练习记录下来，回放时听取自己的发音并做出相应调整，以便在反复练习中逐步提高。
通过这种影子演讲shadow speech的方式，您将不仅掌握经济学的相关表达，同时也能在日常对话中更加自如地运用英语。
什么是跟读法？
跟读法 (Shadowing) 是一种有科学依据的语言学习技巧，最初开发用于专业口译员的培训，并由多语言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。这个方法简单而强大：您在听英语母语原声的同时立即大声重复——就像是一个延迟1-2秒紧跟说话者的影子。与被动听力或语法练习不同，跟读法强迫您的大脑和口腔肌肉同时处理并模仿真实的讲话模式。研究表明它能显着提高发音准确性，语调，节奏，连读，听力理解和口语流利度——使其成为雅思口语备考和真实英语交流最有效的方法之一。