What’s so easy about pie?

Prompt that concerns to "Economics" enthusiasts. Not culinary. Written in 2022, found from the lost & found drive. I may learn to orient text, but it's spontaneous overflow here.

(Image credits: Georgia Today)

Candles were lit all around. It’s Christmas. The dining table was filled with sumptuous desserts, apple pies and plum cakes, even a second to wait would be a grave punishment. Now, the whole of this food wealth was divided in five parts, as the family’s Food and Nutrition Minister my mom divided these. But unfortunately, dad was considered worthy of only the Vanilla Choco Chip ice-cream, and as my intuition responds because he refused to help my mom to decorate the tree. I lost the apple pie and I criticize my intellect for this mishap, for in the morning I delivered that CW Gesner once stated that digesting heavy pie crusts is a hardship for young people, killing their immunity, and profound nutritionist Sarah Rorer provided hefty criticism to consumption of pie in eighteenth century itself. In conclusion, it was an unequal biased distribution even by a trustworthy, impartial and reliable human. In perception, she applied the Prospect Theory of Decision Making of Nobel Laureates Daniel and Amos, where the majority of the food wealth was given to ones who can relish on it gaining profits later, than to one who would gain losses such as indigestion or loss of immunity. Apart from this loss-aversion theory, in one case my dad is an example of Theory of Planned Behavior and Reasoned Action. I highly doubt that he would ever refuse to help my mother in future considering he can likely be disapproved of, due to such actions. Though she adopted these decisions to meet the family aims such as health, disciplined behavior, kindness and sharing; it was a failure to meet actual individual satisfaction as it was devoid of individuals likes, dislikes and consequences. In parallelism is the government according to the Theory of Committees and Elections, and the Public Choice Theory, which advocates that public officials have a very high affinity to eliminate economic problems to achieve stable inflation, increase employment, sustainable economic growth and macro aims, but in reality they finally complicate and fail to meet the standards. And the cause is because we think of pie in terms of dividing it. As the popular proverb says, divided we fall, united we stand. Another example of the failure of mankind and the public sector, is when we practice mercantilism, how can nations maximize their exports and minimize their imports by putting their neighboring country’s development in complete darkness? Are imperialism and colonialism hidden behind these legal economic policies?

In our global setup, distribution of income can be equal, but redistribution through high taxes, more subsidies or enhanced social security is also never a good policy. My brother and I would be conflicted if his pie slice was given to me creating a disincentive for both (taxation), or if I was immediately inoculated with immunity doses to consume that pie(subsides or enhanced security). Keynesians advocate these, while Neoclassicals believe in growing the pie through economic growth creating a trickle down effect. But how could increasing the pie of my brother trickle down to me, like how can tax breaks and health benefits to healthy people help someone who is less immunized? Wouldn’t it create more inequality in division? Let’s assume he brings some other dish as his marginal utility for pie is diminishing now, so would his cognitive bias and appetite let him share a new dish now? Absolutely not, unless he is made aware about the health restrictions that are stopping my consumption, and my extreme desire to eat delicious foods. Consecutively, the Washington Consensus that provides six theoretical postulates driven by Neo-classicals, did not work well in improving the sluggish growth of South Korea to meet its inflation target after the assassination of President Park. It has created havoc in the UK and US. The simple reason is that the Washington consensus relies on the rich and wealthy for proper functioning of the economy as a whole. Money creation is always a bad solution according to Monetarism. But wouldn’t a money creation canalized in investment credit creation increase economic growth? Doesn’t the Washington Consensus fail here? Because our business, economic, social and cultural environment is under unprecedented changes. And when we talk of the economy as a whole, we can’t benefit only one particular group of the economy. We are interdependent and interconnected on each other, the employers on employees, firms on governments, consumers on producers and likewise our wages on productivity, demand on supply, marginal propensity to save on marginal propensity to consume. Economics is somewhat like Ancestry and family link study, where the consequences of grandfather fall on the farthest generations and implications are linked. I’m a daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece and so many different people. Manipulating even a single economic determinant results in distanced changes. In Reaganomics specifically for the Laffer Curve, if you lower the tax rate, your tax revenue likely falls, but if you increase beyond the optimum rate it drops down to zero. But in reality, you have not only impacted tax rates and revenue but resulted in disincentive to work, lower productivity, low wages, increased frictional unemployment, low output and less GDP building such a system in the economy, and recovery from it will be a complicated hardship as during Ronald Reagan presidency.

We all know that a school with no discipline teacher was never safe, but a school with too many discipline teachers was longer a school, it was a restriction overloaded camp. In economics, an optimum number of discipline teachers will make us reach an equilibrium point where there is no more allocation of resources and no further hamper of productive efficiency exists. Deciding their optimum levels is based on the locality, the gender ratio, budget margins, interests, social structures and many. Economics is a social science, was the first statement I learnt. It’s not a debate but a reflective argument. Shimomuran-Wernerian macro policies were successful in accelerating economic growth in Japan post war and tantalizing growth of South Korea and Taiwan alike. These policies are realistic, detailed and vividly based on historical examination to increase abundant capital and widen prosperity. But it requires an inventing group, intellectual government, fast paced innovations, supportive central bank and engaging community to be impactful. Why is the growth slump in Japan now? Does a fast-forward maximization lead to long run complete minimization? In the course of meeting objectives of sales maximization, firms lose their sales revenue maximization objective? We are more spirited with a spike in the Stock market, but less if we gain a good salary? Ford introduced us to Kaizen Approach and quality circles, but now the company shut down? Tinbergen’s rule states every problem must have at least one policy measure, but when we lower income inequality by increasing taxes we create disincentives to work demoting economic growth? Do we create free trade or protect our domestic manufacturers? Perfect competition is idealistic and in the long run we have only normal profits, but Frank H Knight elucidated the pedagogic impact that in long run equilibrium of perfect competition business would still earn good profits by realizing their uncertainties and insuring against risk? Nevertheless, we have witnessed economic miracles in the hardest of times. Because then we did not discuss dividing the pie in what share. The American economy was in crisis when Obama entered power in 2009 after the Great Depression. Even a ray of hope was unlikely with a polarized Congress, but in just six years unemployment fell. Keynesian multiplier theory that was adopted as the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, creating an economic stimulus and spiraled job growth, education, infrastructure, healthcare and renewable energy.

After industrialization, pre-cooked and women entering the labor force, pie is rarely prepared and less nutritious. Similarly India, Burma and Pakistan demonetized pie as a unit of currency which was equal to 1/192 of a rupee in 1947, given increasing inflation. Don’t you think the concept of economic pie is outdated and misleading? As an aspiring policy maker and analyst, a more credible economic term must be aligned instead of a pie. Only a mixture of policies help us solve problems, like a pie chart fails to graphically depict trends, exact values, assumptions and change of patterns. Is defining or maximizing or dividing the economic pie are goals to these conflicting aims of economic growth and income distribution? Why in 2016 a bigger economic pie landed a smaller slice for fifty percent of the US? Is economic pie an lopsided metaphor? Has the quick and fast process of preparing a pie with less flour, no sophisticated oven, leftover ingredients and hard crust undermined our significant economic challenges dependent on political and international situations tremendously giving just a simple solution? Or our multiple economic theories trapped us in what I call “The Tragedy of Economics”? Unlike many objectives we often fail to realize that economics arises because we are scarce of resources; broad money or narrow money is necessarily not a resource; it is just a medium to increase our convenience for the long term, however soon it has changed to a medium of social trouble rather than a medium of exchange. Though pie is the Gross Domestic Product meaning the total value of goods and services produced, sadly we are much interested in growing it, defining it dividing it but not in vital thinking that we have headed to a stage wherein neither goods or service would exist, if humanity is lost, and we witnessed it ourselves near our community, society and at home during these past two years. A pandemic which pondered and unfolded some many questions of climate change, environment depletion and social disparity that we have been escaping. We still have eight years to materialize our 17 Sustainable Development goals. Just a minute before we finish I have a question, why is pie which is a simply baked sweet crust with any toppings, derived from a Eurasian Bird which is the most intelligent creature to have surpassed the mirror test, what’s so intelligent about a pie? Lastly, answering the question of what’s so easy about pie? It’s quick pronunciation.