Hello, and welcome to another episode of Passive Real Estate Investing. I'm your host, Marco Santarelli. Well, today's topic is something that I find pretty exciting, and I hope you do too. For some people thinking about the concept of economics is boring. But listen to today's episode because I can guarantee you it will not be boring for you. You know, economists and the economy is something that some people just find to be dull and boring, but the reality is, is it's not when you really start to understand what it is and how it impacts you, because it literally impacts every single one of us. But although many economists are reluctant to admit it, economics is not a science discipline that requires expert knowledge and specialized tools to gain understanding. It's not like biology where you need to know organic chemistry and have access to a microscope or some other equipment to know what's going on in a living cell.

And it's not like astrophysics where you need to know the relationships among forces in the universe and have access to powerful telescopes to figure out the properties of a black hole, let's say. But like psychology, economics is a social science. It's an attempt to understand human interactions and how they affect the world around us. So it really focuses on those relationships as they relate to money, as well as the goods and services and the resources that money buys, and the transactions, the financial interactions that we take amongst us. And that's what really shapes our economy, and that's where we see market cycles, business cycles, economic cycles, peaks and troughs, highs and lows, booms and busts. It's really all what we make of it. It's what we do. So I wanted to bring on a great guest who came up with a book very recently called Understandable Economics, great title.

And he really, I hate to say dumbs it down, but he really makes it simple and easy to understand. And I thought, as I looked at the book and started going through it, I realized I really need to get this guy on the show, because he can explain things in a very simplistic way and make it easy and fun to understand. And so my guest, Howard Yaruss, is someone who agreed to come on, and he gave me 45 minutes of his time, and I could have literally talked to him for hours. But the thing is, is he had a 45 minute window. So that's what we had. Anyway, enjoy today's episode. I'm sure there will be several, if not many takeaways for you. I would encourage you to pick up his book just to get a better understanding of economics and how it works and how it impacts you and all of us here in the country and literally around the world. So with that, let's jump into today's episode and enjoy.

 

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It's my pleasure to welcome Howard Yaruss to the show. I've been looking forward to this interview for a while. Howard is an economist, a professor, an attorney, a businessman, and an activist who greatly enjoys explaining complex issues in a clear, interesting and easily accessible way. Howard graduated from Brown University. He studied at London School of Economics, and he's earned a lot of grief from the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught on a variety of courses on economics and business, and currently teaches at New York University. I hope I got that right. Absolutely. And he also has served on the boards of organizations that advocate for safer streets, help the homeless and support the arts. And we were having that conversation before we started recording here today, which is very interesting. And with all that, Howard, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Marco. Great to be here.

Well, it's great to have you on. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself? I mean, I had, you know, kind of an introduction for you,