Its very troubling to me to read many of the posts and irc discussions calling for doomsday economic collapse, often based on confused understandings of terms and economic frameworks.  I'd like to open up this thread as an opportunity to increase economic knowledge and hopefully identify ways to use that knowledge to better each person's economic position.

Please post your questions (or perhaps a doomsday scenario).  Then we can all work together to better understand the issues and concerns.

As a business major, I'm very interested in understanding the opinions of those outside academia.  I don't believe that academics has all the answers, but it does have sound models which identify how to use one's predictions to better one's financial position.

Since economics has quite a few differing opinions, each school of thought should present a viewpoint.  Then the reader can make their own decision avoiding arguments over the merits of each school of economics.