Politics, economics and personal finance

It has been pointed out to me that a blog about personal finance should not include politics, or political "science." This proves to be an almost impossible task. It's quite difficult, if not impossible to separate economics and politics. 

Here's some general definitions of the disciplines:

Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services (resources). Economics focuses on the behavior and interactions of economic agents and how economies work.

Political science is a social science which deals with systems of governance, and the analysis of political activities, political thoughts, and political behavior. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics which is commonly thought of as determining of the distribution of power and resources.

While "pure" economics and "pure" political science can be studied separately, neither are hard sciences in the way physics or biology are sciences. Notice that both definitions rely on resources and behavior. And the study of behavior is a difficult study, because 1+1 = 2 is never an axiom when dealing with human behavior.

Because both deal with human behavior, they influence each other.

Some of my readers may be offended by differing political thought, and even in some cases economic thought, so I've create a separate tab called Politics in place of my Photo Album tab. 

But politics, or public policy, do affect economics and personal finance.

The premise of a good education is to be exposed to and be able to discuss ideas that might make you uncomfortable. If you can't do that, you're not learning anything new. You're just reinforcing your beliefs. 

So those of you just interested in personal finance, go for it. If you want to brush up on politics, albeit from a more conservative or libertarian point of view, strap on a seat belt and have fun with the ride.