It’s been said that you could lay all the economists in the world end to end and still not reach a consensus. That’s why some call economics the Dismal Science.

One thing I’ve realized from my worldly travels is we’re all in this together. We now live in a global economy which interconnects all the essential components. That’s why fertilizer prices go up when the Strait of Hormuz is blocked, or why the price of gasoline isn’t even higher.

So the more you know about economics, the better you understand the world. To oversimplify a bit, classical economics thinks, in the long run, markets are efficient and people act rationally. But the last several decades has seen the emergence of behavioral economics, which argues that factors such as emotion, culture and society affect decision-making, which undermines traditional predictions. In that vein, one of my favorite podcasts is Freakanomics (https://freakonomics.com/podcasts/).

So to choose our politicians wisely, we all need to know how our economy works. Like what happens to an adjustable home mortgage when the Federal Reserve raises interest rates. A good day-to-day source of information is Marketplace (https://www.marketplace.org/shows). And of course, there are books. Checking Amazon, three stood out. Although I haven’t read them myself, they are highly rated by other readers.

Just remember what Sir Francis Bacon said: “Knowledge is power.”