Economics is a social science that seeks to analyze and describe the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth. The word "economics" is from the Greek nomos" target="_blank" >^*, "custom, law," and hence means "household management." "management of the state." An economist is a person using economic concepts and data in the course of employment, or someone who has earned a university degree in the subject.

The classic brief definition of economics, set out by Lionel Robbins in 1932, is "the science which studies human behavior as a relation between scarce means having alternative uses." Briefer yet is "the study of how people seek to satisfy needs and wants." Absent scarcity and alternative uses, there is no economic problem.Economics can also be defined as the study of "The financial aspects of human behaviour."

The subject has two broad branches: microeconomics, where the unit of analysis is the individual agent, such as a household, firm (economics jargon for a "business"), or government department, and macroeconomics, where the unit of analysis is the nation state. Another division of the subject distinguishes positive economics, which seeks to predict and explain economic phenomena, from normative economics, which orders choices and actions by some criterion; such orderings necessarily involve subjective value judgments.

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NPR Topics: Legal Affairs

In One Ohio County, Golf Carts Patrol Streets
Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:14:00 -0400
Some sheriff deputies in Fairfield County, Ohio, are using golf carts to save gas and money. Deputies in the community of Bremen (pop. 1,200) use the electric carts to patrol some neighborhoods. Deputies say the carts are not only more efficient, they also improve community-policing efforts. Mike Thompson reports from member station WOSU.
San Quentin's Gym Becomes One Massive Cell
Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:43:00 -0400
More than 360 inmates live in what was once a gymnasium. The prison no longer has room for them — or for sports and rehabilitative programs. With inmates packed so close all day, every day, racial segregation provides one of the few sources of order.
Supreme Court Ends Term On Ideological Edge
Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:27:00 -0400
The Supreme Court is on its summer recess, but before the justices closed up shop, they decided a flurry of cases by 5-4 margins. Earlier in the term, they had achieved larger majorities in a series of cases. A look back at the court's term and at its prospects for the future.

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