"In the long run, we are all dead."
-John Meynard Keynes
An Overview
Generally .. I was first introduced to the field of economics in my senior year of high school. I found it difficult, but quite interesting, mainly because it had to do with seemingly real life issues, and was very .. current. It's always been commonly held that there were two 'schools' of thought in economics, classical and Keynesian. The first, and most important difference that we learned in economics classes between the two schools is that the classical side sees the short term supply-demand curve like this (just ignore the 'insurance' and 'price ceiling' part):
and the Keynesians see it like this:
The difference? In short, the idea that supply in the short run is held at a fixed price - meaning the prices at which producers offer goods in the short run cannot be changed.
John Meynard Keynes attended university at Cambridge majoring in mathematics and economics, and upon graduating, started lecturing at Cambridge. This gave him the credibility to begin publishing his wildly radical ideas in various books, such as A Treatise in Probability, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, and The Economic Consequences of the Peace.
His passion for economics stemmed from his interest in mathematics but also from his tendency for politics. I can relate to Keynes in this respect because my education has always been steeped in mathematics and i've been very interested in current events, as well as stocks, and how the economy works.
If someone asked me who I think of when I hear the word 'economics', I think of Keynes (well, him or John Nash). I think this is so because his ideas made sense to me. Keynes dug deeper and pointed out flaws in the classic system that now, really seems like common sense.
Here is a timeline of his life, if you're interested, and a more thorough link to his other accomplishments.