Economics and Money Supply

Had an interesting conversation with a co-worker on economics. The interesting point, to me anyway, was this person's preference for how money Ought To Be vs how economist generally think about it. They were just not comfortable with the idea that the Money supply could just grow; money had to be some sort of real resource which could not grow just by using.

No gold bug this person. Seemed to understand the general point of leverage and the growth of the money supply as described by most economists. Just did not believe it.

Now, I've met my share of people convinced that specie money was the only 'real' money. But none of them managed to explain why they wanted this to be so in the face of real evidence this is not how things work now.

Since they did not buy the model that money could grow and shrink, they did not really buy the general economic models. In many ways, this is similar to how I feel about quantum mechanics. My understanding of both economics and quantum mechanics is not deep. I have a general appreciation for the main points and think I understand the basic arguments. I find quantum mechanics weird and are sure some other, better model must be out there. 'cause the model on hand is just ugly.

What do I take away from this conversation? Our society is doing a bad job of teaching economics so that smart people can understand how our society works. Since they don't understand it, they are not willing to do the correct things to keep things working. For example, cutting the debt seems like a good idea and doing it now seems like it might help.