Without realizing it, you have already made hundreds of eco- nomic decisions. In your lifetime, you will make thousands more,
including choosing a career, getting an education, accepting a job,
forming a business, and saving, investing, borrowing, and lending
money. The main purpose of this book is to give you the knowledge
that you will need to evaluate choices and make sound decisions.
Let us begin to acquire that knowledge by asking several questions:
What are goods and services?
What are economic resources?
• Why must we make economic choices?
What is the cost of every choice?
What do economists do?
WHAT ARE GOODS AND SERVICES?
In your study of economics, you will discover many new words
and phrases. This is not surprising. Almost every activity has its
own vocabulary. Two of the most important words in economics
are goods and services.
Goods are things that can be seen or touched. Some examples
of goods are the compact disks, sneakers, and bicycles that were
listed at the beginning of this chapter.
Services are useful work that cannot be seen or touched. The
salesperson who rents or sells you a DVD is performing a service.
< So, too, is the individual who keeps track of a business's records
and files. Services have value, just as goods do. The care of a
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