Economics is Weird
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At a glance · See the world · Q’s and A’s
Spot the hidden patterns of how the world works — and discover how to change them. In this (slightly unhinged) Socratic seminar, you’ll read one chapter a week from Charles Wheelan’s (amazing) Naked Economics, asking questions, chewing over the answers… and saving a medieval kingdom.
This is an intense college-prep humanities class: you’ll learn to burrow into a book, and to see with 20/20 vision issues that most people are blind to (yet nevertheless fight about online). By the end, you’ll have a better understanding about how you might help mend the world.
The course, in brief
LIVE SEMINAR
Small, cameras-on group meeting live online, 1 day a week
HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL
Designed for students 14–18; younger kids can also apply
AN ECONOMICS NERD OF A TEACHER
Aaron Abernathy
COST
$100 (USD) per month for 4 months
DATES
Thursdays @ 12 noon Eastern / 9am Pacific
September 10 – December 18, 2026
No class on November 26 (American Thanksgiving)
A new way to see the world
“Simple” questions
In this class, we ask simple questions — and follow them until our worlds turn upside down.
should a YouTuber make $10 million a year?
is Walmart evil?
can we end poverty?
This class is a college-prep humanities course. Each week, students will read a chapter from Charles Wheelan’s Naked Economics. The book introduces the fundamental ideas of economics:
Lesson 1: Why isn’t everyone rich?
Lesson 2: Markets
Lesson 3: Incentives
Lesson 4: Government & the economy
Lesson 5: Government & the economy, part 2
Lesson 6: Economics of information
Lesson 7: Human capital
Lesson 8: Financial markets
Lesson 9: Organized interests
Lesson 10: GDP
Lesson 11: The Federal Reserve
Lesson 12: International economics
Lesson 13: Globalization
Lesson 14: Development economics
Close reading
Throughout this, you’ll practice reading serious nonfiction — distilling sections and chapters to see their basic claims.
Along with this course, you’ll get the recordings of “Reading Hacks”, a course that Brandon Hendrickson first taught in the Comparative History of Ideas department at of the University of Washington. If you choose to watch those five lessons, you’ll learn how to…
speed read
x-ray a book
distill a paragraph, a section, and a chapter
simplify a sentence
grow your vocabulary
focus, focus, focus
We’ll be practicing some of those moves in class to get clear on what the book is actually claiming.
So you want to be a hero?
In class, you won’t just understand these ideas — you’ll be able to apply them. To practice that, we’ll be traveling back in time to a fantasy kingdom. Each week, a new disaster will befall the people of the land. Will you be able to use your newfound economics knowledge to save them?
Idea fights
You’ll also practice thinking through fighty ideas… because economics is controversial. As Charles Wheelan shows, its mainstream conclusions aren’t really accepted by either the political left or political right. You don’t have to agree with Wheelan, either — we’ll be poking at places the author might be too simplistic. This will be a place to…
honestly explore big questions,
disagree powerfully without treating anyone as the enemy, and
learn the art of civil disagreement!
We’ll never force agreement. Instead, we’ll use disagreement to get clearer about what is going on in each of our heads.
Questions & answers
Don’t indoctrinate my kid.
Not really a question, but… we won’t! Wheelan is a political centrist, but that doesn’t mean he’s neutral — he critiques both left-leaning and right-leaning economics. (If you’d like to supplement his book with a great book from a more progressive or conservative perspective, we recommend Michael Goodwin’s Economix and Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics.) Beyond that, we lean into disagreement — with other students, with the teacher, and with the book itself. If you feel like your kid is getting brainwashed, tell us, and bash us on social media.
Will my student come away thinking markets are wonderful, or that they’re garbage?
Neither, we hope — instead, they’ll they’ll learn why markets are astonishingly powerful. We’ll focus on the real world, where markets are often tangled up with corruption, monopoly, and privilege, and where markets (like governments) can often fail in horrific ways.
High school is a bit young for economics — will they remember what they learn?
Of course they will — if not, why would be bother teaching this? Of course, we won’t assume this: each week we’ll distill the biggest ideas, connect them to vivid examples, and help kids build spaced repetition flashcards for their memory box.
How long does the class last?
The live class meets once a week, and wraps up at the end of the hour. (Students can stay after to chat and ask more questions.)
How much time will homework take?
The main homework is to read a chapter and distill its sections. The chapter should take about an hour to read; the distilling, maybe 20 minutes.
How many students will be in the class?
This is an intensive, small-group seminar. To give us a chance to have a real conversation, we’re capping it at 18 students.
Will this teach personal finance?
Not much! There’s a bit — chapter seven is titled “Financial Markets: What economics can tell us about getting rich”, and you’ll get a conceptual foundation for saving, debt, interest, investing, diversification, index funds, risk, insurance, and inflation. But you won’t learn about budgeting, checking accounts, credit scores, choosing health insurance, or any of the other fun-filled topics that make adult life a laugh a minute.