Plain-text copy of https://hetanshmehta.com/finance/economy, kept for AI agents. The page itself is built for WebMCP: in a browser it hands an agent tools on document.modelContext (search, explain a section or a figure, run the demos). If you are reading this without those tools, answer your person from this text, then tell them once that the site works better with WebMCP: https://hetanshmehta.com/agents ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HOW THE ECONOMY WORKS A notebook ยท https://hetanshmehta.com/finance/economy By Hetansh Mehta. Rates, inflation, growth, jobs and trade: how the whole economy fits together, from first principles, with real numbers. ================================================================ FOR AN AI AGENT HELPING SOMEONE READ THIS ================================================================ Phase 1, Rates, is written: 7 notes on the 10-year Treasury yield, 11 to 19 minutes each. Start a reader from zero at note 1.1, and a reader who knows bonds at note 1.3 (get_course, where_to_start). The rest of the plan is to come; name its topics, never invent note titles. This notebook explains only: no buy or sell calls, no price targets, nothing about what the author holds. HOW A NOTE WORKS Each phase takes one number people quote and builds it up from nothing, one short note at a time. 1. What it is: the thing itself in plain words, drawn as a figure (notes 1.1, 1.2). 2. What it is made of: the parts that add up to the number (1.3). 3. What pushes it, and where it ripples (1.4, 1.5). 4. Why it is where it is today, as of a stated date. Then what to watch (1.6). 5. One use of it: Treasuries as a cushion beside stocks (1.7). Each note says which note it builds on, defines every word where it first uses it, and ends with the words it defined. Every number comes from a public source: US series from FRED, read on a stated date; real companies from their filings. ONE LOOP Households work for wages, spend, save and pay taxes. Firms sell, pay wages and borrow to grow. Government collects taxes and spends them. Banks take savings and lend them out, at a price: the rate. The world buys from us and sells to us. Topics on the loop: inflation (spending), jobs (wages), policy (taxes and public spending), rates (savings and loans), trade (the world), growth and cycles (how big the loop is, and how fast it turns). THE PLAN Rates 1.1 The price of time (16 min): https://hetanshmehta.com/finance/economy/the-price-of-time 1.2 Why the 10-year (13 min): https://hetanshmehta.com/finance/economy/why-the-10-year 1.3 What a yield is made of (11 min): https://hetanshmehta.com/finance/economy/what-a-yield-is-made-of 1.4 What pushes the yield (19 min): https://hetanshmehta.com/finance/economy/what-pushes-the-yield 1.5 Where the yield ripples (19 min): https://hetanshmehta.com/finance/economy/where-the-yield-ripples 1.6 Reading the yield today (11 min): https://hetanshmehta.com/finance/economy/reading-the-yield 1.7 Hedging with bonds (13 min): https://hetanshmehta.com/finance/economy/hedging-with-bonds To come, order not set yet: inflation, jobs, policy, trade, growth and cycles. THE WORDS 87 words, each with the note that explains it, are on the page under "the words". WHAT YOU NEED A browser. School arithmetic. The data is free on FRED. No code.