Course · Intro
How the world economy works
Understand the machine behind the headlines — why prices, jobs, money, and crises move the way they do — so the news stops being noise.
Most economic news is reported as a score: a number went up, a number went down. This course is about the machine underneath — what money actually is, how prices carry information, why economies boom and crash, and how a shock in one place reaches your grocery bill an ocean away. No maths, no jargon. By the end, an economic headline reads like a story you understand instead of weather you endure.
What you'll be able to do
- Explain where money comes from and what it really does.
- Read a price, an inflation figure, and an interest-rate move and know what each is telling you.
- Trace how a shock in one corner of the economy reaches the rest — and you.
- Judge an economic headline without being fooled by the common myths.
Course complete
You finished every lesson. Put your name on it.
Module 1 — Exchange: the basics
Module 2 — The whole machine
Module 3 — Booms, busts, and the levers
Why economies boom and crash
Describe how credit and confidence drive the business cycle.
Interest rates: the economy's thermostat
Explain how one interest-rate change ripples through borrowing and spending.
Unemployment: why it's never zero
Tell apart the main kinds of unemployment and why some is normal.
Module 4 — The world part
Trade between countries
Explain what a trade balance is, and why "we're losing" is usually a myth.
Exchange rates: why a currency rises or falls
Explain the main forces that move one currency against another.
When it breaks: crises and contagion
Explain how a shock in one place spreads to places that look unconnected.
Capstone: reading an economic headline
Decode a real-style economic headline using everything the course taught.