Oh, wow, oh, oh, oh, wow, oh, oh, wow.

Oh, wow.

Oh, yeah. Hello, you're listening to The Science of Everything podcast, episode 56, the gains from

Trade, and I'm your host, James Fodor. In this episode, we're going to discuss the concepts

of trade and exchange, including the purpose of these activities, why people trade, and

in looking at that, we'll discuss the gains from trade, and the very important concept of

comparative advantage. We'll also take a look at some of the recent trends in global trade,

how that's been changing in the past decades, and we'll briefly look at some of the major

global trade institutions, including the WTO and the World Bank, and their role in

attempting to reduce barriers to trade, such as tariffs and other such things.

I'll then conclude the episode with a brief discussion of the concept of buy local,

which I think is relevant to understanding the concept of the gains from trade.

Recommended pre-listing for this episode is episode 12 on the price system,

which will be helpful for understanding some of the concepts.

So, let us begin.

The first thing that I want to discuss, which I've mentioned before in a couple of the economics

episodes, but I think it's important to go over again, is the concept of opportunity

cost, because to understand the gains from trade and comparative advantage, it's really

necessary to understand this concept of opportunity cost.

So, when we think of a cost, we normally think of perhaps

a price or something you have to pay, you know, how much does it cost to buy something? It costs

$20 because I have to give $20 over to the person behind the counter in order to buy the

...