by Logan Scisco
Whether you do International or United States Extemp, you will have to answer questions on economic issues. In fact, at the NFL National Tournament it is not uncommon for extempers to run into multiple economic rounds since the tournament has a tendency to divide business questions from those pertaining to the economic policies of national governments. Therefore, being able to handle economic questions is an important skill for a successful extempers and this strategy piece will provide some tips to approach economic questions.
Acquire an Economic Vocabulary & Theory
You cannot speak on economics if you are not aware of the vocabulary that economists use. You need to know the difference between fiscal and monetary policy, as well as what is meant by minimum wage, unemployment, interest rate, stock, bond, inflation, deflation, subsidies, free vs. fair trade, currency devaluation, etc. A high school-level economics textbook can help you understand these terms and reading news sources that are written at a lower reading level for the population like U.S. News & World Report, Time, and USA Today can help as well. I would recommend against jumping into The Economist business section without understanding some of the basic vocabulary because you will quickly get lost in those articles (keep in mind that The Economist is read by a more educated audience than any of those domestic sources I just cited). Not only do you need to learn what those words are in economics, but you also need to incorporate them into your speeches and you need to define some of the tricky ones for your audience (e.g. inflation, deflation, bonds, devaluations, etc.). You can assume your judge understands taxes, unemployment, and minimum wage, but anything beyond that might be stretching it. Remember, extemp is an event where you not only have to analyze current event issues, but you also have to educate your audience about them. For a great example of how to educate your audience on a complicated economics subject, please reference Madhu Vijay’s 2012 final round speech in United States Extemp at the NFL National Tournament.
You also want to acquire an understanding of economic theory as well, since most extemp questions are driven by these ideas in some form or another. This is not a topic brief, so I am not going to get into competing economic theories. However, there is a book called Economics for Extempers that was published by Victory Briefs a decade ago. It provides an excellent breakdown of complicated economic issues and theories that can be very useful in rounds. Since the Victory Briefs website no longer offers extemp products, you can find them on the publishing website Lulu. The copy of the book costs $30, but the price is well worth the information that you can receive from it.
The economic theories that you should be acquainted with, though, are Keynesian economics, supply-side economics (which is big in conservative circles), and Marxist theory (which is what has driven leftist/communist regimes in Latin America, African, and Asia). There are others, but those constitute the theories you are most likely going to run into in questions because you will have to answer questions about whether economic stimulus packages should be bigger, how much the government should invest in certain economic operations (e.g. clean energy, education projects, infrastructure), whether tax cuts will spur economic growth and where those tax cuts should be directed (poor, middle-class, or wealthy), and whether violations of property rights in certain nations like Argentina and Venezuela is creating an economic disaster.
Finally, you should understand the phenomenon of globalization, which has accelerated throughout human history (with the exception of the Second World War). Globalization seeks to integrate financial centers around the world, as well as populations with each other. Some of instruments of globalization are the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations (and you should know what all of these organizations do). Extempers do not run into globalization questions as much as they used to, but elements of globalization continue to move forward in our world today and have engendered criticism from conservative forces that want less interaction with their neighbors, as well as leftist/populist sources that think globalization allows wealthy, developed nations to dominate poor, developing ones. Understanding the developed vs. developing divide is something that extempers should come to understand quite well because it has an effect on global trade policy.
Know Your Economic History
I have written a strategy piece this season about incorporating history in your extemp speeches and I cannot emphasize enough how important that is in economic rounds. Many of the economic problems that erupted in 2008 came from years of overspeculation in the housing market, whereby people bought homes that were well above their market value, as well as years of deregulation, which caused banks to make risky investments and allowed them to swallow up competitors so that they became “too big to fail” and threatened the international financial system. There was a precedent of this type of behavior before and that was the 1929 stock market crash that precipitated the Great Depression. Similarly, the United States has had a history of people overinvesting in a resource before, whether it was the Western lands in the Panics of 1819 and 1837 (“panics” were the name given to depressions/recessions in the nineteenth century) or in the railroads with the Panics of 1873 and 1893.
Also, the two nations in the world that are experiencing the highest inflation rates, Argentina and Venezuela, have had prior histories of massive inflation crises. Argentina had a hyperinflation problem in 1989-1990 and Venezuela has seen riots over consumer prices in previous administrations. This information can enhance a speech by showing continuities and changes over time for your audience and you can compare how government’s reacted to those problems to what policies are being enacted by policymakers today. This is how you can reach sound conclusions about where these economies are headed and make stronger speeches as a result.
You do not have to be a historian to acquire this information either. Most often you will find it embedded within news articles, usually in the middle or near the end. If you have taken AP World, AP European, and/or AP United States History that really helps as well since you will have to learn elements of economic history to succeed in those courses. Make sure to highlight or commit these historical examples to memory because they will prove quite useful to you.
Economic Rounds Are Not “Statistics Dump” Rounds!
A misperception by many extemporaneous speakers is that economic rounds are the time to throw a lot of statistical information at your audience. While it is true that economics does rely on statistics and economists look at currency values, unemployment rates, interest rates, bond sales, stock prices, etc., if you take all of this data and dump it on your audience without any context you are setting yourself up for disaster. One of the reasons that seasoned judges dislike economic rounds is because speakers use the time to source and cite statistics without telling the audience why those matter (e.g. significant). As a result, speeches get muddled very quickly as the speaker cited percentage after percentage and it disrupts the clarity of the speech.
You should have statistics at the ready in an economic round, but when you cite them in a speech you need to tell the audience what that statistic reveals about the economy you are talking about and impact it to the question (in other words what does it reveal about the problem that the question poses). It should also be said that all statistics given in a round should have a source. Judges tend to be very skeptical when speakers throw out numbers without giving any source for them. United States extempers should always have the latest unemployment rate and interest rate memorized, as well as the budget deficit for the current fiscal year. It also does not hurt to know what the national minimum wage is either. If you do not know these statistics, then you need to learn about them TODAY. International extempers just need to be familiar with the economic information coming from different economies and know where they can locate information on unemployment, interest rates, etc. for a host of national economies (which is why highlighting can be a great tool). You should not have to spend a great deal of prep time looking these up, although you need to know where you can find a source to reference them for your audience.
So, if you get a question about whether America’s unemployment rate will rise or fall within the next year, make sure you have statistics ready to pertaining to the number of Americans that are currently unemployed as well as underemployed (meaning those Americans who are working part-time but want to work full-time) and then make sure to tell your audience why these statistics matter (e.g. a large number of underemployed people may signal that business owners are still tentative about hiring new full-time workers due to economic projections, government regulation, etc.).
Teach and Impact!
As I referenced in the first section, you need to make sure you educate your audience about the topic you are discussing. Depending on your local circuit, you may not have judges that are very familiar with economic theory and/or global trade policy. If you go into these rounds and use a vocabulary that they do not understand, then they are going to feel silly and/or lost in your speech and when that happens they will tune you out. While there are some judges that will give speaker’s first place ranks in this scenario because they feel they are the stupid ones and the speaker is highly intelligent, other judges will rank you lower for making them feel stupid. Therefore, I cannot emphasize enough that you need to clarify as many complicated details as possible in your speech for the judge. Do not throw out a complicated theory or term without providing a quick definition of what it is or what it means. Do not toss out a statistic like a 1,000% inflation rate and assume that your audience knows that it is bad. Tell your audience why the 1,000% inflation rate is bad!
Lastly, make sure that you impact all of your evidence in the round. So what if Detroit goes bankrupt? So what if Argentina’s inflation rate is higher than any other country in the world? So what if Japan’s economy has been in the doldrums since 1990? So what if the world does not develop a global trade deal with the Doha trade round? So what if the United States is dependent on foreign oil? So what if the housing market does not recover by the end of 2014? You need to always ask yourself “so what?” and/or “why” when you form an argument in an extemp speech. Why does a piece of evidence matter in the big picture? It never hurts to show how a national or international problem affects the average person too. For example, high inflation rates erode the value of people’s money, so they have to buy less. Since they have to buy less, they may not be able to afford enough food for their families and/or they may cut back on their spending of goods that are not essential like entertainment and this could result in job losses for other workers, which could eventually lead to discontent at political figures! Make sure that you illustrate how economic problems and benefits affect the average person when possible because this can help take speeches out of the realm of theory and put them into the sphere of reality.