My insight in college taking some economics courses side by side higher level physics and engineering courses was that economics has mostly gotten stuck in algebra and has thus far failed to develop its calculus.<p>The easiest analogies for me to make are to electronics. Talking about cash&#x2F;debt is like talking about instantaneous voltage. It&#x27;s sort of interesting, but it isn&#x27;t doing any actual work. In electronics it is the flow of that voltage, the current, that is more often more important and more interesting and more directly applicable to the &quot;work&quot; of a circuit...<p>I think you get a very different view of economics if you model it more like electronics circuits than just about any of the other economics models I see discussed. I&#x27;ve often wondered what would happen if someone actually bothered to attempt such a model and apply some deep scientific rigor to it.