This lesson on scarcity will be on the Basic Economic Concepts portion of the AP examination(s). The idea of scarcity is simple: the Earth has a finite number of resources, but humans have an infinite number of wants. To make it even simpler, we want it all but can't have it all. The reason we learn this concept is because it is fundamental to the science of economics. Economics is essentially the science of decision-making given scarcity. Because we have a finite number of resources, we have to make key decisions about what to do with these resources. As we explore opportunity cost in the next lesson, we will delve deeper into that process and thus, further into economics as a whole. However, let's focus on scarcity for now. For something to be considered scarce, it has to be limited and desirable . Let's zoom in on these traits. Limited - For something to be limited means that there must be a finite amount of it. For example, if a clothing store sell...