American economic analysts will better understand current economic trends if they investigate economic problems in light of the expanding global economy. Reasons for the failure of economists to explain the simultaneous existence of rapid inflation and high unemployment include preoccupation with economic indicators, short-term forecasts, and econometric models. Instead of concentrating on symptoms of economic maladies, economists should consider their underlying causes such as the role of biological systems in the economy. The four major biological systems--fisheries, forests, grasslands, and croplands--form the foundation of the global economic system. Economists' general lack of ecological awareness has caused them to ignore the economic impact of practices such as overgrazing, deforestation, rapid population growth, conversion of grasslands into croplands, encroachment of cities and deserts on croplands, depletion of nonrenewable energy sources, unemployment, capital scarcity, diminishing returns, and rising real costs accompanied by inflationary pressures. Many current economic problems are rooted in the deteriorating relationship between the world's four billion inhabitants and the earth's natural systems and resources. Economists should realize that many economic problems stem from the dependence of the economic system upon the natural environment. (Author/DB)