Entry 17, Tragedy of the Commons Experiment

During the experiment, we had some ideas to start off with which certainly made the experiment more different. We had the idea of conserving the fish, so they can mass produce later on while we only acquire the bare minimum to survive. People did not take too many fish and like I previously stated, Andy quite possibly disrupted the outcome that we originally wanted, but we gained the most in the end. Society does reward those who take the most in the short run, as they can sell the most and become rich and prosperous among the fishing industry. We all did sacrifice for the good of the community as we thought that it would be a good idea to conserve now and gain alot later. Society does reward people like that after as afterwards our fish kept reproducing and all we could do at the end was keep fishing but we couldn't even finish our plate due to the large number of fish that have repopulated. Strategy stayed the same for game two as we were completely prosperous from our first round and we continued to do the same. There were no differences other than the fact that we started to clip more fish as we were scared that we couldn't finish at the last round. There is no way you can maximize both the fishermen's fish and the fish in the pond, if one goes up, the other has to go down. If the fishermen were greedy, the fish in the pond would in response, be less. We are faced with many commons, things like the sofa area will be taken up by many people. Natural resources that are common resources are such things like coal, natural gas, fish stock. Global commons are things like the ocean, the atmosphere and more. Many are not being used to its maximum power as shown in the experiment that the society will actually benefit more if the common resource were not taken up and people were not in pursue of personal interest. 

Entry 16 Game Theory and Chicken

  I believe that people make decisions base on their self interest. This is a hands down no questions asked assumption, just from daily living, you can tell people act on self interest and so sometimes acting in self interest is not always a rational choice. Rational choices are the ones that are compared with cost and benefits and taking the one that has the most benefit with the least cost to be executed, however sometimes people don't always make the most rational choice for the society, but chooses the one that is the most benefit for themselves. I think that the bad outcome is always inevitable, as people will and always WILL act on self interest. Whoever would act on someone else's interest would be a saint. I think it could happen sometimes, if the loyalty shared between two people are so great that they would be willing to give up their own self interest for the other individual. When no one confesses is the best outcome, but that is highly unachieveable considering everyone acts on their own self interest. If no one gets the girls, it is actually best for the society, if everyone just were not trying to get the single blonde one and went with the friend, it will be the best outcome for society, just like the prisoners dilemma where two people giving up not saying anything will be in the society's best interest rather than both confessing which is the bad outcome for the society.  I think personally I would do the same, of course self interest rises above of other people, why in anyone's right mind would you want to do something great for someone else while you lose some things. I believe that the society acts like this as a whole, therefore creating many bad outcomes. 

Entry 15: What is a Monopoly?

The three main characteristics of a monopoly would be that there is only one seller, a unique product and barriers to entry. Given the examples of the diamond industry, from companies such as Debeers, monopolies will set prices differently and have a different output than Perfect Competition. They will chose to set the number of diamonds where marginal cost equals marginal revenue and then charge the monopoly price at that point. Which at that point, will turn out to be the most money the monopoly can charge for that many diamonds. Many people believe that the consumers lose their surplus to the monopolies as it gets transferred in a monopolistic society, and with a higher price than a market with multiple firms, but actually the economists don't like is the lack of efficiency monopoly creates as certain monopolies aren't trying to maximize output, and therefore economists are trying to promote those monopolies in which the single seller will be more efficient than other people, as they are the most skilled, and the one that got there first. Monopolies can be good as if the average cost is decreasing in output, and there are advantages to large scale manufacturing and production, which is a monopoly, a one seller. Benefits of a monopoly includes innovation and research capabilities a monopoly can withstand, as they will have patents to protect their innovation and further more encourage more inventions, but they have the cost of having to be charged highly as there is only one seller in the market. I think it is not worth it to maintain a monopoly given that they have to spend their surplus earned from consumers on things such as more advertisements to pull in more consumers and therefore not receiving alot of surplus and will create an inefficiency in the market. 

Topic 14, Experiences Today

 Today, we made our own company, producing our own products with a manager as an overseer, an accountant counting all the stuff we created and of course, a quality control agent. I thought it demonstrated a very good job of the average cost curves and the marginal cost curves. As it shows that the jump between zero workers to one worker, or one worker to two worker is very great, as the capital is spread out through the workers evenly, and the workers are able to conduct the most efficient jobs out of the company. However, as more and more people begin to come in, as the assembly line begins to have higher demands in certain areas such as the stapling of our product, it puts pressure on people who are in charge of jobs with slightly more difficulty and needs slightly more time on such as the cutting of the paper itself. We then resorted in using many pieces of paper at once, which then turned out to be a disaster and everything became crooked and unusable because our quality control agent rejected all of them. I believe that the efficiency of the company is determined through the leader, once Jimmy started doing a better job in telling people what to do and what not to do, the company started to actually roll on, and producing more and more useful products. In the beginning  people were doing random jobs and the capital was all spread out which did not yield the maximum utility for the company, however towards the end, it became better and we begin to produce alot more products than the beginning.

Topic 13: The Return of the Zeppelin‏

  The return of the Zeppelin is caused by the change of tastes, income and possibly the amount of buyers. As the airship technology decreases, fewer and fewer suppliers are located within the country. People began to seek new ways of travel, new interesting, fascinating ways of traveling up high in the air but low enough to enjoy the view. Technologies have helped the return of Zeppelins, as the balloon is now filled with helium instead of hydrogen, less dangerous in many aspects in which secures the consumer's fear of the Hidenburg Accident occurring once more. The technology advancement has led to the success and prosperity of the newly released Zeppelin.  The type of market structure for the Zeppelin right now is probably a oligopoly world wide, but a monopoly in the United States market. It owns the only Zeppelin in the country therefore people all around the country would have to select their company unless they are willing to spend more money on going abroad and taking the airship. The companies for airships before, as in the 1940s, they probably was in an oligopoly market structure as everyone competed with each other when the airshiplines were popular. Change in all the things of tastes, income and amount of buyers can all make this market very successful  As people get tired of ordinary airliner, they would select a new, different way of travel, same as when their income rises, they would spend more money on activities they have never done before rather than continuing those that they have done already. At last, as the amount of buyers increase due to the first two determinants, the market will allow the company to expand and prosper in a country like the United States. I believe airship traveling is still dangerous, to be honest people may think that it could become those ordinary methods of travel, however i do not see it becoming ubiquitous as the amount of space it takes up is immense and the slow pacing of the ship can be the disadvantage of the airship travels. I would never take an airship, as it just seems absolutely dangerous to even be on.

Topic 12: Pizza for Pesos?‏

For this journal entry, watch the video "Pizza for Pesos" (watching this video has been assigned as ahomework assignment, so be sure to click on the "submit" button after you watch it so that you can get credit). After watching the video, comment on it in your journal. In your writing, consider the following questions:

• How does the story in the video relate to the idea of utility?
• How does it relate to the concept of consumer preference?
• What affect do you think a change in the exchange rate between Mexican Pesos and U.S. Dollars would have on Pizza Patrón's business? How would it affect the budget lines of its customers? (currently the exchange rate is 12.97 pesos to the dollar).
• What do you think about the arguments against accepting pesos? How are these arguments related to our previous discussions regarding international trade?

Don't forget to write at least 200 words (how could you write less about such an interesting topic?).

Sincerely,

  Pizza Patron is not accepting Mexican Pesos as there are 5% who desires to pay in Pesos. However this resulted in a wide debate about if this is a symbol of accepting immigration from Mexico. Utility is the benefit you get from receiving a certain amount of products, the utility of customers with the amount of Pesos in America is very little, as they cannot use Peso's in America, but after this rule has been implemented, the utility of Pesos has gone up as customers can now use Pesos to exchange for pizza. Everyone has their different preferences as we can illustrate on the preference curves, however by allowing customers to pay in Pesos, it has increased the possibility  of customers changing to Pizza Patron as they are more friendly of the currency of Pesos or just Mexicans in general. I believe that the impact is very great, as Pizza Patron allows immigrants to freely trade their left over money for some pizzas and exchange for change in US dollars. I believe that the exchange rate could cause Pizza Patron to earn more money or lose money depending on the economic situations and the currency rate of the money at the time. At certain times, if the Pesos are good enough, then they should be able to earn a little bit more money if the currency rate is set above their standard rate of exchange in the store and vice versa when it comes to lower exchange rate. I think it is good that Pizza Patron is allowing Pesos to run freely through their store, as this can help the people to exchange their currency without having to go to a bank where foreign money is taken to be exchanged. However, many people thinks that this is supporting the fact that these illegal immigrants coming into our nation, and this is relating to international trade as people don't want to outsource as much and are more patriotic towards their nation. 

  

Topic 11: Brand Names and Utility‏

   People always chase after the brand name, everyone always with or without conciously chase after the well know international brand. In the video, Aldi's sells many cheap no name products that tastes and has the completely same quality as the international ones, and they are saving up to 50% less than what they can buy at places like Wal-Mart. When buying a branded product, the demand curve shifts to the right as more demanders for it due to the popularity of the brand, no name products will be always on the left side of the popular brands due to its lack of advertisement and popularity among the people. To be honest, I believe that branded stuff does bring more utility, because it is just in our mind subconsciously to think that the well known brand is better tasting or better in quality because it is more well known. I believe that in my cases it would be things like Oreo cookies. Oreo cookies are very well known throughout the world and has many other brands that provides chocolate flavored crackers with cream in the middle, however I believe that many people still finds Oreos more attractive in terms of size, quality and taste. Many people will probably think Oreos are the pioneers of the chocolate cookies, where they could actually not be, they could have just been simply better at marketing strategies to bring these sandwich cookies to a global scale.  Over all, I believe that branded things will still be more attractive to buyers due to its popularity and people's overall trust within the brand itself. 

Topic 10: Consumer Preference and Utility - Skechers‏

   Skechers target their consumers to being 12-24, they have various ways in seeking to the young crowd such as going to night clubs, magazine covers, television commercials or things like public relations can also help. They would conduct research methods by looking for ideas submitted by the younger crowd. Skechers also uses things like MTV to help promote their shoes, they have a very strong branding strategy as they know clearly where and how to show their products to the targeted consumers. They have a young workforce in which they would seek for feedbacks on how the product is doing on the market. As for competition, they have competed with their strong lines of apparel as well as innovative designs of shoes such as skate shoes mountain shoes and boots.  Skechers help themselves by locating their office in mountains and deserts in which the places are most in need of their shoes. Their shoes are likely to be worn when out hiking or doing outdoor activities and it works very well as people need to wear durable hiking shoes or comfortable shoes when they walk in deserts or mountainous areas. To be honest I am not a very big fan of skechers, just the design of the shoes gross me out or possibly because the bully I had when I was little always wore skechers, but in my opinon, there are other strong, durable, long lasting and nice looking hiking shoes out there for cheaper prices. There are brands such as Vans that I really like as shoes. To me their design never gets old, as their design haven't really changed for a very long time, I just like their colorways, their texture of the shoes and the feeling of the hard soles. To me, Nike would be a brand that everyone likes but I just have absolutely no affection for. I think Nike stuff are great for sportswear, but as a person who does not do sports as often as others, I generally do not enjoy the looks and feelings of the clothing and shoes. 

Journal Topic 9: The Myth of Outsourcing's Effect‏

  Globalization is a crucial part in companies and firms going outsourcing. Outsourcing happens as companies expand outward for cheaper labor causing the more middle class people to lose their jobs. However that is not all bad as when it comes back to them, they will actually receive a better job than the one they started out with due to other companies outsourcing. Production and efficiency relates to outsourcing as the production is cheaper in foreign countries like China and therefore can be alot more efficient by finding more workers in a single plant for the equal wage as the wages of the people in the United States. Without outsourcing, the cost of producing something will gradually increase, as the labor stays in the country, but the product is now two three times more expensive to make due to the more expensive labor, with the outsourcing is the complete opposite, which drops the price of the good due to the cheap labor forces and less production cost as when it comes to labor. Out sourcing could be potentially related to the opportunity cost as with the outsourcing technique, it is achieving its best with production as well as efficiency, however as outsourcing becomes not available, you have to find the next best alternative which is to find labor in the country itself with higher costs of production as labor forces becomes more expensive 

Topic 8: Debate on Globalization

 Globalization is inevitable as the world is growing in economy and creating millions of job opportunities. Globalization is defined as people interact with people in other parts of the world as buyers or sellers. Some people lose and some people gain, as we will start comparing the cost and benefits of globalization. Globalization has spawned millions of job opportunities in developing countries and has successfully helped pull the economy of developing countries by alot as the trading grows rapidly. People start getting jobs, standards of living begins to grow, and people start to be more educated, more globalized and so on. However, the costs of globalization is also very great, such as the cultural aspect of the country may be diminished as people begin to grow internationally and begin to adapt to foreign cultures. Also many people in the Asian countries begins to suspect foreign companies as the potential political manipulators of the country, as well as the government may not have as much power over monitoring the foreign companies. People both gain and lose from globalization, however people int he developed world argue that it is good for the majority of the people. In China and India, as these two countries are growing and undergoing globalization, the amount of cheap labor is required from these countries as they have a mass amount of population and can help sustain the large demand of labor from the foreign companies. In recent years, the standard of living became doubled in the developing countries, and is going to do so for the next few years, people are getting better jobs, higher wages and more social benefits from the country as the population grows and thrives. For Taiwan, I have been impacted greatly due to globalization, as I go to an American school, buy American chocolate and snacks, eat American food and much more. My clothes are made in China or Vietnam, while the knife my mom uses could be made in Japan. My dad's golf clubs are made in Germany as the box of chocolate on my desk was made in Switzerland. This is how much globalization has impacted us and I believe that globalization has done a great job, helping people with more choices and with more choices, can come more companies which derives to more job opportunities

Topic 7: Government Farm Subsidies‏

 In the video, it was talking about how the government attempts to push for more farm subsities when it is clearly no help at all. I believe that the government subsidies are given to farmers when farmers are more than average the American income, and it doesn't go to the farmers with smaller farms, which need the subsidies more, they are given to huge farmer businesses in which doesn't need them as much. These subsidies also contain certain holes in the bill, in which people can claim these subsidies without being farmers, through their properties. The subsidies for farmers is absolutely unnecessary as it does not benefit as many people as they think it would. The people in the film believe that governments should stay away from cooperation in general, if these things are meddled with by others, it will not function as properly as it suppose to. I agree with them completely,I believe that there is the invisible hand that drives the market in an economy, and through these taxes and subsidies in attempt to help the market better, it actually counters the effect, making the market against its nature, which makes it not helping at all. However, I believe that the only subsidies anyone should receive would be governmental educational benefits. I believe that education and market is completely different, as schools may need help in certain developmental areas and maybe the projects are simply too big for them to handle. The schools are profitable organizations, but its for a good cause, therefore I believe that colleges and universities deserves these governmental benefits. As for normal tax payers, I believe that everyone, even if they dont have school children going to school , they should still pay the school taxes in order to support them as a citizen of the country. It cannot just be for people who have children in the school, it has to be for everyone, as everyone has the chance to receive the benefit, however they just don't have any children therefore chooses not to use this benefit.

Journal Topic 6: Opportunity Cost of a College Education

  Marginal analysis of something would be analyzing the Marginal Benefit and the Marginal Cost and seeing which one yields the best outcome for you. Marginal benefit is the value of one more additional unit of certain things while the marginal cost is something you are giving up while you take the action. When you analyze these two things, you can reach for the best type of choice that is the most suitable for you in decision making. The marginal cost of going to one more year of college would be not being able to work full time, travel, or study abroad in the time, and things like losing money for college tuitions would also be a cost. The marginal benefit to many people would be higher salary after graduating every single year as they complete college. I believe the statement that college graduates earn $1 million dollars more than highschool graduates is not accurate. I believe that there are people who are on top of the spectrum who skews the entire population statistics to the other side. There are billionaires who does this, so therefore I believe that this statement is not very accurate. However, I do believe that college graduates in general on average does make a slightly higher pay check than normal highschool drop outs. Some students analyze their marginal cost, and realize that because they are paying so much money to the college, that they are going to backrupt the household with their higher education system. They wont be making money any time soon, and they will have to be spending their parent's money for this education. The marginal benefit would be slightly higher pay after graduating, but after four years of working, it could mark up to the same level as the college graduate's pay check. Everyone's been telling me that going for the higher education is the way to go as we will be making more money, I do believe that, my views haven't changed significantly after the video, I do know that there are costs into going to college, but the benefits after graduating is just far greater than the cost of attending college. I believe that it is just a cultural belief that is harder for me to think about not succeeding even after earning a college degree

Topic 5: Ripple Effects and Elasticity

  The ripple effect is a very simple yet confusing theory. Many people thinks that a little rise in price in oil would not effect them, since they don't currently own any automobiles, but in reality, everything that has to do with oil will have a strong effect. Oil is used in manufacturing life goods, plastic, diapers, crayons, and much more daily things contain doses of oil in them. As oil becomes a necessity in creating these products, the little rise in price of the oil, will simply shoot the prices of the goods up. The products are heavily dependent on the oil because it is one of the main component in the chemical mixture of the product such as plastic. When things like plastic shoots up, the companies requiring to use plastic will not be able to find any substitute, so they will have to use the plastic. Plastics would be considered an elastic product in some ways, certain companies can find ways to find alternatives to plastic, while certain cant.  However, when consumers see things like crayons jump up in price due to oil, they may feel that because it is a luxury, they could pass on the crayons and find alternative cheaper recreational paths.  Crayons, the increase or decrease in price will not let the buyers suddenly stop buying them or buy alot of them at once, the product is therefore inelastic. Things like corn will also create a ripple effect, as we use them for many things, feeding cows, ethanol, or just consuming them. There are certain products that I use in my life that are relatively inelastic, such as more necessities like salt or water. There are things like chocolate bars which are elastic, as I wouldn't pay much more money for it if the prices went up.

Topic 4: Where Choices Lead

  Some of the opportunity costs I have foregone to come into PAS, would be going to an International School in Taipei, where I live, so I don't have to live in this unfamiliar city at the time. In Taipei, the kids in the schools would have been possibly more Americanized than kids in this school. The opportunity costs of coming into this class would be a period of study hall that I would kill to have, since my amount of homework has built up quite alot throughout this year. The extra period of study hall would be really beneficial for my sleeping time at home later, but I chose the better choice of taking this class in which I learn what I would possibly major in, which is Business related majors. I believe that in regards to the PAS question, I believe that my parents actually did the most rational choice possible. Before, in my old school, I use to barely study, and as I progress in PAS, the older I got, the more I studied. If I were to go into an International School in Taipei, I would believe that I would not be as academic oriented, and I would not care about my future college as much. I believe the benefits definitely outweight the cost, as afterall, studying as a diligent boy would be the right thing to do after all, this school actually has made me more mature than I was at the time. If I did have total control of my life, I would have definitely chosen the Taipei school as it is closer to my house, and I would find alot more friends with common interests there. But at the end of the day, the cost of living outside, not having more friends with the same interest, still gets outweighted by the fact that I am studying and actually minding my academic records more than before, I turned into a more active learner and participant of the school community more

Topic 3: Incentives to Attend School

  Schools all over the United States strive to obey the "no child left behind" act. The schools are even offering things like free laptops or a possible car for the near perfect attendants students. The schools shown in the videos were mostly schools in which the show up rate everyday is typically lower, which means many kids are cutting class to either work for the family, or just slacking off. In the video clip, I saw argument that these kids are being offered to be at school, but not necessarily being interested in it. These incentives are just materialistic things to keep the kids in school, while they still have absolutely no interest in it, they are just there for the possible chance of receiving a laptop or a car. I think this argument is very true, I believe that these kids turns out towards the end, to just be there, everyday, just so the attendants record will look perfect, so they can get the car that they wanted. In big schools like the schools shown, I believe that rewards should work the best, due to the vast amount of students, and the school cannot keep an eye on everyone, so the reward naturally draws the students cutting class in, whereas the punishment, will simply be ignored. In my school however, a small school like PAS, punishment is the incentive. We all don't want to be punished by Ms.Pamela, therefore we try our best, avoid speaking Chinese, just so we will not have to get in trouble and be sent to her office, avoid being locked out so we won't be sent home.  I believe that the goals of the schools, were just simply get kids to attend school, whereas for our school, we want our students to be responsible, so it is either you come on time or you get locked out. I believe both schools does a good job with the incentives, both rewards and punishment, and both works for the given circumstances. I believe that for a small school like PAS, where everyone is focused and more academic oriented, the punishment idea works perfectly, also being in an Asian culture. In a big school in the videos, the rewards work too because it is a popular interest for all the students to get a car, or a new lap top just by showing up for class.

Topic 2: Scarcity at School?

In our school, we have to face many tradeoffs. Not just us students, but teachers too. We have a scarce amount of time, in general, therefore we have to tradeoff some leisure time, some play time to study in order to meet our school's requirements. Teachers have to do the same thing, spend some time to do study plans and make some tests. The school administration office has to face many scarcity as well, things like deciding how many days to go to camp for, because we have a scarce amount of time, so we must decide which events to go to and which events to ignore. There are also monetary scarcity in our school, they must face tradeoff as they have to decide between buying 200 more new desks or invest the money on something like new versions of text books. Also, different teachers may have different salary, therefore creating a scarcity of money, which they have to decide who to pay more and who to pay less. I want more school facilities, certain facilities like a larger auditorium, a track, a campus, these are all the resources that we demand, but due to the scarce amount of money, will not be put on top of the priority list. I believe that we could have gotten all these things if these were the priority, but it isn't. Things like teacher's salaries, small expenses spent on fixing the school are all used before we can get all the facilities. I have personally faced mainly scarcity of time, as I procrastinate quite a bit, not finding and balancing enough time to do all my work on time.

Topic 1: The Big Questions.

PAS is definitely a both producer and consumer in many aspects. The service getting produced will be education, or teachings of previous findings of scientifically proven facts. The producers are the teachers, school administrators and people who are making it possible for us, the students who are the consumers, to consume all the knowledge that is being thrown at us everyday. These are produced as the teachers are going on in class educating kids with the fresh knowledge that they have yet learned. The choices of how these goods and services gets produced will be entirely up to our head of school as she decides the types of teachers, the types of curriculum the school will follow. There are many self interest in a school like PAS. For us consumers, the self interest would be the very simplest form of a high school diploma and hopefully a good college to go to along with good grades and a brain full of ideas. The self interest in the producers, are simply for the money, and some of them the love of educating young kids and watching young kids grow old. These mutual relationships between producers and consumers will be working hard so the school will look good therefore making everyone seem like they have worked or graduated from a very prestigious highschool. This is the social interest that is shared among everybody as producers and consumers are doing their jobs. 

GP5NRNPBJCDU