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.