Journal Topic #17: Tragedy of the Commons Experiment

Journal Topic #17: Tragedy of the Commons Experiment
No one took too many fish at my lake, each person took just enough for them to survive in the game, and no more. I thought it was very fair and calculated. None of us tried to take as much as possible until the last round of the experiment. We were very conservative in the beginning stages because of the set up of this experiment. Each round we would get double what we had the previous round, so by conserving the most amount of fish, we had the greatest gain for the future rounds. And in the last round, there was no more that we could possibly gain, so we took all of them. Society had almost no role in this, since we all cooperated. In game 2, we trusted one of the members (very foolishly), Brandon, and only one member would take the fish and the rest would abstain and theoretically die. This produces the maximum amount of social benefit considering that he would share it in the end (supposedly). However, he messed up and died. It makes almost no difference to know the reward, as long as the participants know that it is a good reward, and not a bad one, keeping each individual's self interest in mind. It is impossible to maximize the number of fish per person and the number remaining in the pond, because this is an inverse proportion, as more fish are distributed to the people, there are less and less in the pond. An example of this is college admissions, there are a limited amount of spots for students to enroll in the college courses. So, as more and more students want to enroll, the chance of getting in reduces, so the standards for the colleges get higher and higher. In the long run, the best thing for society, thinking in terms of the best interest of all the individuals, is to not study at all, and each person will remain at the level that they would have been if they all studied.

Journal Entry #16: Topic: Game Theory and Chicken

Journal Entry #16: Topic: Game Theory and Chicken 

I think that the assumption that people make rational decisions is correct; however, in who's best interest are the rational decisions made? The bad outcome isn't always inevitable. On the first time it is almost always inevitable. However, if the participants are able to communicate with each other and reach a settlement where the society benefits, a better outcome is possible. However, the problem is getting the participants to trust each other and keep the society's best interests in mind. Often times, this situation is done with prisoners, but it can also be used for economic decisions. This is called the prisoner's dilemma. The reason why the prisoner is most likely to achieve the bad outcome is because that is their own best individual choice. And that is the same for the other prisoner. With communication, they can both help each other and reduce the social loss by staying quiet, or not cheating. In the video, Nash says that the best outcome can occur if all of the guys work together. Because they already have no chance with the cute girl, they should just go for their second pick. So the second pick isn't offended because she was chosen first, and the first cute girl doesn't have multiple guys trying to chat her up, so that it is possible for one person to get her. However, if everyone goes for the cute girl, they will all get rejected, and their second picks will be offended because they were picked second, and none of the guys get laid (in this hypothetical situation, there could be some serious players).

journal topic #15: What is a monopoly

Journal Topic #15: What is a Monopoly

A monopoly usually has 1 seller in a market, a unique market with no close substitutes, and barriers to prevent entry. A monopoly wants to maximize profit, so they produce at the point where marginal revenue is equal to marginal cost, and they charge the most that they can for it, the monopoly price. A monopolistic firm can keep on earning economic profit in the long run, because there are barriers to entry and the economic profit will not fall definitely. The benefit to society is the variance that they get out of this, monopolies are encouraged to constantly innovate their products in order to keep earning economic profit, and the public gets better products to buy. A monopoly transfers consumer surplus to producer surplus. But economists don't think that this is wrong, they find fault with inefficiency, which arises because of the barrier to entry. Monopolies can also be good when they produce a product at the lowest possible cost and are able to sell to the consumers at a lower price than their competitors, this is called a natural monopoly. I don't think that it is worth it if the monopoly has to keep on spending all of their money to keep the monopoly, the money seems wasted.

Journal Topic 14 - Productivity Experiment

Journal Topic 14 - Productivity Experiment
The experiment that we did in class on Friday was pertaining to the laws of diminishing returns. We basically ran a pseudo-company which was supposed to imitate the decision making of the firm. We started with 1 worker and recorded how many widgets he could make in a minute. The next time we had 2 workers and recorded how many widgets that they could make in a minute. We kept doing this until all the students except for the quality control person and the manager were workers. The capital remained the same throughout the process. There were a few not idealistic discrepancies in the data. For example, on one work time compared to the next, the output decreased despite the increase in labor, even though after that session of work, the output would increase. The major trend was that as labor increased with capital remaining the same, the marginal average product would increase until a certain point, and then the marginal average product would start to decrease. This experiment thus showed the law of diminishing returns. In the short run, the company could have reallocated its labor force, putting more people into rolling the paper and stapling it. In the long run, we could have bought more capital, which would include another table, more scissors and more staplers.

Journal Topic 13: The Return of the Zeppelin

Journal Topic 13: The Return of the Zeppelin
The determinants of demand will be mainly based on income, as well as substitutes, which would be ocean liners and cruise ships. The determinants of supply will be based on the price of the travel. Technology has allowed the Zeppelin to come back, the new technology has made the Zeppelin safe to travel in and allowing this vehicle to be eligible for luxury transportation. Perfect competition occurs when many firms are producing an identical product where no firm entering or leaving the market will change the price of the product. Monopolistic competition occurs when firms produce a similar product but have the only one of their kind. Oligopoly is when a few firms control the market. And a monopoly is when one firm controls the market, or a significant portion of it. The Zeppelin represents a monopolistic competition, its the only kind of air travel of luxury of its kind, but it can be substituted for an ocean liner or cruise. Three determinants of demand are price of ocean liners, consumer preference, and income. I don't think that air travel as a luxury similar to sight seeing will be popular, in the air there isn't much to see, also the design of the airship will have to be light, so not many activities will be able to be hosted on board. This vehicle will be purely made in terms of the consumers' standpoint for viewing the air. I would probably never try it just because it doesn't seem fun or appealing to me at all. I might go up on it for a scientific purpose.

journal entry 12 Pizza for Pesos?

Pizza for Pesos?
The story in the video talks about the integration of pesos. It is not capitalizing nor supporting that they are accepting illegal mexican immegrants. However, this new addition of pesos for pizzas will provide more utility for the tourists who travel to mexico for vacation and then come back with left over pesos. However, there are a group of seemingly ignorant people who oppose this and think that the company is promoted illegal immigration, so they are sending hate messages to this company. This ties in with consumer preferences, because the haters no longer prefer this pizza company. This effect will increase their business and also increase the budget lines of its consumers, because with the addition of pesos, a new method of payment is introduced as well as the potential for a consumer to pay with it. The argument against accepting pesos is the "illegal immigrants don't below here" argument, which is somewhat invalid considering the intentions of the company. This pesos promotion is simply allowing for the potential of the rightward shift in the budget line due to the income effect. I think that this promotion is great and innovative, despite the hate that they have received, I am sure that even the haters will come to realize Pizza Patron's real motive.

Journal Topic 11: Brand Names and Utility

Journal Topic 11: Brand Names and Utility

Brand names give a sense of fictional superiority. A lot of times what most people pay for is mainly the brand name. For example, this is very prominent in clothing and accessories. A very expensive scarf and a moderately priced scarf are made of the same material and both of them look pretty good, but the very expensive scarf has the brand name, like Chanel or something. If you were given a blind test for foods, the brand name and non brand name would taste about the same. So in the blind case study, the utility is equal, however when looking at brands, I think that people who see the brand name will get more satisfaction out of consuming that product. You get utility from seeing the brand name, not from consuming the product. Some items are inferior such as toilet paper or loose leaf paper, their function is practical and more valuable than their appearance. So it doesn't matter if they have a well known brand name or not. Some names that I get the most utility out of are coke and sprite. Their are similar items that could substitute coke and sprite, but that brand gives me the kind of taste that I like.

Journal Topic 10: Consumer Preference and Utility - Skechers

Journal Topic 10: Consumer Preference and Utility - Skechers

Skechers make their product seem like a cool product. They create a reputation and image for Skechers. Skechers learns about the market as the market learns about Skechers. Skechers does promotions on MTV.  They try to use the people that wear this product and advertise the product to make it seem like a cool product to appeal to the youth demographic. They use Personal Selling, Sales Promotions, Public Relations, and Advertising. Skechers segments their market to focus on target markets. Skechers differentiates itself from other shoe companies because they are always trying to stay on top of the trends and communicate a lot with their target market. I think that their strategies will work for clothes and many other products as well. They are successful because of their pricing, location, and image. They keep close attention to their market, and making their product well known. I consider food to have a high utility for me because they can give great utility, but as soon as I get bored of it or have too much, the utility drops immediately. Certain clothing, such as jeans have an aesthetic appeal that I don't understand. Jeans don't look particularly great nor are they comfortable to wear, but they are so popular even among those who don't use jeans for its intended use. 

Journal Topic 9: The Myth of Outsourcing's Effect

Journal Topic 9: The Myth of Outsourcing's Effect

Globalization is when the world becomes connected together by trade and communications. When a country has a comparative advantage, it can produce a good or service at a cheaper cost than others. Outsourcing is when a country ships jobs to other countries because their labor is cheaper, so they can lower costs and be more efficient. With Globalization, countries are communicating more with each other and they know which countries will have a comparative advantage over others. With this knowledge, countries can outsource jobs to increase efficiency. An open economy is when a country is open to international trade. Outsourcing allows efficiency to increase because of lower production costs, or better quality production. Costs and prices are higher without outsourcing because the labor costs more, however with outsourcing, the labor is cheaper and costs and prices are lowered. With jobs outsourced, the opportunity cost changes, now the old workers have the opportunity to get better quality jobs, and the workers who got the outsourced jobs might have a better job. The Marginal Product of Labor could be that when outsourcing, they earn enough profits compared to not outsourcing that they can afford to expand and create more jobs. 

Journal topic 8: Debate on Globalization

Journal topic 8: Debate on Globalization

Many developing countries especially those in Asia, have been behind on many fronts, and are trying to catch up to the rest of the developed world. Their standard of living is substantially lower standard of living compared to western cultures. With Globalization, their standard of living is improving at a much higher rate, double the standard of living in 10 years. Globalization is the opening of ports and passageways to communication with the world, this includes trade of services, goods, and technology. The benefits of globalization from the developed point of view is cheap labor so they can have a greater profit. These developed countries also get a new set of consumers to sell their goods to. The benefit from the developing country's point of view is that they have more work and can now afford to get more goods and increase their standard of living. The cost of this is that people who used to work in the jobs that are being shipped overseas have lost their job. This causes those unemployed people to become thoroughly pissed off, but this is just like a technological change, except its a change in human resources. 

Journal Topic 7: Government Farm Subsidies

Journal Topic 7: Government Farm Subsidies

Government subsidies give money to farm land, some subsidies are to encourage growth and others are to discourage an influx of supply. The producers seem to take an anti subsidy side, they feel like the subsidies aren't actually helping, but are a waste of money. There are some cases where the government should help, but those are very dire circumstances, similar to those of the great depression. The school industry should be supported, not only with money, but also discerning taste. Taxes are a very delicate matter, and it is hard to say who should and shouldn't get money even when all the facts are brought to light. For example, you see two schools, both have equal financial issues, but one school has significantly higher test scores than the other, it is located in a poor asian district, while the other is located in a poor black district. Who should you give the money to? Is it fair to give it to the asian district? I think that there is no good answer and sometimes if you give equally to both, they will both have to close down due to lack of funds. People without school aged children should still have to pay, because they aren't paying for their children to go to school, they are paying for the opportunity for their children to go to school.

Topic 6: Opportunity Cost of a College Education

Topic 6: Opportunity Cost of a College Education

Marginal Analysis is the evaluation of how much benefit you get for one more increment of doing something. The marginal cost of another year of higher education is the 1 year of time, the money that you could spend on a house or a car, and the opportunity of getting a manual labor job which would pay $12-$20 an hour. No, because those who go to college already have a will to do better than those who don't go to college, so they will naturally do better regardless of a degree. Some students leave college after 1 year because they can't afford the tuition because they have run out of their funds and the cost of paying the future years outweighs the benefits. The debt will incur a higher interest rate and you might realize that even after you get your college degree, you won't earn enough money to pay it back and it ends up losing money and not gaining money. My parents have always told me that going to college will get me a better life. This video has not changed my attitude because it depends on what these people are going to college for. Personally, I'm going into the Finance and Business industry which is not so much dependent on the teaching as my own ability to sell myself to my boss. So this information doesn't affect my attitude or decisions at all.

Topic 5: Ripple Effects and Elasticity

Topic 5: Ripple Effects and Elasticity
Oil is used throughout the world in many things, its not only limited to oil for cars and trucks and planes, but is also used in things like asphalt and plastic. This causes many other industries to increase their prices which will cause a ripple effect and spread out to the rest. It may not have originally have had a direct correlation with oil, that industry or product will also become involved with this change. My family used to own a car and the price would make us use less gasoline which meant going out less and less. Another good that is like this is corn. Elasticity is that when prices increase, the quantity will change, however for many of our basic everyday items that we use, these products are a necessity to our every day life and are inelastic. No matter how high the prices rise, we will still continue to purchase them. Some goods that I consider elastic are biendawns, because I can just go to another place to get it, or eat another kind of food. I consider sugar to be inelastic, I consume it everyday and it only increases by very minor amounts, but no matter how much it increases for the most part, I will still buy products that contain sugar.

Topic 4: Where Choices Lead

Topic 4: Where Choices Lead

The opportunity costs for get me into this class from my perspective have been the chance to take MUN class. In terms of my mom, she could have used the money to buy a car or a lot of really nice meals. When I go to PAS, I give up the chance of going to another high school, for example my school in Georgia. I think that the decisions that were made were rational, assuming that coming to Taiwan was out of my control. The benefits outweigh the costs. There are very few american schools and only 2 that I know of in Hsinchu, which is where I live. I consider PAS to be the better of the two, and I chose this school in order to get a better learning environment. If everything had been in my control, I would have moved to California, because the people there speak English and are friendly. Also, the weather is really nice and I want to attend a college in California, so it would benefit me greatly to be a resident of that state. 

Journal #3

Incentives to Attend School

The most common incentives that most school use are grades, these grades reflect your overall performance. Your parents deduce from these grades the kind of punishments or benefits that you may get. Some disincentives that they use are the threat of kicking you out, holding you back a grade, and making you retake a course. Rewards are a much better incentive. Think about it this way, if you are the student and you aren't coming to school, you obviously don't care about it, or don't value it highly enough to come. But with a reward, it suddenly pops up on your radar, and now you have a reason to go. If you just give a punishment, it doesn't matter to the student, if they are already missing school, they don't care if you hold them back, or fail them, or kick them out, it would be of no consequence to them. All of the incentives for me to attend school are implemented in the home environment; for example, if I get a bad grade, my mom will cut me off until I make some sort of amends. They are ridiculously effective, when everything that you would be doing instead of studying become taken away, you are forced to study. I feel like the incentives given at PAS don't affect me, because I don't really care about what the school has to offer beyond the basics, and whatever that I strive for, as far as the school giving out free stuff, that doesn't matter to me. The goal of the schools is to get money from the government. PAS has a different school because they don't receive funding from the government, they are trying to please the parent by getting their child into a good college. 

Journal Assignment # 2

Joseph Wei

Journal Assignment # 2

Some examples of scarcity at PAS are: time, money, and materials. Teachers have to give up time in order to earn wages. Students must give time, money, and materials in order to receive education, and possibly parent approval. Personally, I would like to have more time and money to do the things that I like. However, the reality only allows me 24 hours a day and the fact that I can't be in two places at one time, on top of the pressure from my parents; each of these stop me from achieving my wants. I've had to trade time to do homework and go to school. In the time that I used doing homework and school, I could have been playing games or traveling or earning money. I have had to trade one class for another because of the restrictions on the class times as well as the restrictions on my class schedule, which only allows for certain classes on certain days during certain periods, and there are only 4 periods in a day (on average). However, the most important trade off would have to be the tradeoff among people. These tradeoffs can be grouped into 2 categories, appearance and friends. In the past, I have made trade offs to become the person that I am today. For example, I traded sports for playing an instrument. The friends that you choose to associate yourself with also define who you are. Each social circle involves a certain set of tradeoffs. For example, you must invest time, you won't be able to be in other circles as well, or get a job to earn money. You also tradeoff who you are; for example, not everyone fits into a social circle perfectly, so they have to compromise and possibly hide some aspects of themselves and pretend to be something that their not, either by just faking it or emphasizing another part of them that's not so prominent.

NF45Q4CSP8Y3