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.