Week #6

Part 1: This week we began learning about demand. We began by looking at Xbox and Playstation, and their techniques for creating demand. Next we learned about what also helps influence demand. This included: tastes and preferences, related goods, income, buyers, and expectations. This was shortened down to T.R.I.B.E. for easy memorization. Basically, besides price, demand has to do with what is popular, whether other goods can replace their counterparts, the amount of income consumers have, the number of buyers available, and preparation for the future. These are the things that affect demand, this and of course the price of the good. Lastly we learned how to shop. When I say this I mean how to shop effectively. For example, creating a budget when shopping or using coupons to save money. We learned various ways to save money when shopping and how stores try to get you to buy more. This was it for this four day week.

Part 2: When I have children I am not entirely sure of what I am going to name them. However I will probably not name my children a common name at the time. This is because of many reasons, which include: getting confused with other people that have the same name and being hard to remember because a common name is hard to associate with a face where as a unique is not. Also unique names are interesting, they are different and more fun that common ones. Min you, have a name that is too unique is bad because then it becomes hard to say and often people forget how to say it. For this reason, when I have children they will be named with uncommon names.

Week #5

Part 1: To start the week we finished learning the different types of economics. There was command where everything is government controlled and mixed where is was part free market and part command. But then we all were asked why we were there. This lead into incentives. Rewards or punishments that influence a decision or motivates people to give a greater effort. While incentives do work in many situations they also can result in unintended consequences. For example in Mexico they wanted to try to cut pollution by limiting when people can drive. They did this by only allowing certain cars to drive on certain days. However people got around this by buying another car, often an older car with worse emissions. In the end this new law actually caused more pollution in the city. Finally we learned about our human capital, and how we can improve it. We learned the rewards of improving our human capital. Finally we learned how to present our human capital to people in a way that allows them to see our skills quickly.

Part 2: I think that the hardest thing to learn was the factors of production. It was difficult to distinguish what belong in each group. However once I understood the definitions of the three groups I was fine. The most enjoyable thing to learn was budgeting or decision making. This two were things used almost every day and generally overlooked by most people. It was nice to look at them more in depth and understand what they do and how we use them. Also they are good skills to have and will come in handy often in college. And that is it for this week, goodnight.

Homework Week #4

Part 1: At the beginning of the week there was a crash. Only three of us survived the crash, we survived for a long time waiting for rescue. Eventually rescue came and we all survived and continued our lives like normal. Next we learned about good and services, a good is something tangible and a service is skills people know, something not tangible. Also we learned about factors of production. Things like: land, labor, and capital. Land is the raw materials a country has. Labor is people also known as physical capital. Capital is any object with inherit value; anything of value in a zombie apocalypse. The following day we learned the seven major economic goals: economic freedom, economic efficiency, economic security, economic equity, economic growth, economic stability, and full employment. The last three are the most important. Different types of economies rank the economic goals differently but the last three are always near the top.  Then on finance Friday we made a budget for when we are poor collage students. Mine turned out to be $1,151 this is relatively cheap when talking about everything needed. That is what we learned this week.

Part 2: For the question how do I like to flirt, it is relatively hard for me to answer that. This is because I am not the most observant person and tend to not notice when I flirt. But if I was trying to, i would first show them respect. No one wants to be friends with someone that thinks that they are above them. Next I would find common interest that we both can talk about. One sided conversations are not entirely fun for both parties. That being said I would not take over the conversation and give them a chance to speak as well. Then once we get to know each other we could go from there. Of course this does not mean we are instant friends and even if we can talk that does not mean we like each other. If we had nothing in common then we probably will not be good friends, if we even become friends. However even people with no common interests can be friends, this part relies on their personality. This is something uncontrollable, and can often make or break a friendship. That is why when I say we can go from there, I mean that based on their personality we can deepen or destroy the friendship.

Week #3

Part One: This week we learned about opportunity cost. It is the next best thing we give up in every choice we make. For example if I spend $60 at Chipotle then my opportunity cost, the next best choice I give up, is buying a new video game. But not every choice is one or the other, there is also the trade off. A trade off is when you consider all of the alternatives when making a decision. It is also very closely related to oppoturnity cost. It is most easily seen with the PPF curve. The PPF curve, or production possibilities frontier/cure, is all the possible combinations of making/getting two of anything. Imagine if you will our country, and within our country there are only so many workers. Now this is a perfect world and there is full employment. But even with full employment we can only make 100 tons of a item at a time. Let's then say our country needs two resources. As this is just an example let us choose two resources at random. Why don't we go with butter, and hmm... and how about guns. So our country needs guns and butter and it can only make 100 tons at a time. There are then many choices: 50 each, 25 and 75, 37 and 63, and so on. This is the PPF curve, all of the different choices we could make. Unfortunately I was unavailable for school on Friday and thus missed the best class ever. So this is all I learned this week.

Part 2: Many people become rich, but Bill Gates is on an entirely different level. Many of those that become rich often like to flaunt their riches by buying mansions and Lamborghinis. They tend to spend their money quicker than they got it. That is way they are not as rich as Bill Gates. Of course it is kind of hard to run out of money when you have as much as he has. But besides the point, I believe that Bills Gates got rich because he managed his money. He did not spend all of it at once and saved most of it. He also could have put money into the company so he could get more money. That way when his company became larger he had plenty of extra money to spend on a huge mansion and fancy cars. Bill Gates became rich in part by his company but mostly because of money management.

Homework Week #2

Part 1:   Economists do not think as normal people do. They tend to think logically and do not include morals into their answers. For this reason economists tend to get a bad reputation. However in most cases their reasoning are very well thought out and are good ideas. They talk about scarcity, but not in the way you may think. Most think that if there is a little of something then it is scarce. Economists say that scarcity is when a resource has more than one valuable use. For example water, water is used to keep humans alive. It is also used to keep plants alive; therefore it is scarce. Now you may be thinking "Well what about oxygen? I need it to breathe and i need it for my fireplace. So is it scarce?". I personally would agree but, for reasons unknown, certain economists would tell you different; but I digress. Now many have yet to notice how McDonald's and street gangs are similar. They have the same structures, both have employees then bosses then managers and so on. Only the gangs have different names for it. But essentially everyone starts from the bottom and works up. Gangs just have a much steeper raise in income and they move up the chain. That is a hard decision, a street gang or McDonald's. Every day we make decisions, and although we do not realize it we weigh the pros and cons in every decision we make. This come in handy when we talk about finance. But I am not going to get into that because I was not there. Well thanks for listening and as always, stay frosty bros MD out!

Part 2: Nah just kidding. Which is more valuable? Water or diamonds? Without diamonds there is no more bling. But without water we die. Without water everything changes, plants and animals will all die. Personally this makes water pretty valuable. Diamonds and the other hand, are a luxury. Humans do not need them to survive, but they do help with the economy. People like their beauty so they buy them. That means more money into the economy and more jobs for workers. Even so, water is much more important in the long run. If we lose water then we start to die off. If we lose diamonds we just get sad because we no longer have our bling. However I choose survival over bling. For that reason I believe that water is more valuable than diamonds. Now I am done. Peace!