Chapter 9

What was your opinion about restrictions on international trade before reading this chapter?  Have you changed your mind? Strengthened your opinion? In what ways and why?  What was the most interesting part of the chapter to you?  Why?

International Trade is such a huge topic! I still believe that trade has the potential to be highly beneficial to all participating countries.  It is in my opinion that most of the issues that people have with trade are legitimate arguments but if we could improve our trade policies we would all have greater benefits. 

The most interesting part of the Chapter is Free Trade. I am still forming my thoughts about the pro's verses the cons. For the most part I think that free trade is beneficial depending on the goods being imported and exported. Food perhaps.  And only if the products are equal in value, which can be tricky to monitor. 

After reading these what do yo think about protecting manufacturing industries from international trade? (The flip side, if you want more to think about, is our ban on exporting natural gas. Does that make sense to you? Why or why not?)

After reading these articles, I would say that we could protect what manufacturing industries that are currently doing well, and thriving in order to keep those jobs for people. But I feel that we should expand our services trade with other countries, new technologies are replacing labor manufacturing jobs and same with farming. The world is changing its pace and innovation, and invention is the way to keep us going and thriving in the world economy. 

The ban on natural gas makes sense to me if there is a shortage in our country and it's too expensive to export. We don't have to share all of our precious and limited resources. I feel that we shouldn't have to trade everything, only goods that will benefit our economy by both import and export factor. 

Chapter 8

Give an example of a tax that you have paid in the past.  Did it affect your purchase decisions?  Do you think the tax created dead weight loss?  Why or why not?  How is the market for the good affected by the tax?

I have paid the Eagle County Airport taxes and fee's on a rental car that I had to rent one time for a road trip, the vehicle that I owned no longer liked to go over the passes. I had no choice at the time to rent the car, but after paying about 28% on the total in local taxes and fees, I decided that it was not worth the car rental. Although it was fun to drive a brand new car! The rental rate seemed like a good deal while I was making the reservation and they show you your total cost plus airport taxes and fees once you are filling out the paper work.

I do think that the airport taxes and fee's create dead loss for the rental car companies, and it causes the prices to increase for the consumers. But being that we live in a resort area, the rich come to play here and do not even blink an eye but for the locals - OUCH! 

The market is effected for the good by the tax because the Town of Gypsum and Eagle County use the tax collected to maintain and up keep the airport, public right of ways and other government services that benefit everyone.  

Chapter 7

Why are producer and consumer surpluses important in determining market equilibrium?

The total surplus, which is the sum of the producer and consumer surpluses help determine the market equilibrium because the information is measured between supply and demand curves. 

Consumer surplus equals the area above the price which is below the demand curve. The producer surplus equals the area below the price and above the supply curve. The equilibrium outcome is an efficient allocation of resources. 

It is important to keep the market equilibrium healthy for the overall efficiency of the economy.

Should market efficiency always be the goal of policy setters?  Why or why not?

Maintaining market efficiency should typically be the goal of policy setters because; consumer surplus is a benefit that buyers receive and a producer surplus is a benefit that that the sellers receive. The basic tools that economists use to determine a healthy market is the consumer and producer surpluses. Policy setters should put forth the best policies to maintain a good balance between the surpluses in order to maintain a healthy economy/free market. But most economists often advocate free markets as the best way to organize economic activity instead of centrally planned. I would agree that it is probably very difficult to set the policies based on 

Chapter 6

How does this relate to the theories from the chapter? This article relates to the Price Control and Price Floor affects of the market. in my opinion the Venezuela government is hurting the economy and its citizens by imposing price control and government subsidized products that are high in demand but short in supply. Now consider a different case.  After Hurricane Katrina speculators brought in bottled water, but charged quite a lot for it.  What might have happened had price controls been imposed?  Where does the concept of fairness fit into this theory? Because Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster and a human emergency/crisis there should have been price controls for goods that are necessities so that people were not priced gouged for things they needed to survive. There is no fairness when people are in short term crises to take advantage of overpricing necessities for a profit. Last, choose an article about increases in the minimum wage and comment on it using the theories from this chapter in your comments. http://www.hamiltonproject.org/papers/the_ripple_effect_of_the_minimum_wage_on_american_workers/ According to this article raising the minimum wage would increase the wages of 35 million American workers. 29 % of the US workforce. The article discussed the Ripple Effect that this would have on the wages in America but I feel the overall consensus of the article is that raising the minimum wage would be a benefit to low wage workers, including raising wages for most workers in the lower wage bracket/lower income work force.  In our text it states that in 2006 economists, 47 percent favored eliminating minimum wage, 14 percent maintain it and 38 percent would increase it. In my opinion we should not eliminate it, because then employers would under pay the workforce. I firmly believe in today's society we are forced to work for much much more and get paid for less. People today are overworked, under paid and stressed. I say raise the minimum wage, pay people what their worth. We have to work to survive, so make it possible to do so.  I am a proponent to raising the minimum wage. I understand the teenage factor, but not all of their parents can support their cars, insurance and college. Why not help them be able to start out successful and become financially independent from their parents?

Chapter 5

Give an example of sales based on price elasticities that you have seen or used.  Why do you think it worked (or didn't work)? 

An example of sales based on price elasticities that I have used, I think of my Epic Ski Pass. Before Vail Resorts created the Epic Pass, there was your basic pass that the price range was about $1500. and then there were Merchant Passes etc. I did not ski or purchase the pass. When they restructured the pass to the Epic Pass, I bought a pass and learned how to ski. When Vail created the ski pass good at all VR resorts including out of state and out of the country, and the price structure showed that the demand for the pass increased. The Epic Pass has made the opportunity to ski very accessible to almost everyone. There are many different passes you can purchase that suits your needs. Skiing is a luxury rather than a necessity. I think that Vail Resorts had a high measure of response to the restructuring of their Ski Pass opportunities. The sale of their passes increased their revenues, amount of skiers on the mountains, and stock value increased. 

What topic made the least sense to you in this chapter? What is wrong or complex about it?

I am still having a hard time understanding the formulas for computing the Price Elasticity of Demand, Calculating Percentage Changes and Elasticities. Demand Curve. I do not think that it is wrong, it is complex to me because I am more visual learner or maybe if I listened to a tutorial it would help. I am reading it, just not "sinking in"  Any suggestions on finding a tutorial or audio on this subject to help? Thank you!

Chapter 4 - Reflections

Topic: Supply and Demand

In many large cities you can now use your cell phone to call Uber or Lyft instead of hailing a taxi.  Would you expect this to affect the prices of taxi medallions (that is really the supply of taxis)?  Why or why not?  Talk about supply and demand curves in your answer.

I think that this app has and will continue to effect the prices of the taxi medallion. From an article I read online a medallion owner stated that the price does continue to go down but that the demand for a cab has stayed steady. He also stated that the revenue flow is continuing to go down with the medallion. 

The demand for the medallion will begin to go down because there will be continued loss in revenues as the Uber or Lyft app continue to rise in popularity. They supply of medallions will go down as an effect of the lowered demand. 

Can you think of an example where you watched the supply of a good or service change rapidly?  (For example, a new hotel or restaurant opened.)  Based on the chapter what would you expect to see happen? Why?

A new restaurant opened in Eagle two years ago in a busy, popular area on Broadway. When the restaurant opened it was very busy because they were providing a new dining experience in town. The demand for the new restaurant was high and the supply of consumers was high. The prices of their entrees was high. But as the year continued the customers had continued lack of service and poor quality of food. The restaurant demand was continuing to decline as the customers slowly stopped returning to dine. Customers found other areas to dine that were less expensive and had better food. The restaurant had to close its doors only 18 months after opening. I think that it was lack of management to provide excellent customer service and great food. It is a good example of supply and demand between food service and a restaurant . 

Give another example of a concept from this chapter.  For example I just used AirBnB to rent an apartment in 

San Francisco.  How did AirBnB affect the supply of rooms to rent in San Francisco?

Because you rented a room, your purchase effected the supply of the rooms to be lower in availability for the dates of your purchase. I will use an event that comes to mind, Cheyenne Days in Wyoming. During that event there were no available rooms in the hotels for that time because the demand is high, we had to rent a room 30 miles away and at a high cost for a cheapo hotel because we did not realize this."Number of Buyers Effect".  I have learned to plan ahead for major events if I expect to have the accommodations that I want.Good example of Supply and Demand.