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Survey for class

Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 5:53 pm
by dissonance
I might be mistaken but it appears I have a survey due tonight for Econ class. Anyone who would like to complete one of these tonight ( I think by 5:30am GMT actually) would be doing me a huge favor. Thanks in advance!!

Name (you can make one up if you like):

1. Are Monopolies a good or bad thing for consumers?

2. Is Minimum wage a good or bad way to help low-income families?

3. Is outsourcing (jobs moving to other countries) a good or bad thing for US citizens?

4. Does Price Gouging lead to price increases of necessities?

5. Does Greed, overall, help or hurt a society?

6. Do you make rational decisions?

7. Does everyone make rational decisions?

Re: Survey for class

Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 6:56 pm
by Mad Merlin
dissonance wrote:I might be mistaken but it appears I have a survey due tonight for Econ class. Anyone who would like to complete one of these tonight ( I think by 5:30am GMT actually) would be doing me a huge favor. Thanks in advance!!

Name (you can make one up if you like):

1. Are Monopolies a good or bad thing for consumers?

2. Is Minimum wage a good or bad way to help low-income families?

3. Is outsourcing (jobs moving to other countries) a good or bad thing for US citizens?

4. Does Price Gouging lead to price increases of necessities?

5. Does Greed, overall, help or hurt a society?

6. Do you make rational decisions?

7. Does everyone make rational decisions?
Name: see left panel

1. Almost always a bad thing.

2. Generally bad, minimum wage does not create more money, it simply funnels it into a smaller group of people. Jobs that are only profitable to employ someone at below minimum wage simply disappear. In other words, minimum wage removes jobs that could otherwise exist.

3. Both good and bad, usually it lowers costs for jobs that have been outsourced, however, it does draw money out of the local economy.

4. This question doesn't make any sense. Price gouging for what?

5. Certainly both, overall it helps. Most business is ultimately driven by greed. Is business overall good or bad for society?

6. As often as possible.

7. Far too infrequently.

Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 7:41 pm
by dissonance
Thanks Mad Merlin ! Very thoughtful answers too.

Re: Survey for class

Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2010 4:38 pm
by keybounce
Bumpity :-)

> 1. Are Monopolies a good or bad thing for consumers?

Bad.

> 2. Is Minimum wage a good or bad way to help low-income families?

Having a minimum wage is a good thing. It establishes some relative value of work time.

Changing the minimum wage is not. Raising it ultimately just causes inflation. If you disagree with me, raise the minimum wage from $7.50 per hour to $750 per hour. Expect everyone else's wages to go up by a factor of 10 as well.

But the money available in the economy isn't 10 times as big. Since there isn't enough money available to operate all the jobs, some jobs will go away.

This is no different than the nobel prize winning observation that a reduction in the money supply causes a recession -- you are reducing the amount of (things purchasable by money -- in this case, work-hours).

> 3. Is outsourcing (jobs moving to other countries) a good or bad thing for US citizens?

By itself, bad.
With a tax on the outsourced jobs, good.

(I need to write that up on my politics/economic blog, http://StrictConstitution.BlogSpot.com )

>4. Does Price Gouging lead to price increases of necessities?

Don't understand.

>5. Does Greed, overall, help or hurt a society?

Hmm. What do you mean by "Greed"?

>6. Do you make rational decisions?
Depends on what my goals are.

One bad assumption of micro-economics is that everyone makes rational decisions to improve their economic worth/value. I will regularly make decisions to improve my mental stability at the expense of economic worth/value. In doing so, I'm not making the economic best choice, and I'm breaking the assumptions of micro-economics, and then I don't behave the way the theory predicts.

>7. Does everyone make rational decisions?
Not a chance.