11/30

Rent (what we pay to have something temporarily) is not the same as Rent (What you get that you haven't earner)
A binding ceiling is one which is below the equilibrium, only at this point does it have a real effect on the market
Rent control actually hurts the buyers more than the sellers (the price is lower, so fewer people will be willing to rent, fewer places for people to live)

11/28

Where supply and demand meet on a chart isn't everything, and modifications can be made
Chicago school - all about efficiency of markets, but to a fault
Direct financial support in terms of foreign aid isn't where it's at

11/21

Money lowers the cost of transaction. Bartering puts you in shitty suit/toaster world.

Equilibrium is all about what happens AT A PRICE

At too low a price, buyers will actually bid up the price. At too high a price, sellers have to lower to compete with each other for the limited market.

11/16

Judging based on merit instead production is actually a hard argument to make and it's kind of depressing

Competition will always exist, so how do we handle that in a reasonable way? (As I see it how can we turn human greed into a constructive force) The answer is prices.

11/09

Elasticity: %change in demand/%change in whatever you're producing
Elasticity is how much a change in price effects our change in demand
As you move down a demand curve the demand becomes less elastic...BUT DON'T MEMORIZE THISt

TIME
BUDGET
SUBSTITUTES
influence elasticity

11/07

You can combine demand curves

GDP's pretty ridiculous when you think about it

When you combine two curves they move out

POW reading

This was a very interesting read about the nature of currency and exchange in an environment devoid of classical economic regulations. It interested me that in some ways, the cigarette currency is a much better example of a backed currency than a gold standard. However useful you might consider gold to be, cigarettes were obviously more useful, especially in this camp environment. 

1) What is the difference between the BMk and cigarette as a form of currency

2) How does consuming a product affect the worth of another product in a bartering market

3) How does the constant influx of free products effect the market. Does it at all?

I think the importance of reading this is in understanding the point of currency and seeing how easy it is for a currency, even one backed by hard goods, to fail. I think that this also provides an example of a localized economy. There was a limited amount of incoming goods, a limited amount of labor and a limited amount of buyers/sellers. 

EWOT 11/04

It strikes me that the internet markets of craigslist and ebay are an interesting market effect of the information age, and a creative interpretation of the middle man. In this day and age where it is possible for anyone with basic network connection to be in contact with anyone else in the same boat, we have opened up global markets not on a corporate scale, but on an individual scale (granted, craigslist's intent is to strengthen local communities, not act as a global market, but it still performs this roll across the whole world) These services have eliminated the more literal middleman. Their job is to bring these people together, and they do it mostly for free (entirely so in the case of craigslist). It's just interesting to see the middleman bringing people together without collecting a profit via markup.

11/04

1) Households and factors are inverse to each other in supply an demand
2) Prices, kind of a big deal
3) These concepts we've been learning about for trade don't just apply to a hard goods market, they apply to all market type scenarios.

11/2

Chinese should EAT. OUR. MONEY.
Balance of international trade is always maintained
Rizzo hates black people and the Chinese..or was that "over-regulation of trade"