Start of Summer

I am writing this post as an example. Today is the first weekend of official summer as well as th longest day of the year. Just wanted to make mention of that. Looking forward to a good summer.

Buy a home, Get one Free

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/080603/usa_housing_sale.html?.v=4&.pf=real-estate

Is this real? Developers in san diego are giving away a house valued at $400,000 dollars when you purchase a $1.6 billion dollar mansion. they said they are targeting a small niche in the market and are trying to make up for the mortgage meltdown of 2007.

Will this actaully help them at all? if the mansion is really worth $1.6 billion aren't they taking a $400,000 hit? and when the housing market is down so much anyway, is it worth taking a $400,000 lose just to get that house off your hands? Maybe that's not that big of numbers when your talking about buying and selling homes, but that would get me a little worried.

Olympic Benefits

http://www.statesman.com/services/content/sports/stories/other/06/05/0605olympics.html?cxtype=ybuzz

This website talks about how Chicago has been selected as one of the final four nominations for the 2016 summer olympics. The International Olympics committee says that if they want to get higher in the standings and have a better chance to get the olympics, Chicago will need to come up with a better plan for their transportation methods as well as finances. The united states olympic representative said he would be working vigorously to try and correct in these areas.
The reason people are trying so hard to get the olympics into their country, and specifically there city, is because the game bring in millions of dollars. The money comes from all over the world to visit and watch the games. This may be just the boost that the us could use to get out of the recession that we're in. Hopefully it won't go on until 2016 but either way, the money being brought into the country will help the economy.

Best American Cities to Ride Out Recession

http://promo.realestate.yahoo.com/americas-recession-proof-cities.html

This is a story from Yahoo. it lists the top cities in America to be in during this time of recession. One of the main factors the report uses to determine the the safety of the city during recession is the unemployment rate. However, after talking about division of income levels, i think that this may not be the best way to judge the city. Six of the Top ten cities are located in the southern united states, including San Antonio and Houston. Because of their close location to the U.S. - Mexico border, there is a better chance of higher population of illegal immigrants that are not able to report unemployment because they fear deportation. Also, they may not be feel comfortable reporting their unemployment because of the pride factor. There are also other factors in the cities, including the growth of the city and the number of jobs and industries available. i just thought the unemployment rate could be a little misleading in some cases.

Chrysler Helping Out With Gas Prices

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/565/chrysler-offers-gas-card-as-incentive/;_ylc=X3oDMTE0czZzZjBqBF9TAzI3MTYxNDkEc2VjA2ZwLXRvZGF5BHNsawNnYXMtY2FyZA--

Here is an article about how Chrysler is trying to help with gas prices and encourage you to buy their vehicles. If you buy a car from Chrysler between May 7th and June 1st, chrysler will give you a gas card that pays the difference for any gas you purchase for more than $2.99 for the next three years. When the card is used, it will send most of the difference to a third party, (which was not specifically specified) and chrysler will pay the rest. At an estimated cost of $3.65 per gallon, chrysler will be paying about $.65 of it.
I thought this went good with price ceilings or subsidizing. By putting this price ceiling on gas, which is not exactly what is going on here but what many people are screaming that we should have, isn't that ruining the free market idea. To be able to let supply and demand dictate price, not government? This is definately a clever way to make your car look better, but consumers are also offered a cash rebate. And, the gas will only be paid for the 12,000 miles a year which is the estimated acceptable driving distance.

Follow Up on the "Last Lecture"

Hey everyone. This is the follow up i said i'd post on Randy Pausch. (This post probably might not count as an econ thing, Mrs. McDaniel, but i'll post another one. I wanted to follow up on the post from before.) This is a little about Pausch.

Randy Pausch (born October 23, 1960) is a Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In September 2006, Pausch was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer. He pursued a very aggressive cancer treatment that included major surgery and experimental chemotherapy; however, in August 2007, he was told the cancer had metastasized to his liver and spleen. He then started palliative chemotherapy, intended to extend his life as long as possible. At that time, doctors estimated he would remain healthy for another three to six months.

This link below is a website from ABC. I posted the link for the whole lecture on the previous post. This one below is the stories from the interview of ABC. There are5 different "parts" in the whole story. It is definately a worth while thing to watch. Hope everyone can take a little from it.

http://abcnews.go.com/search?searchtext=randy%20pausch&type=

Game Theory

I liked the movie today on game theory and the Nash equilibrium. It is an interesting concept and i like how he put it into understandable terms with the girls in the bar. However, i don't know if he said it or not or if it said it somewhere in the book, but it still seems unrealistic. Like with perfect competition, it is the perfect way for the economy to function but it is highly impractical. For Nash's idea to be correct, (the idea that all the friends would block each other out if they all went for the blond) he is assuming that all the friends would prefer the blond over the others, and also that the blond would want all of them equally, and not be able to choose. However, in real life, this is not realistic, but maybe he wasn't using people as the best example. Because with people, the blond would not have an equal preference for all of the guys. And the idea that they should all go for other ones is assuming that all the guys are equal. If you were a stud and a nice guy, you wuold have an obvious advantage and would not have to follow the "Game Theory." In economic terms, this would mean that all the items being dealt with would have to have all identical properties with identical demands, as well as all the people dealing with the group would have to have the same preferences.

Here's the clip from "A Beautiful Mind"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0JDoQb6A2YI

Last Lecture

I don't know if you guys saw or heard about this on the news, but this is really good. This guys name is Randy Pausch. He is a proffesor at Carnegie Mellon and is dieing of Pancreotic Cancer. His speech, which i haven't got to finish all of yet, is mainly on how to live life and what needs to be focused on while living. Although it may sound somewhat far off, i think it applies to economics. Economics is all about choices and the individual importance of a choice and what you are giving up for that choice. Also, you need to take into account how other people way in on the decision you are making if they are involved in it. His speech is about the same things, expect on a much deeper level, not just about material objects; about life, time, friendship, family and compassion.
I will try to get more information and update this with the whole story but you guys should definately take a look at this, even if you aren't in Mrs. McDaniel's AP Econ class.

Type in "Randy Pausch Last Lecture" on youtube.

Post for Febuary 11 - College

Right now I assume that one of the biggest thoughts in most of your heads is college. It is one of the biggest decisions we've had to make in our lives up to now. It is a huge decision in terms of direct cost and also opportunity costs. Obviously a large idea when picking the college is the education they offer and how it matches your goals for the future. I was wondering what everyones main factors were in picking their college, in terms of direct and opportunity costs, as well as where these factors have persuaded you to go next year.

IT WORKS?

This is a test.