Reflection on Scooter Supply

So this week in Weserville was all about supply. We learned about supply curves and the different factors that might affect supply. Supply is simply the willingness and ability of a producer to offer a good or service for sale. Producers a driven by profit motive so the higher a price is, they more they will want to sell of that item, but the lower the price, the less they will want to sell. This is what makes price and supply have a direct relationship. If any other factor besides price is changed, then the whole supply curve moves. Factors that can shift the supply curve are input costs, labor, producer expectations, technology, government actions, and the number pr producers. Any change in these results in a shift of the graph.
Everyone got into groups this week and developed a scooter that they planned to produce. The scooter needed to have all the features and everyone needed to find a reasonable cost to produce the scooter. Then, we had to decide the amount of profit we wanted to make and the from there we could determine the price by adding the cost and the profit. We could clearly see on a supply curve of our scooter that we developed, that the greater the price the scooter was sold, the more scooters we wanted to sell. The quantity that we wanted to sell was only increased when we were told that new technology made our engines easier to produce. This means that our curve shifted so that we were more willing to sell our product at lower prices than before. The curve shifted down and to the right to show that more was being produced at a lower price.
I personally found the concept of supply very interesting because it answers many of the fundamental questions I have about how the economy works. Once the concepts of supply and demand are understood, one can move on to more complicated features of the subject. Supply and demand are then used to find the equilibrium point. The simple concept of supply becomes something so much more important. I feel that the scooter example that we all did helped greatly to visualize many of the concepts that we were learning. The curves were also easier to understand when the product was my own and I was to one seeking a profit. Supply is so important to understand moving ahead not only in this class, but also in life. In understanding supply, we can understand why it is that companies will charge a certain price. We can also be prepared if we ever go into business by knowing that we need to be conscious of the amount of profit we want to make so we increase the price. The balance of supply and demand is how the economy works with the consumer and producers interacting.

Reflection on Advertising Weserville

This week in Personal Finance and Economics, we formed groups that made advertisement campaigns to draw tourists into Weserville. We considered six factors that affect demand: income, consumer tastes, consumer expectations, substitute goods, complementary goods, and market size. These are all ideas that pervaded our advertisement campaigns. We had to make a newspaper ad, a radio ad, and a TV ad. My group found that the small town charm would appeal to consumer tastes. We also thought that the fact that it is a small town with lower prices than big cities, that tourists would not feel as much of a strain on their budget.

The other attractions in Weserville made for great points to increase the market size. Our ads proposed opportunities that would attract people of different backgrounds. There is a Walmart coming as well as a YMCA, McWeser's, and Bass Pro already in Weserville. We also wanted to appeal strongly to consumer tastes by making people aware of the stunning wilderness that surrounds Weserville. The beauty that can be found in Weserville is an amazing point to bring to potential tourists. This would attract both those who seek adventure hiking and those who seek peace in the quiet setting. The advertisement campaigns we made really demonstrated how the factors that can change demand are what guides advertising and how many of the interactions in the world happen.

Demand is a strong influence on many of the occurrences that happen in the economy as well as the rest of the world. If people cannot or do not want to buy something the demand goes down and in knowing the factors that affect it helps to understand what is happening. The concept of demand is something that provides a building block for many future concepts. If someone does not understand demand, they will not understand how the pricing of items works. They will not understand how the quantity of a particular item's production is determined. Demand is a constant and integral part of life and the importance of it cannot be understated.

Works Cited

"Ricketts Glen State Park - Google Search." Ricketts Glen State Park - Google Search. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.

The US should stop squirming and put sanctions on Russia

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/05/us-should-put-sanctions-on-russia

Recent events have seen Russia making bold moves in Ukraine. This article pushes for the U.S. to do something about Russia coming into Ukraine on the grounds that they have Russian citizens living there as the minority. The article thinks that the Obama administration is making strides to do something about the withdrawal of Russia, but that it is not enough. It claims that putting sanctions on Russia are long overdue. The article thinks that Europe and the U.S. have been passive for long enough and that the recent turn of events prove that this is unwise.
I think very strongly that the U.S. should be making preemptive decisions. This could lead to something much more difficult to deal with if it is not handled now. The U.S. would just be waiting for a larger problem to present itself. I personally think that the government is being a lame duck administration as usual and needs to pull itself together to make sure that Russia does not cause too many problems with foreign affairs.
I think that this affects what we discuss in class because we talk about the government's role in the economy. We pay taxes for government officials to do their job among other things. If they are not doing anything, they could be leading to future problems with our national defense. We will appear as a country that is willing to sit by and do nothing. As an informed citizen after learning more about the role of government, I know that public goods is one of the things that the government provides, but how can a person expect the government to provide public goods when the nation is worried about what it will do about the national defense.

Works Cited

"Russian Lawmakers Okay Invasion, Ukraine Readies for Combat." Www.JPost.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2014.