The Economic Impact of Refugees

Regardless of your political beliefs, there is no denying the impacts of the refugees have on the globe. The anticipation of what refugees can do to an economy have caused European citizens and Americans alike to grow anxious. While countries such as Germany have been welcoming to refugees in the past few months, this is starting to slow do to anxiety. 

The largest fear among Germans is that the cost of labor will change. However, as cited by the Economist, an Oxford University study found a ten percentage point increase in immigrants working low-paying jobs only decreased wages by 2%. While it's good to see that the migrants have served as substitutes job-wise in the European economy, this is also kind of sad to think about. The 'positive' effects of the refugees are 'negative' for the refugees themselves. Sure, after journeying far and wide to search for a new home in a foreign country, many will take any opportunity they can get. For example, there has been an increasing trend of low-educated natives of countries getting different jobs and having the refugees serve as substitutes. For the economy, substitutes has been a good thing. But for locals, this has seemingly given more fuel to the fire of animosity.

Notice the contrast between the two. Frankly, I find it pretty disquieting.

While German authorities have been welcoming in general, the hostility from many Germans has been palpable. Racism here, like any other country, has been embedded in their past. So regardless of the refugees' actual impacts on the economy, there will always be people like the woman in the first picture.

Let's just pretend I already linked it....: http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21688938-europes-new-arrivals-will-probably-dent-public-finances-not-wages-good-or

Why Must The Good (TV shows) Die Young?

List of cancelled and renewed shows for 2015-2016 season here

It's happened to all of us. There's a show you just fall absolutely in love with, the characters, the plot, the writing, a certain actor, whatever, but just as soon as you're really and truly hooked, your show gets cruelly cancelled by its network. "That's ridiculous! How unfair!" you might say, outraged that those executives would dare cancel such quality programming as your ~show~. So, if the show is as good as you think it is, why did they cancel it?

                                     Look at this #deep dialogue. Who could possibly cancel this?

                                           
  The answer, like all things apparently, inevitably traces back to economics. While showrunners, writers, and actors are often (or less optimistically at least occasionally) more invested in the quality of the craft than the income it makes, producers and networks have essentially one incentive: money. Does Mr. Bigshot Executive at ABC give a single heck about how much that one line from an episode of Wicked City or Hemlock Grove touched the life and soul of some random guy they've never met? Nope. Not a single one. What executives do care about is business and economics, particularly the two economic principles of scarcity and incentives.
First let's talk about scarcity, because scarcity is always the answer. So because life is unfair and there's no infinite money and time, all networks have a scarcity of both of those things. Each network has limited broadcasting hours. There's only 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week, and networks don't broadcast different shows for every time block of every hour of every day. Because of the scarcity of time available to broadcast shows (and the range in viewership among watching times, like the Friday Night Death Slot), networks have to be selective about which shows they produce and air. Networks also have a scarcity of money. They can't afford to renew every old show and keep picking up new pilots, so if there is a new show that seems promising as a substitute for an old show that isn't doing as well, the network will choose to fund that instead, resulting in cancellations.

  So how does a network decide which shows are "good" enough to renew and which shows are "bad" enough to cancel. Well, it definitely has very little to do with personal taste for the executives or quality of the shows in question. If it did, terrible shows (like, I don't know, The Bachelor for example) would have been cancelled long ago, while quality shows (that often make fun of The Bachelor) like The Soup would still be airing. (R.I.P The Soup, you will be missed).

How is this show still on. How are these people even real.

This show dedicates itself to mocking terrible TV like The Bachelor.

It's a shame it got cancelled, Cade could have had a career in this.

   Instead networks make decisions based on certain incentives. Well, one major incentive really: money. Networks want their shows to be profitable, and a show's profit comes from the money advertisers pay to have their ads shown during certain shows. Advertisers in turn have their own incentive of having their product marketed to either large numbers of people or certain targeted audiences. Viewership totals and viewership demographics are vital to a show's ability to stay alive. If a show is extremely popular, advertisers will be incentivized to pay for ad space during them, and due to higher demand networks can charge more for ad space or product placement. If a show is not popular overall but is immensely popular with a target demographic, it could also be enticing for companies with a product that needs to be advertised to that same demographic. Sometimes good shows just have low viewership, either due to lack of awareness that the show exists or by having what is referred to as a "cult following." 

Bring back Community #sixseasonsandamovie

Now with the rise of new companies like Netflix and Hulu, where profit comes from paid subscriptions instead of from companies paying for ads, this trend is changing. However, it is too early to tell what exactly this will mean for why exactly shows are cancelled.  It will still be linked to scarcity (duh) of resources, but incentives of viewers will be more about making shows people want to watch that are exclusively on Netflix or Hulu, meaning they have to pay for a subscription. 

Anyway, next time a show you love gets unfairly cancelled and you're asking God why such a tragedy has occurred, remember: scarcity and incentives. 

It's Just So Saff-wrong

Have you ever been at a restaurant, looked at your menu options, chose a dish that seemed reasonably appetizing, then looked at the price and suddenly regretted all of your life decisions up to that point? Yea it's rather unfortunate how often that happens, actually. Of course, your choice of restaurant could be a reason for such exorbitant prices, but there's also a highly large chance that it's because of what the dish is made of. High-grade ingredients directly correlate to high-cost food. One particularly insane little luxury found in the most choice of dishes is saffron.

Saffron is a spice that has a number of uses that vary from flavoring dishes to dyeing clothes. However, let's say you want to play fancy, schmancy french chef for the day and decide that your dinner idea must be absolutely authentic, so you can only use the most excellent of ingredients. So, hypothetical you decides to go to a market and buy some real, quality strands of saffron, but then you see it is really expensive. How expensive? Well, how about 1 gram costing you about $80? Yea, so about that dinner...

But really, it's an itty-bitty little red, thready spice, why is it costing about half of my college tuition? In economic terms, it's because of scarcity. Saffron isn't exactly one of the most plentiful spices out there, as the business of producing it has reduced quite a bit from the olden days of the spice trade. Okay, but just look at those prices! Imagine the money you'll be drowning in if you just grew saffron! Suddenly you think you're just the smartest person alive, figured out all of your money problems, and succeeded in life. Except when you don't. Now you find yourself, once again, regretting all of your life decisions.

As it turns out, growing saffron is unbelievably tedious. The reason why saffron is so scarce is because people just don't really want to make that effort in making the saffron. These non-price affecting factors are what keeps the supply of saffron on the down low. The cost of productivity and labor just outweigh the desire, or incentive, to get a hold on the saffron business. Not to mention that saffron isn't even that universally coveted of a spice. The demand isn't the most overwhelming of curves, because the Eastern Asian and European dishes that generally do involve saffron can typically find some reasonably cheaper substitutes like turmeric to do just as well of a job at dyeing the foods as saffron does. Of course, as per the article, there are those brave souls who do genuinely enjoy the saffron business and don't mind the process of preparing these spices. But, to other people out there, the task all just seems like an effective waste of time. Saffron comes from the stigmas of the crocus flower. Each flower has three stigmas, but you can't exactly just pluck them out and be done with that. A farmer has to remove the three stigmas, lay them out on racks, and let them air dry for 24 hours. What a tedious process. And, to really kick you when you're down, those three stigmas barely count as much of anything. To get any semblance of a successful business, a person would need to sell many grams of it, and to get even 90 grams requires tens of thousands of flowers. That's quite a bit of effort for quite a bit of nothing.

But hey, to each his own. Saffron is still a prosperous business for some people out there, so if watching flower stems cycle through life to nice little wrinkly baby sticks of its former self in a span of 24 hours is totally your thing, no one is stopping you.

Website cited: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2823029/How-ounce-saffron-expensive-gold-Cultivation-exotic-spice-returns-Essex-time-200-years.html

Redbox's Loss is Netflix's Gain

Redbox's company Outerwall has been losing revenue ever since they increased their price on DVD's, Blu-rays, and video games by 25 - 50%. This raised the cost of DVDs to $1.50 and Blu-rays to $2. This increase in price has caused a 13% decrease in rental activity. This decrease can be made up by the increase in Netflix subscribers. This decrease in rental activity because the price went up shows that Redbox is elastic, because the small $0.30 change in price caused a larger change in quantity. This is because Redbox can be referred to as a luxury and has many substitutions such as, Netflix.

Netflix gained 15.5 million subscribers for video streaming the year that Redbox increased their prices. This shows that tastes have changed the demand for watching movies from actual DVD rentals to streaming. How Redbox's price increase has affected the demand of Redbox and Netflix can be seen in the supply and demand graphs below.

The article this blog was written about can be found at: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/08/03/redboxs-loss-could-be-netflixs-gain.aspx

Hamilton the Musical's Ticket Scarcity

One of my favorite things that I have listened to in recent memory is the soundtrack to the Broadway musical Hamilton. However, I know for a fact that I am not alone in this case. Hamilton, a pseudo hip hop/rap musical about founding father Alexander Hamilton's life, has become the newest smash hit on Broadway. While I am excited for the show's success, it's nearly impossible to get a ticket and so I (like many others) will likely be unable to see it for the foreseeable future.

Isn't that logo just awesome?! UGH.

The show's popularity has led to a scarcity in tickets. Through the original seller, Ticketmaster, the show was priced much more reasonably. However, those tickets sell out months in advance and therefore any tickets from now through July can only be bought through second party websites such as Ebay or Vivid. This scarcity causes most of these other sellers to spike up the prices to ridiculous amounts. For example, my understanding is that the mezzanine seats were originally priced between $60-100. Since those sold rather quickly and there still is a demand for them, there are some sellers that price that type of ticket at $400 or $500 (which is totally insane!). The show knows this, though, and so they have come up with a solution: a lottery for 21 front row seats!

Yeesh would ya look at that crowd!!

The lottery is called Ham4Ham, and in addition to being a lottery, the crowd gets treated to free performances by the cast. I love this idea because in many cases people get to see unconventional versions of songs for the show. For example, one Ham4Ham, they had all three actors who played King George come out and preformed a song sung by the three main women in the cast. It's hilarious and awesome, and you could tell the crowd really enjoyed it. This is a way for the production to attempt to meet the high demand with just a bit more supply. So even if you didn't get to see the show, you still walk away having gotten to enjoy something & I love that. 

This musical is so great and I hope y'all go and check it out :)

We Like The Thing! Just Kidding, We Hate It.

Everyone probably remembers the movie Avatar. After all, it broke countless records and was the highest grossing movie of all time back when in came out in 2009. Now, it is remembered for two things, neither of which are the quality of the writing or acting, because frankly Avatar just wasn't that good: but what Avatar is remembered for is the obscene amount of money that was made on it and the fact that this obscene amount of money gave birth to the seemingly unstoppable tide of 3D movies. Filmmakers and production companies everywhere saw the success of Avatar and announced that 3D was a milestone that would forever change the future of cinema. It wasn't, but we'll get to that later.
Having recognized the success of Avatar and the seeming appeal of 3D, more and more companies began releasing movies in 3D. In 2012, 41 movies were released in 3D. Tickets for 3D movies were more expensive, not only because the cost to make movies in 3D was higher but because theaters and production companies jacked up prices, knowing that consumers would buy tickets anyway. Producers believed that demand for movies in 3D was at an all time high, and it was, at least at first. However, after a while, consumers finally realized what everyone knew already: 3D is kind of the worst. Ticket sales for 3D movies dropped, and movies that were released in both 3D and standard 2D sold considerably more 2D tickets. The number of 3D movies released dropped to 35 in 2013 and only 28 in 2014, and the number continues to drop.
It may seem strange that 3D came in so mightily and then just kind of petered out, and while the trend was confusing to most movie makers, production companies remained successful by watching the market and keeping up with consumer demand. When demand for 3D was high, producers saw that there was money to be made, so price on tickets increased and supply of 3D movies increased. When demand decreased, producers stopped making so many 3D movies, because there simply wasn't a market for them. What once seemed so promising as a change in the world of film has now more or less joined the ranks of VHS tapes and Heelies.
Farewell, 3D. We hardly knew ye.

An Unholy Amount of Creamer to Get Through the Day

If you're a not a morning person, chances are you need a quick pick-me-up to get your day started. For some people, it could be an easy breakfast, like donuts; for others, it could be the energy from the sun's rays, because you're made of pure sunshine and rainbows. But, if you're like me, you need a hot, steaming cup of pressed caffeinated bean juice, or what's more pleasantly known as coffee.

Coffee is an indispensable component of many people's morning routines. In fact, about 83% of all American adults drink a good ole cup of Joe every morning. Sure, a person can down a pint-sized energy drink to get them started, but not only is it considerably unhealthy, it still doesn't measure up to the liquidy goodness that is coffee, which happens to have more caffeine than your average energy drink, anyways. While it sounds so easy to just get a cup of coffee, it's not that simple of a choice.

There are a huge number of factors that go into every morning cup of coffee. Coffee has a strong pull on more than 4/5 of the United States, so it's safe to say that the industry thrives rather spectacularly every year. But, you don't have to even contribute to the huge chains of over-priced coffee to get your morning fix. One of the hardest decisions of the morning is whether or not to just make your own coffee at home, or to drive to a coffee shop and buy a cup of joe. One of the biggest factors for me and most other people is time, which is, and always will be, a scarcity in this regard. I always try my best to give myself enough time for my coffee-making escapades, and if I have an abundance of time, the incentive of getting a professionally done cup of coffee with the greater amount of time to spare overpowers the need to save a few dollars by brewing at home. However, cost is also an equally strong factor if I consider going to a cafe like Starbucks instead. When you're a considerably broke high-school student who often can count on one hand how much money she has, in cents mind you, then going out to buy coffee is probably not a good idea. And it is important to note that the morning brew is part of a highly elastic business. At many chain coffeehouses, speciality espresso cups can cost as much as $4 for just 8 oz. of coffee, which is highway robbery already, but the overall marginal benefits of a high quality cup of coffee has just barely exceeded this exorbitant price. However, if the coffee industry decided to suddenly up the cost, lots of people will have to settle for lower quality substitutes, because those marginal costs are just way too close for comfort. Incentives are also a big deal for the morning coffee, because just how every snowflake is special, every person's cup of coffee varies greatly. The incentive of making your own coffee flavored right to your taste, with the benefit of saving time waiting in line and money for expensive coffee, is pretty important to the daily decision. Some people, almost 1/3 of coffee drinkers, desire high-grade gourmet coffees, while others don't mind the convenient store-brand ground or instant coffees. Some people aren't very picky and like their coffee as black as their soul, but other right-minded people like myself add creamer to their coffee, though I can't vouch for my side too much, because I have a particularly sweet preference to coffee. Yes, I could always ask Starbucks to add a few more shots of caramel to my caramel macchiatos, but that costs extra money, and the incentive of me easily controlling the amount of sweetener I put in my coffee is just so much greater than awkwardly informing the store that, yes their coffee is not drowning in enough sugar for me. So, while I continue to put unholy amounts of creamer in my now, half-coffee and half-sweetener concoction, the rest of the United States also goes through the same troubling exchange. 

Ah, coffee: it helps keep many of the people in this country sane enough to get through the day and actually make important contributions, one cup at a time.

How to Watch TV All Day and Still Get Good Grades

How to Watch TV All Day and Still Get Good Grades 

By: Alyssa Davis

Step 1: Use your time wisely. There is a scarcity of time in the day to do everything you want. So multitask to get everything done, while also watching a lot TV.

• watch TV while you eat
• listen to an audiobook while your in the car 
• watch TV while you get ready for school
• if you watch TV live - do homework on commercial breaks
• multitask and watch tv while you do homework!

Step 2: Pick your favorite shows. You can't watch everything and still get good grades. You must narrow down the shows you watch. The show has to have a greater incentive then studying. Just ask yourself - Does this show mean more to me then an A+ on my chemistry test? If the answer is yes - Watch It!

• don't watch anything live - by streaming or watch Netflix you can save time by not having any commercials

Step 3: Know when to stop watching TV. There is a point where you have to stop watching TV and study. Learn when that point is for you. If you have a test the next day know how long you are going to need to study for it. Self control is a hard thing but its the reason many people can watch TV yet still get good grades. Just figure out the point where you have to start studying or doing homework. 

• if its too hard to just stop watching TV and study - use TV as a reward
• study for an hour then watch a 30 minute TV show
• if you can't figure out if you should start studying or just keep watching TV go back to step 2 and ask yourself the question again. Figure out if the incentive to do homework is greater than watching TV.

With these 3 steps you should be on your way to getting good grades while also having fun and watching TV. 

Politics and Film: What caused my interest in economics?

As someone who has the opportunity to vote in the 2016 election, I feel that trying my best to understanding Economics (even if in just a basic way) is imperative.  Despite the fact that many Americans have low confidence in their political efficacy, I think it's important to be as informed as you can be when it comes to politics. Over the past several months, I have watched snippets of almost every debate. I sound like kind of a dork, but attempting to understand the the differences in economic policies among the candidates has been kind of fun. For example, tonight I am watching the GOP debate while I am writing this and John Kasich just sort of agreed with something Bernie Sanders (a Democrat) believes. The moderator had asked him about the idea of Bernie in the White House, and while he labelled him as "unelectable" due his tax plan, Kasich basically agreed with Bernie on the idea that wages need to increase in order to not just get people back on their feet, but keep them there. Although Kasich himself is lagging in the polls, I admire the fact that he has stuck to his principals rather than appease the entirety of the GOP (this is not me endorsing him though just FYI y'all :P).
Even though I had already decided that I was going to take this class at that point, I became more anxious/excited about taking it while watching The Big Short over break with my family. For my mom and dad--who were both hired at J.P. Morgan Chase in 2008--the movie hit close to home. At that time, my dad worked in Mortgage Default Department at Chase and had an incredibly stressful job. I was only 10 years old at the time, and to be honest I did not fully understand the repercussions of the recession.  Seeing The Big Short over break scared me about what the effects misuse and abuse of economic power could do to a system, but also fascinated me. I came into the movie unsure if I would really enjoy it, and walked out with less of a definitive opinion and more of just a curiosity about our economic system.
In the end, I hope to leave this class with a greater understanding of some of the factors that caused the recession, the ability to understand the challenges that one faces when attempting to create economic change (ex. how would we change the minimum wage), and eventually, form my own concrete and well supported economic beliefs.

Math Is The Worst (But Econ. Is Okay, I Guess)

         Math Is The Worst (But Econ. Is Okay, I Guess)

In this semester of economics, I hope to learn to stop being afraid of economics. Economics has never been something I thought I would find interesting. Economics involves money, and money involves math, and math is the worst. However, from what I've seen so far, economics doesn't really have that much math in it. I hope that economics this year will continue to give me a better understanding of what economics really is and just how many things it relates to. Economics isn't all Wolf of Wall Street, a lot of it is actually relevant to my everyday experiences in ways I wasn't really aware of. I hope to better my understanding of how economics impacts my decisions and the decisions of people around me.

Topics I'm interested in for economics include movies (like Wolf of Wall Street, because who doesn't love Leonardo DiCaprio?) and theatre because those are the things I'm passionate about in life. With economics I can learn about things like how inflation has raised the price of movie theatre popcorn to the equivalent of your average mortgage payment, and how things like opportunity cost lead to people majoring in things like engineering over things like theatre or English, because apparently the idea of not living in a cardboard box on the street is enough of an incentive for the average student. As for current events, I have a love-hate relationship with politics, and a hate-hate relationship with the government, so those are things that could be interesting to see through the lens of economics. At the very least, I'll be able to back up my rants about The Man with economics terms, which might sway others's reactions to more "Wow, she has some really interesting points" and less "Please stop, we weren't even talking about the government, why are you doing this right now." 

Anyway, I'd like to leave this class understanding at least the basics of economics, and maybe what the phrase "fiscal cliff" actually means, because people like to say it a lot and I just kind of nod because I'm not sure what a fiscal cliff is or why it's good or bad or whether or not to genuinely or sarcastically follow it with "Thanks Obama." I would also like to leave the class with an understanding of how Blogger works, because honestly I have no idea whether I'm posting this in the right place at the right time, or really if it's posting at all. If this is not posted, I'm sorry Mr. Kern, please don't fail me. 

And, if nothing else, economics has already taught me a very important lesson: the answer is always "scarcity." Unless of course you're Theresa -- in that case, the answer is always Heelies. And I have a feeling that will get me really far in life. 

Interests and Expectations

I have always been really fond of economics. So, I was pretty excited about doing this special, more intensive economics class rather than what was originally planned. I hope to better comprehend economic principles so that I can easily discuss and debate topics with economic thinking, something along the lines of game theory, except maybe not as intense. Rather, I really want to improve that sort of insightful thinking in economic terms.
As far as my interests are concerned, I'm very invested into the stock market. When it was happening, I got extremely involved in Greece's economic crisis and its impact on the world's economy, as well as the debate on the Federal Reserve raising the interest rates. Just about anything regarding the stock market entices me, so I guess concerning very current events, China's failing stock market is on my radar. My other passions include drawing and more drawing, so all of my interests definitely lie on opposite poles of the spectrum.
By the end of the semester, I hope that I'll leave the semester understanding economics well enough to carry me through more complex thinking through college. I don't want to just know the terms and principles; I want to argue, discuss, and project ideas or solutions to problems with not only our economy, but also other nations' economies. I want to be able to use what I learn in economics to study and understand the world with an informed, economic rationale.

First Blog Post

Alyssa Davis

I hope to gain a knowledge of past economies and our current economy so that I can be a more informed citizen when I vote. I know quite a bit about current events and some of the major debates happening in this 2016 election, but the one thing I don't know anything about is the economy debate. Current events that interest me, when dealing with political debates recently, include foreign affairs and immigration. Topics or just other things that interest me include Netflix and food. I hope that by the end of this semester I will have gained knowledge on the subject so that when I go to vote at the end of this year, I will be informed enough to know my view on the economy.