Armchair Economist book report Essay

The chapter starts by giving the example of how the head of Coca-Cola Europe decided to give away Coke to East Germans as the Berlin Wall was falling in 1989. This gamble, which began as a loss, eventually paid off for Coca-Cola. Six years later, the former East Germany had matched West Germany in the consumption of Coke, an excellent example of the power of markets. The author gives a simplistic explanation of the communist economy. There is no law of supply and demand. The price of an item is the same regardless of where one buys it. This is due to the fact that every business is paid the same by the government for selling a specific item regardless of the amount sold. Our economy is a market economy and economists make two important assumptions.

Author Wheelan writes, "Life is about trade-offs, and so is economics." Indeed, so is Naked Economics. This book promises to be a good introduction to economics for the layman. Throughout the book, the author uses easy-to-understand language and vivid examples to illustrate his points in strategic places maintaining a sense of lightness with the readers in reading the material. Here is a summary of each of the 12 Chapters of the book Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan.

Charles states as his number one point that economics is really unpredictable. He uses the Coca-Cola Company as a fine example for this. That company starts of turning out to be loss and failure but within 10 years since it started it turned out to be very profitable. Charles also states that markets are extreme powerhouses over individual’s daily lives. Markets are also self-correcting because they use prices to allocate their resources. Individuals all work for their own self-interest so they can be better off in the society. One very good example the author provides is the Soviet’s socialist economy and how it failed because the bureaucracy controlled the economy, or basically he’s saying that

Imagine that you have decided to open a small ice cream stand on campus called "Ice-Campusades." You are very excited because you love ice cream (delicious!) and this is a fun way for you to apply your business and economics skills! Here is the first month's scenario--you order the same number (and the same variety) of ice creams each day from the ice cream suppliers, and your ice creams are always marked at $1.50 each. However, you notice that there are days when ice creams remain unsold but other days when there are not enough ice creams for the number of customers.

They explained that: “Changes in incentives influence human behavior in predictable ways”. The main point of this concept is that the more attractive an option is the more likely an individual to choose it. Another point that they also focused on was the fact that if a particular product more costly, the more unappealing it will become to the consumer. They used examples such as employees will worker harder if they feel that they will be greatly rewarded or a student will study material that they feel will be on an

Taxes are unavoidable because government is needed and government operates on tax revenues. The FairTax is a tax-inclusive progressive national retail sales tax that replaces every other federal tax in America. The new national sales tax would be 23%. Although there have been some questions as to whether the sales tax rate is 23% or 30% and they stem from the meaning of tax-inclusive and tax exclusive. The sales tax in Florida is an example of an exclusive tax because it works of a preset base. If a person buys something for 1$ and pays a .30$ tax on it the sales tax is 30 percent because it is .30$ on the dollar. With the inclusive tax the item would cost 1.30 because the tax is included with the cost. The tax rate of 23% is calculated by

Using the data and your own economic knowledge, assess the case for financing universities mainly through charging fees to their students.

1. Law enforcement agencies seek for lawbreakers to create problems in which they are fined for crimes they have committed. They want this to happen in order to create fines for these criminals in order for the agencies to make a certain amount of revenue from the fines that the lawbreakers pay as a consequence of their actions. Some laws that law enforcement agencies set up in order to create this type of revenue off of lawbreakers include speeding tickets. The action of speeding can cause more good than harm because of the amount of revenue that speeding tickets can produce, compared to the amount of speeding related automobile accidents that people who

READ: Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science, Charles Wheeland, W.W. Norton, 2003. Completely- cover to cover.

12. What advice about investing in the stock market did you find most interesting and/or useful?

Explain the argument over whether or not this should be considered a tax instead of

Basic economic models assume that all parties have “perfect information.” How does “informational asymmetry” undermine our market economy?

What is the effect on the equilibrium price and equilibrium quantity of orange juice if the price of apple juice decreases and the wage rate paid to orange grove workers increases?

In this way, the Fed manages price inflation in the economy. So bonds affect the U.S. economy by determining interest rates. This affects the amount of liquidity. This determines how easy or difficult it is to buy things on credit, take out loans for cars, houses or education, and expand businesses. In other words, bonds affect everything in the economy. Treasury bonds impact the economy by providing extra spending money for the government and consumers. This is because Treasury bonds are essentially a loan to the government that is usually purchased by domestic consumers. However, for a variety of reasons, foreign governments have been purchasing a larger percentage of Treasury bonds, in effect providing the U.S. government with a loan. This allows the government to spend more, which stimulates the economy. Treasury bonds also help the consumer. When there is a great demand for bonds, it lowers the interest rate.

When I was first given this assignment I was extremely perplexed at how I would even begin to finish it. I had no idea how economics related to my life in anyway. I hadn’t thought about it critically and I struggling terribly. Thanks to some much needed help from a fellow classmate, he allowed me to get an idea of things from his own essay. After reading not one, but two other essays, I was so surprised at how oblivious I had been. I never realized that just about everything that goes on in my daily life is, in fact, economics. I never realized that from the things I buy to the money I earn from working is all economics. The things I miss out of while working or going to school is a complete opportunity cost. Or even