Week One Journal: People Face Tradeoffs

Every day of our lives, we make choices. Some of these choices are very difficult, while others might be so easy that they are subconscious. Each decision we make comes with a downfall. That is the next best option we could have chosen or what we call the opportunity cost of making the decision that we did!

There is an opportunity cost to every decision we make. According to our textbook, an opportunity cost is “The most desired goods or services that are forgone in order to obtain something else.” In the song “9 to 5”, Parton

Today, more than ever, there is great debate over politics and which economic system works the best. How needs and wants should be allocated, and who should do the allocating, is one of the most highly debated topics in our current society. Be it communist dictators defending a command economy, free market conservatives defending a market economy, or European liberals defending socialism, everyone has an opinion. While all systems have flaws and merits, it must be decided which system is the best for all citizens. When looking at both the financial well being of all citizens, it is clear that market economies fall short on ensuring that the basic needs of all citizens are met. If one looks at liberty and individual freedom, it is evident

Opportunity cost to me would be the cost of choosing one opportunity over the other but in reality neither choice is the wrong one but you do have to take into consideration what you are giving up when you make that choice.

Opportunity Costs are used to measure the costs of the resources. They can be defined as the cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action, or the benefits received by taking an alternative action, or, still, the difference in return between a chosen investment and one that was passed up. As example, the benefit of studying a MBA and spending money on it or save the money for future expenses, or better saying, using the money to pay expenses in daily basis.

"Utilitarianism is characterized by happiness and consequential-ism... Consequential-ism in utilitarianism is in the fact that an action must be judged for its consequences on the happiness of the largest number." (utilitarian philosophy. web) When it comes down to a tough situation, what would a utilitarian do? Now in this paper I will explain exactly what a utilitarian should do in a sticky situation and also explain the reasoning for their actions. For instance, what would a utilitarian do when it came to choosing between their own child or choosing multiple people's lives? The situation would be very difficult without a doubt in mind, but the utilitarians would stick to whatever would lead to the greatest overall happiness.

Opportunity cost as defined by Merriam-Webster.com retrieved March 23, 2016, from http://www.Merriam-Webster.com/dictonary/opportunity cost is “the added cost of using resources (as for production or speculative investment) that is the difference between the actual value resulting from such use and that of an alternative (as another use of the same resources or an investment of equal risk but greater return).” Opportunity cost can be defined as what you give up in order to do something, a choice between two things. Opportunity cost may be expressed in terms of anything which is of value to a person. Waggoner (2016), says that people have opportunity cost with every decision they make. An example is the time chosen to write this paper I gave up the time I

Making decisions can be easy at times when it does not require much thought; however, it can be complicated, especially when it involves people 's lives. If, for instance, there is a boat holding seventy-five people but it should only hold fifty in order to ensure the safety of the passengers and lessen the risk of the boat sinking, who will be asked to leave the boat? There are also one hundred individuals in the water whose lives must be considered; what can be done in a tight situation such as this one where time is not in your hands? It is important to remember only fifty people can be saved while one hundred and twenty-five individuals might die. This can prove to be a strenuous and gut-wrenching challenge. There are several different

On a more scientific level, in both the lectures pertaining to the “Emotion and Motivation” and the textbook readings pertaining to “Decision-Making”, we saw the numerous benefits of making decisions on the basis of emotions. Research suggested that we make less intransitive decisions when relying on emotions, and similarly we tend to make riskier decisions when not relying on our emotions as we become insensitive to future consequences. Keeping this in mind, what are we truly sacrificing when we decide to make decisions upon the reasoning advocated in the reading over our

The opportunity cost of an idea is what you give up in order to get it. Similarly, the opportunity cost of an activity is what you give up in order to do it. Your choices depend on opportunity costs which in turn depend on many factors including

Human wants are unlimited but the resources are limited. Therefore, it is not possible to fulfil all the human desires. As a result, scarcity arises. Scarcity is the condition where the human desires cannot be fulfilled due to the limitation of available resources. Hence, to fulfil one wish, we give up another which in economics is termed as the opportunity costs. Due to limited resources and due to unavailability, individuals and society are forced to incur opportunity costs. Opportunity cost is the second best alternative that one gives up. Due to the limitations of resources, human chooses the most viable options as per the benefits and costs.

benefits. When we make a decision we weigh up the costs and benefits and choose

Lets start with a small introduction to the topic Opportunity Cost. Opportunity cost is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the value of the next best alternative forgone (that is not chosen). It is the sacrifice related to the second best choice available to someone, or group, who has picked among several mutually exclusive choices. The opportunity cost is also the "cost" (as a lost benefit) of the forgone products after making a choice. Opportunity cost is a key concept in economics, and has been described as expressing "the basic relationship between scarcity and choice". The

“You will come to know that what appears today to be sacrifice will prove instead to be the greatest investment that you will ever make.” As Gordon B. Hinckley says, sacrifices can generate great rewards. It is however, the kind of sacrifice, the pros and cons of the sacrifice, and the situation surrounding the sacrifice that determine if it was a wise choose. Let us take a look at each of these factors starting with the types of sacrifices people are faced with making.

Failure to notice and invest in different opportunities results in what we lose in return for what we chose as an alternative, also referred to as opportunity cost. The scarce resources in the world today have caused societies to struggle in deciding which commodities to make, thus causing a shortage of certain resources that human beings gain high amounts of utils from. This is where opportunity cost takes its role, when human beings are faced with the choice of spending $200,000 for their sons first car or buying him a cheaper car costing them $32,000 which typically saves them $168000 that they can transfer into their second child's college fund or to a charity. Unfortunately, human beings tend to overlook the amount of money they could save and use for more beneficial things and in this case spoil their child with a car that will not maximize the parent’s utility.