Why do you like economics?
Learning economics helped me to make sense from what I read, but more important: it gives me the ability to see things 90% of the people don't see. No. I don't mean I can predict the stock market. This has nothing to do with economics. However, I can do the following: I can read the papers and know what is real news and what is a PR disguised as news. I know +80% of so-called news in the financial papers are there for a reason serving someone from this side or the other. I know what politicians are trying sell me as I know they speak BS. I know most politicians are not evil or liars. They are just illiterate on most financial subjects and living on partial information. I know that most of the 'social activists' saying "Scandinavia is communist/socialist and prosperous" but have no idea what they are talking about, thinking money in Scandinavia grows on trees and everyone is working less than 4 hours a day and cannot be fired. Except for Norway, where money actually DO grow on trees (or at sea, for that matter) I know that a free and totally unregulated market is a jungle and jungles don't tend to regulate themselves as some may argue. I know there are no free lunches when people are trying to sell me an investment with a "risk-free, 12% interest guaranteed" And a lot more. I personally think macro-economics is something that should go into high-schools curriculum. There is no need for all the freaky equations and formulas, just the basic logic and some graphs. This is something which is a national interest.
What is it like to major in economics?
Depending on what you study in Economics, it can be very enlightening or it can seem very abstract and inapplicable. I've also learned that, as is true in almost every academic pursuit, a good teacher can make or break your experience. With that said, economics allows you to apply a model or an understanding to something which at first seems like it could never be systematically or rationally explained. I am particularly intrigued by behavioral economics, experimental economics, and game theory, all of which bring insights into how people or firms behave in their interactions. Economics is a broad base of disciplines, and if you don't mind math and thinking logically, you're almost sure to find something that is interest of you. One thing I have noticed is that people often have a misguided sense of what economics is. When people ask my major and I tell them that it's economics, it usually isn't met with any type of enthusiasm, but rather with sarcasm like "well that sounds fun....". It's not so much discouraging, as much as it emphasizes that it's not always easy to find others who will share your passion or understand that you really aren't simply studying math and graphs, but rather studying the psychology of markets and of people as applied to their decisions regarding money, products, services, etc. You do learn a lot of interesting things along the way, and you might find yourself at the local Safeway having "ah-ha" moments-- things like "now I understand why these products are next to each other on the shelf", or "so that's why coke is more expensive than pepsi this week", or "so that's why I can't buy just one" or "so that's why I'm swiping my club card". As an aside, I can't say I've become a more responsible consumer, but I can say that I can realize the forces at work when I am enticed to buy a product. It's a pretty cool feeling.
What do you think of sharing economy?
Please note I am using the asset sharing definition (ex. Airbnb). Platforms where labor is the service shared (ex. Uber)…I am not too familiar with those. Peer to peer rental companies are part of the sharing economy, while labor on demand companies should be called gig economy.The sharing economy has its imperfections, and ‘sharing’ may be a marketing term; but it definitely will have a growing role in the overall economy. Capitalism is not a perfect system to allocate resources due to lack of information. An example of imperfect information is when you buy a used car. The owner knows a lot more about the car than you, so the negotiations favor the owner. People get ripped off, there is no trust…the end effect is that when a new car leaves a dealership after a sale, it immediately loses 20% of its value.The Internet made large amounts of information available to people. Now when you buy a car, sometimes its entire history is available, you can compare prices and…well, the system is still imperfect, but you get the idea.The sharing economy is the next logical step for applying the internet to fix shortcomings of capitalism. Namely, resource allocation and trust. We already produce enough for everybody, we just need to distribute it more evenly. The sharing economy platforms’ role is to create trust among users to encourage transactions that otherwise would not happen. Some of the value unlocked or that is going to be unlocked by the sharing economy:You now don’t have to pay for peak pricing when looking for a place to stayCars and motorcylces sit unused 98% of the time, and billions of people do not own eitherSame with boats, parking spots, RVs, heavy equipment and many other assets that are under utilizedFurthermore, luxury goods are becoming more specialized, expensive and varied, so that only the ultra rich can afford to own them all. The sharing economy provides broader access to these experiences.Ultimately, there are winners and losers like in any other industry where new tech disrupts existing participants. In this case, the winners massively outnumber the losers. I think that in the future you will be able to enjoy anything seamlessly in a single platform, and that there will be just a couple of competing platforms to do so.Disclaimer: I run www.riders-share.com, the motorcycle sharing platform
How do you like my essay "Is greed good for the U.S. economy"?
Greed is good for the US economy. The reason being is that more companies have been able to gain money through greed. It encourages innovation and allows anyone that is willing to work hard and invest in themselves through education can succeed. It is the only system where people can rise from poverty to become wealthy. In socialist societies the become two classes. There is minimal opportunity to work from one class to another. Here in us for example when you look at the fortune 500 many of the companies are less than 30 years old. We have Microsoft, Apple, and the Enterprises, etc. that were able to come from nowhere and grow quickly. With these new companies comes new jobs, opportunity, and economic growth in addition to efficiencies across the board making all of our companies more competitive. If there were no greed, this would not be possible. When you look into the past, we were able to do a lot with greed. We made it to the moon. We have the most technoligible phones around including the iPhone X. Steve Jobs made this company that made the iPhones by using greed to get this money. When you look into the future, Amazon is becoming even more significant than Wal*mart, because it is more convenient to humans and also Amazon is using greed to get more money than Wal*mart. Mars One is also planning a trip to Mars in the future using greed. This is all done by using greed.
Why do we need to study economics?
Studying economics will help you in many ways, specifics depend on what you plan to do in your life. By learning economics you should gain a better and bigger perspective on the stock market and your future 401K and other investment strategies. By studying economics you should gain better understanding of which politicians are full of ****. Of course this time it will be more than simply knowing when their mouths are open. there are MANY MANY more reasons by I would nee ALOT more time to list them than I have.
Do you believe the economy is in dire straits?
Why or why not? What do you see as the outcome of the current downturn? How are you directly affected, and what worries you about the state of the economy? Do you believe it can be "fixed"? If so, how?
How does Immigration affect the U.S economy?
The Hispanic American (all) spending in the United States, is the second largest economy in North America, Larger than that of Canada and Mexico. The Education Taxes in a school District are derived from Property Taxes, All those that reside in the District, own property or rent pay for their own children's education, The US Government pays for Federal mandated programs. For those that say, Undocumented do not pay SS taxes. Type into search Social Security Administration "suspense file" for unmatched SS#, Which is up to $550 billion now, in undocumented payments deducted from their pay by the SSA. The SSA derives $7 billion a year in SSA taxes and $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes. Immigrants undocumented and documented are making a big contributions to the Country's economy .
Do you like it that Iran's economy is struggling because Trump got us out of that accord?
Background Info: Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran Nuclear Deal, so we can now place (and have placed) a ton of sanctions on the Iranian economy which is a big factor in Iran’s struggling economy.I hope this is a troll question but anyway I don’t like the idea of Iran’s economy struggling. This isn’t because I’m supposedly fond of the Iranian government (ew) but the fact that about 80 million people live in Iran. Most of these 80 million Iranians are regular people who just want to live a good, peaceful, and prosperous life. Their struggling economy will only cause job layoffs, high inflation, expensive healthcare/food/goods, civil unrest, and increased poverty levels for the Iranian people.A little empathy for innocent people wouldn’t hurt, ya know?Secondly , the Iran Nuclear Deal or as you so eloquently put it, ‘that stupid accord’ was the best mechanism to limit Iran from building nuclear weapons. Our allies (France, Germany, UK) support this deal and not only did Trump pulling out of this agreement piss them off (woohoo another segment of Trump pissing off our allies : Episode 10000) but also there is no evidence that Iran was breaking the rules. However, the deal wasn’t perfect; But it is good that Iran is still complying with the Nuclear Deal (not like they have a choice since all the major powers will place tons of sanctions on their economy if they back out.)