Topic 2: Scarcity at School?

  An example of scarcity that students of PAS encounter is sleep. Like everyone else on this planet, each and every individual gets 24 hours per day and for us students, that 24 hours is not nearly enough to satisfy all our desires. Sleep is often seen as secondary in comparison to all these other events students wanted to do and is often sacrificed. To gain enough sleep, students would have to give up other activities they enjoyed such as gaming and chatting.  A scarcity that office staffs may have to face is the scarce number of employees. Due to this reason, it becomes difficult for the office as a whole  to carry out assignments swiftly and quickly. To gain more office staffs, the office might have to give up more money from its budget. 

  As for myself,  I would like to have more  time to do sports. In order for me to do sports, I would have to give up studying time. Therefore, I try my best to find a balance between the two activities. What kept me from getting what I want is perhaps the scarcity of time. An example of the trade-off I've had to make is every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I would participate in the school's basketball team. Yet I would leave as soon as practice ends as opposed to some other girls who can stay a little longer and practice the materials we learned today. On a weekly basis, I traded 6 hours of my studying time for sports. So in other words, the opportunity cost for 6 hours of sports per week is 6 hours of studying time.  Another example is when the sports team goes to competition during school hours. I was absent from school for about two days. Simply put, I have traded two days of school for two days of basketball game. The opportunity cost is therefore, 2 days of school. 

Topic 1: Big Question.

Choices end up determining what, how, and for whom goods and services because scarcity forces people to make choices. The producers will look at previous histories and their own factors of production to decide what to make that will benefit them most and the consumers will look into the products to decide buying which products, since they obviously cannot buy all of them, will best satisfy their needs or wants. If PAS is an economy and everyone at PAS is a producer and consumer, the goods and services produced are probably the human capital of knowledge. Each day we attend school to learn knowledge that we can perhaps one day use in our future career. Knowledge is produced by both the teachers by teaching the subject and the students for learning it well. The goods and services are produced by a teacher teaching the class and a student learning and understanding the material. Tis service and goods are produced for any careers in the future looking to hire. The parents and the school's headmistress collectively make the choices governing what , how, and for whom this service will be produced.
As Adam Smith has proposed, sometimes the best way to make sure the economics of a society work is by doing nothing and letting in the " invisible hand" of self-interest guide the economy to the right direction. Choices made in the pursuit of self-interest can almost always promote social interests due to the fact that resources are scarce and most industries and persons are only limited to doing one thing. Therefore, in order to produce a final product, you will have to collaborate at some point. This, however, is not always the case. If the " invisible hand" becomes " visible" as in the case of monopolies, the public can suffer. PAS has decided to host a basketball event by using the 6th floor court and have multiple groups play against each other.This event is built specifically for high school students. In this event, the basketball team benefit from the entrance fee students pay in order to participate in the event. The students also benefit from being able to spend a joyous afternoon playing basketball. PAS also has a student-council run convenience store that make money by selling products bought in Cosco to the student body in general. The self-interest of the Student Council is satisfied as they make money from their sell and the self-interest of the consumers are satisfied as they can get their lunches there or just a cool drink. The two situations reflect the social interest of convenience in general. The student body wanted to buy things or play basketball quick and fast, and the student council and basketball team wanted to make quick and easy sells with high profits. So,  self-interest in this case satisfied everybody and benefited society in general.

Chapter 1 Questions

Section 1, pg. 11:
5. Describe how the owners of a coputer repair store might use the four factors of production to run their business.
The owner might use land by extracting raw materials such as tin and copper from mines. Human Labor would be involved in terms of both the factory workers that helped produce the final product from the raw materials and the sales persons working within the repair shop. All of the efforts and time these people spent are included as part of the labor . The repair shop would need some basic things such as electricity, tables, chairs, cashiers, other computers...etc. These things are all categorized under the " capital category". Human capital from the workers are also involved to get the job done. Finally, just as any other successful business, a successful repair shop would require excellent entrepeneurship. Someone who can put the land, labor, and capital into good use. Someone who can lead and make the business successful.

Section 2, pg. 17:
3. Think of some of the options you have for spending time after school-sports practice, hobby clubs, work, or extra study, for example. Which option would you have choose? What is the opportunity cost of your choice?
I would choose sports practice as I currently have, because I like to have some time to move around. The opportunity cost of my choice is probably extra studying time because that is what I would be doing if it weren't for sports practice.

Section 3, pg. 23:
3. What economics data does a PPC bring together?
PPC shows what is possible to produce from the limited amount of resources one has.. In other words, it illustrated how scarcity would affect production.

Section 4, pg. 31:
7. ( Making Inferences) How do you think politicians might use normative economics statements?
They might use it to support their political stance because statements that came from an economist can gives more credibility.

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