http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX7fqaxMfJQ&feature=g-hist
The link to the video above ( please bare with it being a music video ) shows some real life situations that economics plays a major factor in. Like how expensive movie theater popcorn is, or how Walmart can keep lowering their prices no matter how bad the economic climate seems. This post in particular means a lot to me since I plan on being an econ major ( well international economic affairs major but close enough ) and I have had trouble trying to explain to so many of my friends why they should care about economics. Most of them would say things like "well it's just not stupid to you because you understand it, if you were me you would think it is stupid too." , even if I explain that it effects their everyday life I get the same response. So hopefully this post will persuade one or two who read it and cement the importance of economics to anyone else who reads it.
Let's start off with girls who complain about how much their clothes cost but never seem to understand why they cost so much or how to not pay an arm and a leg for their clothes (not all girls but I'm sure anyone reading this understands the type of person I am talking about ) . There are 3 reasons economically speaking that cause those clothes to cost a fortune : 1. Girls ( maybe like the ones stated above ) raise the demand to a point where prices have to be raised because supply can't possibly keep up. 2. The stores who sell these clothes intentionally price them much higher than the point they'd be making profit , so they can "dazzle" everyone half way through the products life cycle by having something like a 50% off sale ( which ends up raising their profits even more because people rush out to buy them thinking this won't happen again ). 3. The competition for clothing isn't perfect and inferior goods are there just not wanted by some consumers , so that name brand clothing you (maybe you anyway) are paying for , is (possibly) just as good as the knock off, but the name brand is proven so you pay the extra 20-30 dollars just for the brand.
Since I am not sexist it's time to go on to guys , you know, the ones who go on dates then complain about how much everything costed ( because really all guys are cheap ) and don't realize they could have just as much fun ( with their significant other ) doing something that costs next to nothing ( like working out together ). So here are some details as to why ( economically speaking ) dates cost so much. There will always be young people and we all raise demand for goods related to dating ( movie tickets , dinner reservations, concession stand food ), you can easily avoid this raise in price though by going on dates when other people wouldn't normally ( like the middle of the day during the week). You will normally find at least a slight price shift in these locations ( like the movies being $7 instead of $9) because they recognize their primary consumers aren't planning on being there at that time so they slightly lower the prices waiting for the prime time for their consumer. Obviously this doesn't apply to every date location ( like restaurants with printed menus, they won't change the menu just for you to have 2 bucks off that salad you really wanted to try, unfortunately), but it does apply for many. As far as movie theater concessions go, during major box office releases most movie goers don't think about how their 9 or so dollars has to go to mainly people who aren't involved with that particular movie theater at all. So movie theaters help pay their overhead by having ridiculous prices on their food and drinks ( I know from personal experience a 16 oz. bottle of water at the griffin theater costs 4 dollars) , which isn't very popular with the theaters customers but necessary to keep it in business.
Being an incredibly microscopic look at how economics effects your everyday life I don't expect everyone to be convinced by just this. I hope it helped though and someone out there enjoyed it.
-confidence is the food of the wise man but the liquor of the fool
The link to the video above ( please bare with it being a music video ) shows some real life situations that economics plays a major factor in. Like how expensive movie theater popcorn is, or how Walmart can keep lowering their prices no matter how bad the economic climate seems. This post in particular means a lot to me since I plan on being an econ major ( well international economic affairs major but close enough ) and I have had trouble trying to explain to so many of my friends why they should care about economics. Most of them would say things like "well it's just not stupid to you because you understand it, if you were me you would think it is stupid too." , even if I explain that it effects their everyday life I get the same response. So hopefully this post will persuade one or two who read it and cement the importance of economics to anyone else who reads it.
Let's start off with girls who complain about how much their clothes cost but never seem to understand why they cost so much or how to not pay an arm and a leg for their clothes (not all girls but I'm sure anyone reading this understands the type of person I am talking about ) . There are 3 reasons economically speaking that cause those clothes to cost a fortune : 1. Girls ( maybe like the ones stated above ) raise the demand to a point where prices have to be raised because supply can't possibly keep up. 2. The stores who sell these clothes intentionally price them much higher than the point they'd be making profit , so they can "dazzle" everyone half way through the products life cycle by having something like a 50% off sale ( which ends up raising their profits even more because people rush out to buy them thinking this won't happen again ). 3. The competition for clothing isn't perfect and inferior goods are there just not wanted by some consumers , so that name brand clothing you (maybe you anyway) are paying for , is (possibly) just as good as the knock off, but the name brand is proven so you pay the extra 20-30 dollars just for the brand.
Since I am not sexist it's time to go on to guys , you know, the ones who go on dates then complain about how much everything costed ( because really all guys are cheap ) and don't realize they could have just as much fun ( with their significant other ) doing something that costs next to nothing ( like working out together ). So here are some details as to why ( economically speaking ) dates cost so much. There will always be young people and we all raise demand for goods related to dating ( movie tickets , dinner reservations, concession stand food ), you can easily avoid this raise in price though by going on dates when other people wouldn't normally ( like the middle of the day during the week). You will normally find at least a slight price shift in these locations ( like the movies being $7 instead of $9) because they recognize their primary consumers aren't planning on being there at that time so they slightly lower the prices waiting for the prime time for their consumer. Obviously this doesn't apply to every date location ( like restaurants with printed menus, they won't change the menu just for you to have 2 bucks off that salad you really wanted to try, unfortunately), but it does apply for many. As far as movie theater concessions go, during major box office releases most movie goers don't think about how their 9 or so dollars has to go to mainly people who aren't involved with that particular movie theater at all. So movie theaters help pay their overhead by having ridiculous prices on their food and drinks ( I know from personal experience a 16 oz. bottle of water at the griffin theater costs 4 dollars) , which isn't very popular with the theaters customers but necessary to keep it in business.
Being an incredibly microscopic look at how economics effects your everyday life I don't expect everyone to be convinced by just this. I hope it helped though and someone out there enjoyed it.
-confidence is the food of the wise man but the liquor of the fool
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