Economics Questions
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Discussions of question four
Question 1
Advertisements are all aimed at keeping one from thinking and instead make purchasing choices based on the emotional responses. Naturally, one does not make an informed decision when this happens because one is not prepared to think beforehand. As a result one will end up making a buying decision as a result of the advisement that is offered to him. One is normally passive and does not realize that the buying process is happening. There is no advisement that is more effective than the one that evokes an emotional feeling to the buyer (Arnold, 2013). The last time I experienced this kind of emotional feeling is in the movie theatre where I ended up buying theatre popcorn, regardless of its unhealthy characteristics and not mentioning the overpriced tag.
Question 2
Advisement is used by monopolistic competition to accomplish two major objectives. The first objective is product differentiation where firms go to the extents of informing their target buyers the physical differences of those particular goods from the comparable goods. Moreover, firms may also strategize their advertisement by creating some perceptions about such differences in the buyer’s minds (Arnold, 2013). When this happens, one can confidently conclude that product differentiation has been achieved.
Secondly, market control can be achieved when a firm successfully convinces the buyers, that a certain product is better than the competing brands. A firm could further go ahead and charge higher prices for such goods. This happens because advertisement greatly affects the demand facing a monopolistic competitive company (Arnold, 2013). Thus, one can clearly state that advisement also seeks to influence demand by increasing it and reducing demand elasticity.
Question 3
The United States is an economy that promotes competition because of the immense benefits. Competition has not only positive impacts to the final consumer through quality and fair prices, but also to the whole economy as a whole. Competition reinforces the internal productivity and also the international competitiveness of the business sector (Bensonko, Braetigam, 2010). Such sectors such as automobile industries have promoted dynamic markets in the United States and also strengthened economic markets.
Question 4
The government is quick to regulate monopolies and potential monopolies for the simple reason of consumer protection. It is important to note that monopolies have the market power to set higher prices in their goods or services than the competitive markets. Thus the government may regulate monopolies through yardstick competition, preventing the growth of monopoly power or through price capping (Bensonko, Braetigam, 2010). However, it is important to note such actions have some setbacks as the monopolies could argue that the government is too strict and actually hinder them from making profits. This was experienced through failed attempts to bring down Microsoft by the government.
Discussions of question five
Question 1
People in the United States have generally started caring about the environment. This is due some recent environmental backlash such as the global warming and other national climatic disasters that evolve out of a neglected environment. Most people in the developed countries continue to address and explore the issue of sustainable development to protect and preserve the environment for future generations. As a result, there is recycling of such resources as water where there are numerous water treatment areas and the use of fossil fuels in place of fuel wood (Salvatore, 2009). There are many movements such as the green movement that is global tree preservation and advocacy movement that is effective in its agenda.
Question 2
Due to population increases, there has been increased depletion of renewable resources such as water, vegetation and soils in the developing countries. Poor environmental factors have been attributed to the burden of death, diseases and disability (Salvatore, 2009). The resulting impact to the global map is increase in deaths and diseases. The environmental factors accredited for such negative impacts include, poor water quality, vector-borne diseases, poor ambient and indoor quality. One of the reasons why developing countries have failed in environmental sustainability is the fact that environmental goods and services are usually never marketed. As a result, they do not have prices that can be compared to the costs and benefits (Salvatore, 2009).
Question 3
In the society, there is a paradox about the government asking for more taxes while few people do not want to pay because of increased taxes. To finance additional responsibilities, the United States Treasury has limited options, but increasing the taxes people pay into their social security or cutting back on benefits. All of which will mean increasing the retirement age to 67. These reasons are enough to demonstrate my lack of confidence to the social security program of the United States.
Question 4
I am not confident that the social security programs will be running smoothly by the time I retire. This is because of the current worrying statistics. Currently social security is funded by payroll taxes, and numbers are rising. While the jobs are few, there are nearly 80 million people waiting to retire. As a result, the demand for benefits will steep rise to the level that the government cannot finance.
References
Arnold, R. (2013). Principles of Micro-Economics-7th Edition. Stanford. Cengage Learning.
Bensonko, D, Braetigam, R. (2010). Micro-Economics-4th edition. New Jersey. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Salvatore, D. (2009). Micro-Economics; Theory and Applications. New York. Oxford University Press