What is economics?: How we make decisions with limited resources- What is Scarcity?: Not enough resources to make the things we want
- What are needs?: The resources we need for survival
- What are wants?: The products for comfort
- What are macroeconomics?: Larger levels; all paper, car, house, companies
- What are microeconomics?: Smaller levels; chevy, true homes, (one company)
- What's an economic model?: Theory; simple way of looking at life, idea of how it should work
- What to produce: fill a scarcity; think of the product
- How to produce: You have to have- skilled workers & people who go into it knowing what they’re doing.
Making Decisions:
- What is a Trade off?: The one item you didn’t choose
- Opportunity cost: all items time that adds to the thing chosen
- What’s “cost”?: all the money going out
- fixed: salaried employees
Factors of Production:
- entrepreneur: start and own a business
- natural resources: land; as you would find in nature
- labor: people in your company; the ones doing the work for a product to be produced
- capital: all the leftovers; pencils, rubber, everything involved- not natural or human
Sectors:
- consumer sector- a person who earns money at the factor market & spends at the product market
- business sector- companies that get money from product markets and produce items in the factor market
- government sector- collect money from other sectors; produce items in the factor market
- foreign sector- exchanging goods
- factor market- place where people work and earn money (factory)
- product market- place where money is spent on products (mall)
- promoting economic growth (increase productivity)- resources *s time = product
Economic systems:
- command- government makes all economic decisions and people have no say (ex: north korea- leader decides prices, peoples jobs, how much and what to produce)
- market economy- people make all decisions with no government interference (ex: L Luxenberg- supply and demand and control all decisions.
- capitalism- do anything for a profit and let the people work it out
- mixed- combination of command and market where people make decisions with government and help (ex: U.S.A.- can start any business you want but government will regulate it… “free enterprise”)
- traditional- follow old traditions and rules- no new technology (ex: hippies & amish people “U.S.A.”)
- import- we buy from another country
- export- we sell to other countries
- independence- all rely on each other
Trade/ Trade agreements:
- goal: gain goods/ producers- imports selling our products to another/ foreign market- exports
- trade- imports outnumber our exports
- trade surplus- exports outnumber imports we gain money
- balance of trade- we buy same number of imports as the amount of exports we sold- we broke even
- 1. you don’t lose money
- 2. maintain a good relationship
- trade embargo- other countries help cut off trade (target country)
- WTO- world trade organization
- european- organizes all the independent nations
- exchange rate- gives money a weight and tells people how much their money is worth
- NAFTA- north american free trade aggreement
- competition- keep crazy people and prices in check, best product for the best price.
Law of demand-
- law of demand- the higher the cost the less people want it
- law of supply- higher the price the more the company will produce
Change in demand-
- change in demand- population grows, demand goes up
- externity- unattended side effect
Change in expectation-
- substitute- competing/ replecant/ product/ have no effect on each other
- complement- products that work together/ when demand for one goes up the demand for another goes up as well.
- demand represents consumer
- supply represents business/ seller
Types of businesses-
- sole proprietorship- businesses owned by one person
(Advantages: get all the credit and money, there is no boss or rules for you to follow; Disadvantages: unlimited liability; you owe all debts
- partnership- businesses with two or more owners (hundreds of people) ; articles of partnership determine how many partners, how to buy in, how to sell out, who is responsible for what within the business
- corporation- the sale of stock- ownership in the company; chartership determines how many shops of stock we will have and board of CEO, directors (disadvantages: unlimited liability, business decisions are shared)
Unions and negotiations-
- collective bargaining union rep and the owner work out a new contract
- mediation- a third party listens to both sides then suggest who should happen
- arbitration- a third party listens to both sides and make them comply MUST DO
- strike- workers refuse to work and stand outside and talk poorly about the company
- boycott- workers refuse to and encourage customers to not buy the goods and services the company is supplying
- labor unions- groups of workers who ban together in order to get better pay and better working conditions
- knights of labor- fought for eight hour work days and higher wages
Types of labor unions-
- trade craft union- unite workers in the same job
- industrial union- unite workers with the same field