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Welcome to our classroom blog!  I sincerely hope you find this a valuable resource for information and sharing ideas.  Please remember to observe classroom guidelines on the blog but also understand blogs are often informal rather than formal writing assignments.

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The Cost of Inelastic Goods

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Many goods that are inelastic in terms of demand are ones that are essential or, in other words, necessary to one's self. There are several examples: basic foods, gasoline, or even medicine. I was interested in how producers can manipulate the prices of these goods and how the total revenue can change over time because those goods are inelastic. The first example I thought of was insulin. Considered inelastic because, without it, those who are diabetic might physically suffer, I looked at the price trends in the past couple of years. Just as I predicted, the price has been rising dramatically in the past decade or so as producers are taking advantage of the consumers' essential need for this good. There are about 7.4 million Americans that use insulin and many struggle to pay the costs of this increasingly expensive drug. So, while rising prices benefit insulin manufacturers, those same prices come at a serious cost for patients as the demand for insulin is inelastic. Other...
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The Economics and Psychology of Gambling

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As gambling around the world continues to increase, governments are starting to see these often self-destructive habits as a way to get money from their residents. Gambling has been seen as immoral and manipulative on the part of casinos, as well as pitiful on the parts of the people that gamble all their money away. It is seen as immoral and a “lazy way” to make money that isn’t even assured to get you anything. So what keeps bringing people back to the card table or slot machine? There are many theories about why someone would continuously gamble any money that they make to the point of landing themselves in debt. In many cases, the gamiling becomes an addiction, though many professionals have reservations on calling it that, that gets increasingly hard to kick. It is irrational for someone to continuously lose money and keep going back only to lose more. Or is it? The utility that some get out of gambling may feel like spending the money is worth it. As far as recreational ...
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The Hidden Monopolies of the World

 Monopolies are all around us in the world, and not all of them are  obvious on the surface level like Google and Facebook. For example, you might be searching for hotel rooms and browse multiple "competing" sites like Travelocity, Trivago, or Hotel.com. What you most likely do not know however, is that all three websites are actually all owned by the same company; Expedia group. This illusion of free choice is used to hide the fact that Expedia essentially hold a monopoly over the industry and all hotel bookings actually go through them. These fake competitors which are all owned by Expedia Group controls 75% of the US online travel agency industry, Similarly, apple fans and Microsoft fans stubbornly stick to their respective brands of computers; not knowing that the laptops all come from the same Chinese manufacturer. Throughout all types of industries such as the ones listed earlier and others such as smartphones, supermarkets, beer, and even sunglasses, hidden parent co...
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