My microeconomics text book cost me about 253 burritos from Taco Bell

I found this weeks discussion on relative prices both interesting and releaving. I found it interesting because I actually view the price of a prospective purchase in the form of hw much of something else I could buy with the same money. I was releaved to learn about relative prices, because for a while I sort of thought that I was the only one who viewed the price of a new TV in terms of cheeseburgers and tacos. As far as I can tell, the theory surronding relative prices seems to be pretty sound, that is if the price of one good goes down people buy more valuable things. A point that we touched on in class that didn't occur to me before for some reason, is that if you're budget consits of $1 tacos and $2 comic books and the price of tacos goes down enough so that you end up with $2 extra then normal, you might be inclined to spend it on antother comic book. I had always been confined to the thinking of spending a set amount of money on one particular good regardless of price, so that if the price on tacos went down, I'd simply end up with a bunch of tacos. I think I will deffinitly use this concept more consciencly and efficiently now that Ive learned a bit more about it. So the next time prices drop on something I was planning on buying multiples of, I'll stop and check my other options before I simply just buy more of the *discounted* good then what I had originaly intended.

“Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism”- Mary McCarthy

I enjoyed this weeks descussion in class on the concept of bureaucracies. I find it interesting how at the surface it seems to be the most rational and efficient way for governments and coorporations to opperate, a set of guidelines and procedures with a chain of command. What could go wrong? While it sounds like a good idea in theory, in practice it aint so great. Due to the nature of bureaucracies, no one person is really in complete control and no one individual stuck in the middle of the higherarchy has the authority to do what may seem to be more efficient or even simply what common sence would suggest at the time.In otherwords, regardless of efficiency,everyone involved has to abide by the rules set in place, they must follow procedure; regardless of whether or not they will actually accomplish anything by doing so. Thus, the inefficiency which employs well over 2,000,000 people continues on, becoming more and more pointless in a wonderful example of the snowball principle (number of federal bureau employees graciously provided by the bureau of labor statistics...isnt that just awsome?!?) . Another interesting thing we talked about in class was the major goal of any bureaucracy, not to actually accomplish what it was created for, but to simply continue existing...forever, in a perpetual state of pointlesness. Apperently they preserve themselves and try to grow by attempting to consume larger and larger chunks of the federal budget, with no regard for equalibrium points. Going back to the DOD defense satalite example we heard in class, even though we might only need $300 billion worth of satalites, if they can snach it up, the DOD (which is a part of the federal bureaucracy) would gladly spend $500 billion even though it is way past what is needed, or even beneficial. They seem to pay no mind to the concept of deminishing returns.

Why can't I dump nuclear waste in my front lawn?

This week in class we began talking about externalities; effects on those who are outside of a transaction. In other words effects caused by the producer or consumer and felt by someone who is not in either of thsese categories. I found it somewhat intuitive that one would expect a large company to pay for damages they caused to someone who had no stake in the matter at all. However, in my mind, it does bring into question some private property rights. If I own my own land in the middle of the city, and decide to build a small power plant on it and sell the power, but my manufacturing processes create massive amounts of air pollution then its pretty much a given that I'll be having quite a number of legal problems. And it seems logical that I would, afterall my business is causing people to breate in toxic air. However, if I own my own house and the land it sits on, why am I legaly required to get permits in order to build on an addition, or even redo a bathroom? I have heard the argument that this is to maintain standards for others safety, in otherwords: to prevent negative externalities. This is somewhat understandable, but then again I have to view this as an infringement on personal rights. Where do you draw the line with preventing 3rd parties from being harmed? As with all concepts in economics its easy to see the extremes, but as to where the balance is found?...its anybody's guess.

Taxation Without Accurate Representation

I personnaly found all the tax talk in class this week really interesting. I can recall watching the news in months past and hearing about different people's ideas for taxing . I think that in some respects, most of these tax types are valid and good ideas in some manner or another; howevers it seems as though there is a down side to all of them, someone always gets stuch with the short end of the stick (which seems to be a reoccurring pattern in multiple aareas of economic theory). At first glance proportional tax sounded the most reasonable to me at first, but when I considered that the flat rare would make more of a negative impact on lower incomes, it doesn't seem like the best idea. Then there's the progressive tax, where your taxes go up as your income goes up, which seems logical- those who make more can spare more, right? But yet again, problems can arise when you put that into practice, as it is harsher on higher incomes then lower. The most interesting I have have heard of is the marginal tax rate, which when I first heard of it I thought would be a horrible idea as it would create an incentive for people to be less efficient. At least that was the picture I got from the guys on the news networks. After Dr. Fleury explained it (and kudos to you for doing so, it makes a lot more sense to me now) it actually didn't seem too bad. The way I understand it now, it would appear to maintain both the fairness aspect of the flat rate, while still being reasonable for both higher and lower income households.