Brady's Eco Home

Ch. 15 Reflection: Unemployment Why will there always be at least some unemployment?  Give an example of a public policy that affects the unemployment rate.   One reason that there is always some unemployment in society is referred to as frictional unemployment. Frictional unemployment denotes the lag time between someone that is looking for employment and the time is naturally takes to match their unique skill and talents to the position best suited for them. This type of unemployment is neither positive or negative in my opinion, it is simply part of the process of finding a good job. However, if I had to pick one or the other, I believe that frictional unemployment could be seen as positive because it means that those searching for jobs aren’t just taking the first opening they find, but they are considering many factors related to their overall health and wellbeing. As well, employers aren’t hiring the first applicant that fills out an application, but they are consid...

Have you considered the trade-off between risk and return when making an investment? Most definitely, just about every time I make an investment of time or money. Most recently, my investments have been in real estate and have involved mostly time and a little money. In 2016, I decided to move back to my hometown. When I was looking for housing my mom asked if I would be interested in purchasing a house with her help and fixing it up together. This ignited a fire in me that I didn't know existed, I quickly developed a hobby for real estate investing. My grandma loaned us the money to buy the house with cash. My mom and I fixed up the house using some of grandma's money and some of mom's money. I put it more time than mom and we agreed to get a "cash-out refinance loan" to pay back Grandma with interest, and mom and I agreed that when we sold the property that we would split the profits down the middle. Two years later we ended up selling the house for a $30k prof...

Ch. 13 Reflection             There are many factors that affect our government deficit, interest rates for loans, and public saving habits. Chapter 13, Saving, Investment and the Financial System, goes into a lot of these issues and solutions. Public saving provides banks with money to loan to the public for investment in capital infrastructure such as the purchase of real estate or manufacturing equipment. The more that the public saves the more banks have to loan. When the stock market and interest rates on saving is high, the public saves more, thus creating more low interest loans for capital improvements. However, when the stock market performs poorly or when savings interest rates are minimal, the public saves less and less financial capital is available to loan, which sometimes correlates to higher interest rates on loans.              If the gove...

     What affects human productivity?  Does public policy affect the availability of resources people need to be productive?  How? Give an example of a public policy you think either inhibits or promotes long run productivity growth.  There are many diverse factors that contribute to human productivity, namely education and nutrition. Physical capital, human capital, natural resources, technological knowledge also contribute to human productivity. In addition, a stable political system, foreign investment, free trade, and private property rights also improve human productivity.  Public policy does affect the availability of resources people need to be productive, namely improved human capital of public education and health care. Physical capital can also be improved through public policy if for instance taxes were lowered on savings and investment in physical capital. Public policy that promotes long run productivity growth include better ed...

1.               How much can someone change the rate of inflation they face by changing what they purchase? Is this a serious overestimation problem with the CPI? Do you time your purchases around sales? Do you change your purchases because of sales?  Since housing and services like haircuts vary greatly depending on where I choose to live, I still need those services everywhere I go, so I will not be able to change the inflation rate of what I purchase depending on where I choose to live or what I choose to purchase. I think that CPI gives us a pretty good idea of inflation rates. I do time my purchases around sales, so that will give me some advantage over current retail prices but since I consistently shop sales every year, it will not change the amount that I spend each year relating to inflation. I do spend more money, more often when I see sales, but that has been pretty consistent in my adult life. The bigges...

1.        What is the difference between an intermediate good and a final good?  Why do we care? An intermediate good is either raw material or a part that is purchased to create a larger, more complex, more expensive item. Intermediate goods are not considered when factoring for GDP because the cost of all intermediate goods is wrapped up in the costs and sales of final goods which is recorded in GDP.        2.         Is GDP a good measure of well-being?  Why or why not?  What is missing?  Has what is missing changed over the years? (For example, if improvements in products are not counted, is that more important now than it was a few decades ago?)  GDP is a good measure of economic prosperity but in my opinion a mediocre measure of well-being. For instance, as Robert Kennedy once said, “(Gross domestic product) does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or...