Topic 12: Pizza for Pesos?

         After watching the video, I think the video related to our budget line because before Pizza Patrón start to accept U.S. dollar, some of the people might not able to pay for the pizza since they only have Mexican pesos. In other words, I think we can also say that for the people who only have pesos, they didn’t even have a budget line on the graph for buying pizzas before Pizza Patrón start to accept pesos. When they later started to accept Mexican pesos, almost all the Mexican can find their budget line on the graph since they are able to pay for the pizzas. In my opinion, I think the exchange rate for Mexican pesos doesn’t matter a lot, since Pizza Patrón set their exchange rate as 12 pesos, it doesn’t not change a lot throughout the everyday change of the value of money.

        The video later talks about the how this act became a hot debate about illegal immigration. People later call or mail to the company and criticize them. However, in my opinion, I didn’t think that an acceptation of other money is a big deal for the country; it is even better since it makes our life more convenient and globalize. If Taiwan can start to accept yen, dollars, or RMB, I think the economy might end up getting better since people can have more choice of buying thing not just using NTD.

Topic 11: Brand Names and Utility

When people are buying foods and some other normal goods, it is common that people will compare the price between one and other grocery store. Although some people might also base on that is the brand of the certain product, some of them actually only care about the quality can the price, which in my opinion is a correct choice of thinking. Right now the economy is not really well. If the buyers are still buy things that have a famous brand and expensive price, it will not be an efficient way to use your savings. For the people who determine to buy things by brands, they might get more utilities because of the brands, but now it might not be the right time for people to get more utilities by their money. For me, although sometimes I will buy products based on the brands, when there another item that has no brand and is cheaper, I will choose the cheaper one instead the product with brand. In an economic way to see this, sometimes even if I know the item with brands will not let me achieve maximum utility; I’ll still buy it. But if there is an substitute items right beside the item that gives me a lower cost, I will rather choose that and the demand of the items that has brand will decrease. Some of them for me might felt important to have brands and some of them don’t. For example, if I want to eat potato chips, most of the time I will first choose Lay’s, but not like “7-11 select”. In contrast, root beer and Dr.Pepper is the same for me. Same as 7-up and Sprite, it’s ok for me to drink either of them.

Topic 10: Consumer Preference and Utility - Skechers

Skechers accesses consumer’s utility through lots of media such as magazines, television programs, and commercials. They also use improve their appearance, and usefulness of the product to access consumer’s utility. Some of the advertising strategy will be magazine, TV programs and commercials to get people interested in. Skechers is aiming to step in different categories such as shoes that have a youthful look, skate shoes, sandals, boots, etc. In my opinion, maybe is because lived in Taiwan, I didn’t usually see this brand in Taiwan market. It is possible that because the competition between other brand of shoes. For example, Nike or Adidas might be the strongest competitor for them since it is really common in Asia market. Beside, it is not common to see Sketchers’ commercial in Taiwan’s media. I guess Skechers’ target market is not Taiwan but other countries. For me, I don’t usually be really picky on the type of shoes I wear. Therefore, for me the utility of wearing different kind of shoes is almost the same. The reason why I can have utility when I wear shoes is because it feels comfortable when I wear it, also it is normal for people to wear shoes when they are having class, going out, or  going to beach.

Topic 9: The Myth of Outsourcing's Effect

Just like the previous journal said, the definition of globalization is like a movement of a local good, services, trades, communications and other factor to the worldwide. The definition of comparative advantage will be the advantage for certain country that has the better technology, goods, or skills compare to other countries or the rest of the world. And the definition of outsourcing is to move the jobs or the works out to foreign countries and not the home country. The reason why recently companies start outsourcing relates to globalization and comparative advantages. Because of comparative advantage, companies send the jobs to other countries to get cheap labors, which might be one of the advantages for the country. People might think that it was a terrible idea since this might let a lot of people lose their job, but actually it didn’t. According to the video, it might seem like the opportunity of getting a job is decreasing in the past four years, but in fact if we see it broadly as past twelve years, there are 20 million more jobs that has created. Based on this we can say that the companies are being more efficient on how they are spending money by paying less wage on cheap labor in able to create more jobs on other important factors. Therefore, the production will be the same but there will be other new idea and technology be created from the additional money the companies have saved. In conclusion, if we didn’t have outsourcing, people might felt happy about their original job, but the economy will be not be as good as if we have outsourcing.

Topic 8: Debate on Globalization

Right now, the globalization of China and India has raised the standard of living the most compare to other countries. Some people might argue that since the companies will wants to stay their product cost as low as they can and switch the factory form developed to developing country, companies will take the advantage of getting cheaper labors. In fact, the employees might think this is the best job they can have; the problem is that the western standard was too high. The wage they got might go over the local minimum wage which might be better than other job.

        The definition of globalization is like a movement of a local good, services, trades, communications and other factor to the worldwide. The benefits of globalization can be the technological expansion, which makes the technology grow, more choices for the consumers, which might let the economy better, and other benefits. In contrast, the cons for globalization can be the effect of the local culture. Certain local culture might be destroyed by globalization because people getting used to adapt other country’s culture and give up their original culture. Another disadvantage for globalization is that the companies might be hard to control through globalization. Some international companies will want to avoid taxes by moving operations to less regulation of their home country, but thanks to some global organization, they can help creating the standard for the global and monitor compliance for each company.

Topic 7: Government Farm Subsidies

         I think that the action of the politicians to give farmers subsidies is just a way to get votes. Since according to the video, usually the subsidies go to the rich farmers, and also the subsidies will harm some of the farm business and force them to choose other job. I might sound good to get more and more subsidies from governments but in fact, the truth is that it might just harm more and more poor farmers to leave for a better job to survive.
        To explain in another way, according to the video, when the reporter kept asking why didn’t the politicians wants to also help the farmers for their other things, like some subsides other than farm use, the politicians either didn’t or barely answer the question.

        We can see this in a same way for college. Colleges and universities, including private ones, receive many benefits from the government. In my opinion, it is necessary to get some benefits from the government, but the amount should be appropriate since like the farmers. If some certain colleges get too much benefits from the governments, some of the poor colleges might end up can’t compete with other and close, which the gap between poor colleges and rich colleges will be bigger and bigger.