Anastasia's blog

High Speed Rail

2009-09-21T22:46:00.002+01:00

High Speed Rail is a type of rail transport that operates significantly faster than the normal railway: usually at 200 km/h or higher speed.
Generally, High Speed Rail is considered is a profitable transport system due to numerous advantages. Among them are:

- High Speed Rail can operate at non-stop system and run frequently, which is attractive to businessmen who may account for the large part of market for such trains.
- High Speed Rail trains can also operate locally and connect city centres, which is often impossible for airplanes
- The capacity of such trains is high which make them more efficient, some engineers argue that trains are 3 times more energy-efficient that aircrafts
- Lower energy consumption as well as reduced land usage compared to other means of transportation make High Speed Rail more environmentally friendly
-High Speed Rail reduces congestion and provides means of trasportation for countries with growing population as well as providing employment.
-In contrast to airplanes, WiFi and phone networks are available on such trains which is again attractive for potential consumers
-High Speed Rail can be engineered to emis less carbon dioxide
-Due to lack of requirement to check baggage and rare weather-related delays High Speed Rail is more convenient compared to other trasport and highly punctual.
- More comfortable for longer journeys that airplanes or cars and may carry excess passenges
- The possibility of collisions is eliminated and this system is easier to control, therefore is quite safe.
- High Speed Rail journey may include stops, which allows to open new markets.

However, there are a few serious drawbacks such as:

- High investment costs for both building new infrastructure and rolling stock allowing to roll at high speeds
- It is hardly flexible: it can't adjust quickly to changes in demand and even if it does it implies a considerable cost

P.S. Yes, i know that it was supposed to be an essay....

2009-05-13T20:39:00.002+01:00

a.) Laboratory experiments.

Strengths:

-You are able to control the variables e.g. make all of them constant except one.
-Controlling variable also helps to identify the nature of correlation: causative or coincidental.
-The results are easy to be quantified - represented in the form of numbers.
-Laboratory experiments are easier to replicate that field experiments.

Limitations:

-Difficult to apply such experiments to people as they may behave artificially, therefore results may be unreliable
-Experimental effect

b) Field experiments.

Strengths:

-This type of experiment allows to avoid artificial behaviour
-Easier to apply to people than laboratory experiment

Limitations:

-It is difficult to control the variables because such experiment is conducted in a usual social situation.
-The Hawthorne effect: if people are aware of being a part of experiment, they may act differently, therefore the results may be unreliable.
-Experimenter bias - the experimenter may have an unintended effect on those who are being studied and thus produce unreliable results.
-Ethical questions - should people be aware of being a subject of an experiment? Do they have to agree to do it?

c.) Comparative method.

Strengths:

-That method allows to investigate the causes of the particular events.
- Influence of variables can be estimated

Limitations:
Difficult to adjust the research to cultural differences e.g. difficult to compare things which may not be really alike.

nuclear family essay-question

2009-05-04T21:46:00.006+01:00

e) Use material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the view that the nuclear family is no longer the norm.

2B item -A popular image of the family has been the 'cereal packet' nuclear family norm of a married couple and two children who are the couple's biological offspring. The husband is the main breadwinner and the wife is primarily concerned with housework and childcare.It could be argued that this nuclear family is no longer the norm. A number of changes have taken place, such as the rise in the number of same-sex couples and of lone parents. these have resulted in families becoming much more diverse.However Somerville (2000) argues that these changes are exaggerated. The apparent diversity of family life is based on a snapshot at any one time and, if a life cycle approach is taken, many people have a fairly conventional experience of the family.

Nuclear family is a traditional family that consists of a husband and a wife and one or more children, which can be either own or adopted. In such family husband is usually a breadwinner, while wife is responsible for the housework - the so-called 'cereal packet' family (Leach, 1967). Murdock (1949) argued that nuclear family is a 'universal social grouping' which can be found in all societies. However, as the article suggests 'a number of changes have taken place' and the family became more diverse in the recent years.

Firstly, with more and more people entering the higher education and becoming more independent from parental control, there has been a rise in cohabitation (non-married couples living together). Also, the social attitudes have changed and cohabitation is no longer sin as 'living in sin'.

Besides, changing in economic position of women and individualisation (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim) allowed women to divorce and raise their children in lone-parent families. As the statistics suggests, the majority of divorce petitions were brought by women - around 70% (Population Trends), as well as the majority of lone-parent families headed by women (over 90% in 2006).

Government and social policies have also had an effect on the family structure. With several laws and acts, such as the Divorce Reform Act of 1969, divorce was made much easier. Civil Partnership Act of 2005 has also allowed a new type of family - same-sex family- to develop.
Moreover, Young&Willmott suggested new stage of family - the symmetrical family, where the conjugal roles were increasingly similar. However, this was critisized by feminists, who argued that women are still responsible for cooking and cleaning.

Even though there is a lot of evidence for the decline in nuclear families, New Right perspectives suggests that this type of family is the only one which is acceptable for the society. Dennis and Erdos argued that lone-parent families fail to provide an adequate socialisation and young people may be brought up anti-social and irresponsible.
Furthermore, as the article suggest, the changes in family structure may have been exaggerated. O'Brien argues that living in nuclear family is the stage that most people go through in their lives. This may also be supported by evidence: the majority of British children in 2006 (around 76%) lived in such families.

Summarising what was said before, there was indeed an increase in family diversity, which creates a concern whether the nuclear family is still a 'norm'. But it is difficult to judge, as even with the increase in other family types, the nuclear family still remains the most common type of family, supported by both Functionalist and New Right perspectives.

sociology homework that should have been done by 14th of April ))

2009-05-02T22:51:00.008+01:00

Family and Households Questions.

a) Explain what is meant by the expressive role?
b) Suggest two ways in which 'family life may have a harmful effect on women'
c) Suggests three reasons for the decrease in the death rate since the 1900
d) Examine the ways in which childhood can be said to be socially constructed.
e) Use material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the view that the nuclear family is no longer the norm.

2B item -
A popular image of the family has been the 'cereal packet' nuclear family norm of a married couple and two children who are the couple's biological offspring. The husband is the main breadwinner and the wife is primarily concerned with housework and childcare.

It could be argued that this nuclear family is no longer the norm. A number of changes have taken place, such as the rise in the number of same-sex couples and of lone parents. these have resulted in families becoming much more diverse.

However Somerville (2000) argues that these changes are exaggerated. The apparent diversity of family life is based on a snapshot at any one time and, if a life cycle approach is taken, many people have a fairly conventional experience of the family.

a) Explain what is meant by the expressive role?

Expressive role - role of the homemaker, caring for the family members, which is usually done by women.

b) Suggest two ways in which 'family life may have a harmful effect on women'.

Unequal gender roles (as men usually act as decision maker and are less responsible for the housework) and domestic violence (as women are more likely to be the victims).

c) Suggests three reasons for the decrease in the death rate since the 1900.

Decline in poverty, rise in the number of government policies aimed at improving the welfare of people, advance in medical treatment

d) Examine the ways in which childhood can be said to be socially constructed.

Childhood is said to be socially constructed due to several reasons.
First of all, the main argument for considering childhood as being the product of society is that the length of childhood and the way the children are treated vary from society to society. For example, Firth carried out a research on some societies where children were responsible for dangerous tasks. This is obviously not common for the modern Britain.

Another argument that supports this statement was proposed by Aries (1962), who argued that the development of the concept ‘childhood’ began only in the 16th century. He based his argument on the evidence of the letters, diaries and paintings, which suggested that children and adults were treated in a same way in the medieval Europe. However his research was criticized as being unreliable.

Moreover, Bukatko and Daehler provided the evidence that in the medieval Europe children were actually seen as different from adults in certain aspects, namely in the aspect of marriage: there were laws prohibiting the marriage for under 12s.

Also, another argument for the childhood being socially constructed is the two images of the childhood indentified by Rogers in 2001. The first one ‘the welfare view’ suggest that children need protection and the children welfare should be the primary consideration. Another one, ‘the control view’ sees children as unable to control themselves and needing regulation.

However, both of these views are argueable as some adults need to be treated in the same way. Lee (2001) identifies the change in the social construction of childhood where the distinction between childhood and adulthood becomes less obvious and suggests the evidence in the form of increasing divorce rates. Neil Postman (1983) goes even further in his argument by suggesting that childhood is disapperaing in the modern society under the influence of media.
This view may also be criticised as there are many laws protecting the childhood from violence as well as the ‘water shed’ which protects them from the ‘adult world’.

To conclude, there are numerous researches proving that the childhood is a social construction, while the biological form of childhood is supported by little evidence.

e) will update this one later.

exam reports homework

2009-04-27T21:50:00.007+01:00

[sorry for not posting for so long, but now i have my laptop back and i can do some homework]

I've read and summarised economics exam reports for units 2881, 2882 and 2883 from 2006 to 2009.
Most of the errors were repeating from year to year so here is advice on how to avoid these common mistakes:

Geveral advice:

1. avoid giving too general definitions e.g. giving definition to the economic problem it is not enough to say ‘how, why and for whom’ production takes place.

2. do not be too general in approaching questions that require an exact answer

3. real world examples are always good to use where relevant

4. do not make too much analysis, when not required

5. always use economic terminology

6. do not repeat the answers from previous mark schemes and do not use pre-prepared answers - develop your own answer

7. make sure you look at the two sides of the problem where required - e.g. costs and benefits

8. make the sufficient use of the data if the question requires you to use it

9. do not answer all questions if required to answer one - and do not mention several examples if question asks you to explain one in detail.

10. last questions require more elaboration e.g. not only state the problems, but also explain why these are the problems

11. if you have drawn a diagram make sure that you refer to it

12. when explaining the diagram consider the direction of change e.g. use words 'increase' and 'decrease' not just 'change'

13. make sure your handwriting is neat - examiners often mention illegible handwriting in the reports

14. use a ruler for your diagrams - this was mentioned in reports as well.

15. bear in mind that if too many candidates are doing well in particular question, examiners are likely to be more strict in order to differentiate - so do not do the bare minimum.but at the same time do not go into details in the first questions (unless required).

16. do not confuse macro- and microeconomic analysis. try to use only microeconomic analysis for Unit 1 and macroeconomic for Unit 2.

17. do not twist the words in the question and attempt to answer a different question

18. quality not volume tends to be rewarded with a Level 4 mark.

19. but at the same time do not give short answers for the last questions and explain your answers rather than just assert points.

20. showing better understanding of the subject beyond the syllabus is often praised

21. always indicate if your answer is continued on the back page/somewhere else

More specific advice (based on the most common mistakes candidates made in 2006-2009):

1. demand can be defined as the amount of good people are able and willing to buy, not just want.

2. consumer surplus is not where 'demand exceeded supply' it is the amount that the consumers are willing to pay over the market price.

3. when asking to explain the economic problem relating it to your OWN circumstances focus on the individual, not on the events happening in the world.

4. talking about monopoly characteristics: write not only 'barriers to entry' , but 'high barriers to entry', not 'profit maximisation' but 'long run excess profits'.
for oligopoly do not use just 'small number of firms' but 'small number of large firms',

5. make clear distinction between private and social cost, sometimes it is not that simple to decide on the type of cost.

6. distinguish between information which indicated rates of change and that which represented absolute figures e.g. GDP per capita and annual percentage change in GDP

7. do not focus only on disadvantages/costs - make sure you mention benefits (as candidates often pay far too much attention to costs/disadvantages)

8. defining maximum/minimum price: do not forget to mention 'legal backing' (set by the government)
remember that maximum price set above the equlibrium and minimum price set below the equlibrium will have no effect.

9. distinguish between:

• production and productivity

• monopoly and monopolistic competition

• price and cost

• social cost and external cost

• monetary policy and fiscal policy

• rivalry and excludability

• PED and YED

• internal value of money and exchange rate

• shifts and contractions of the curves

• monetary policy and monetary policy measures (or any other police)

10. when defining the unemployment rate, unemployment rate is not the percentage of unemployed in population, but rather that of labour force

11. if a country produces more products, that doesn't necessarily mean it will export more.

12. do not confuse 'fall' with 'low', 'rise' with 'high' e.g. if inflation has risen it is not necessarily high.

13. when you are asked to give 2 examples, avoid using those which are alike in meaning

14. make sure you have all the knowledge required about aggregate supply - do not focus on aggregate demand only

15. be prepared for uncommon questions such as 'describe the relationship between real GDP and tax revenue'

P.S. Some advice given by the examiners themselves:

Some recommendations to candidates:

• Answer the actual question set, not the one you wish had been set.
• Read the questions very carefully. You may want to highlight the key words in the
question.
• Explain the points you make – do not jump stages.
• Practise applying AD/AS analysis in interpreting economic events and answers.
• In answering the last question, it is useful to analyse first and then evaluate.
• Make sure that you explain fully the evaluative points that you make.

• Stress to candidates the importance of reading questions very carefully, including
command words and answering the specific questions set.
• Urge candidates to attempt all questions.
• Prepare candidates to apply their knowledge in a variety of settings.
• Build up depth of analysis of causes, consequences and solutions to macroeconomic
problems.
• Ensure candidates are aware of the differences between fiscal, monetary and supply-side
policies.
• It is useful to encourage candidates, when answering the last question, to analyse first and
then to build on the analysis to evaluate.

source

microeconomic essay

2009-03-19T20:10:00.011Z

Discuss three policies to reduce the level of cigarette smoking amongst under 21s.

Smoking is an example of a negative externality (a negative effect on a third party) as it leads to health problems, lower life expectancy and pollution, which therefore affect the whole society (even non-smokers, for example, through passive smoking). Social cost of smoking exceeds private cost (social cost is estimated to be around $200 for a pack of cigarettes, while a pack costs $8), so we can conclude that smoking is an example of market failure. Thus, it may be corrected by government intervention.

In this essay I am going to talk about policies to reduce youth smoking (35% of 16-21-year-olds) particularly.
I would say that there are two types of policies to reduce the level of youth smoking: providing incentives not to smoke and banning/increasing the private cost of smoking. These policies, however, can be used together.

First of all, government may increase cigarette tax and the expected effect of this is shown on the diagram below:

Price goes up from P1 to P2, quantity reduces from Q1 to Q2, over-consumption seems to be reduced.

The problem with this policy is the fact that the demand for tobacco products is price inelastic: estimated elasticity is -0.5.
( source: 'The Demand for Tobacco Products in the UK by Paul Cullum' )

That means that people will continue the over-consumption of tobacco products in spite of tax burden (which accounts for 90% of the price of cigarettes in the UK).

Moreover, putting tax on cigarettes is not sufficient: in order to be effective in correcting market failure arising from tobacco consumption government should tax all tobacco products.

This tax will also produce inequality: low income people will be taxed for larger percentage of their income comparing to middle and high income people. - - -> government failure

Too high tax may also produce black market for cigarettes - -- > government failure

The last problem with this policy I can think of is the fact that it is difficult to calculate the right amount of tax: if tax is too high, government tax revenue can actually decrease as few people will continue to consume cigarettes for that price. - - -> government failure.

Second policy is correcting information failure: providing young people with right information about tobacco products, advertising.
This method seems to be effective as it shifts the demand for cigarettes to the right, but in order to reduce assymetric information, tobacco companies' advertising should be banned.

And the third policy to reduce youth smoking is subsidising tobacco substitutes such as anti-smoking patches, anti-smoking gum or electronic cigarettes (safety of these cigarettes is argueable though).

Subsidy decreases the price for safe tobacco substitutes from P1 to P2 and inreases the quantity sold, which means less tobacco products are consumed.

However, this policy is going to be effective only in combination with the second one as young people are unlikely to consider any products as substitutes for tobacco, because of the information failure.

Eventually, the last problem which arises from all of these policies is tobacco companies losses: if policies are effective, people will stop the consumption of tobacco and tobacco companies will have to decrease their output. Demand for labour is a derived demand for product, therefore as the demand for cigarettes falls, unemployment may rise. - - - > government failure.

sources:
http://www.the-tma.org.uk/tobacco-smuggling.aspx
http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/publications/smokingeng2006/Smoking%20bulletin%202006%20-%20Finalv3.pdf

sociology researchers on education

2009-03-12T20:43:00.003Z

A list of researchers with different views on education.

Functionalists:
Emile Durkheim.
-The main function of education is to develop social solidarity ( social unity based on 'essential similarities' between members of the society), which is necessary for the survival of the society
-Specialised division of labour in industrial countries relies on the educational system.

Talcott Parsons.
-Educational system is the main agency of secondary socialisation.
-Education develops value consensus.
-One of the main functions of education is role allocation - evaluating young people in terms of their talents and abilities and preparing for future roles in wider society.

Marxists:

Karl Marx.
-Economic system shapes the rest of the society.
-Two classes: ruling and working, the former exploits the latter.

Althusser.
-Educational system is the main agency for ideological control, which at the same time is fundamental to social control.

Bowles and Gintis.
-Close correspondence between social relationships in a classroom and those in a workplace.
-Rewards in education and occupation based not on individual's ability but on a social background.
-Found that high-grade students are obedient, conforming, hard-working and dependable rather than creative, original and independent.

Wills.
-'Lads' (working class young men) rejected the school and created counter-school culture.

Mac an Ghaill.
- 'Macho lads' rejected teachers' authority and values of the school. However, working class jobs were disappearing, so their behaviour was outdated.

Rikowski.
- There is a beginning of a 'business takeover of schools', schools will be run for profit.

Feminists:

Stanworth.
-Provided the evidence that teachers gave boys more encouragement than girls to go to university. (1983)

Social-democratic:

-Stated that everyone should have an equal chance to succeed in the educational system.
-Argued that there is a link between education and economic growth.

Halsey.
-Social class has a significant effect on educational attainment.
-Educational system is not providing equa opportunity for all young people.
-Educational system reflects the requirement of the economic system.

Collins.
-Education makes little difference to the economic growth with the achievement of mass literacy. Companies provide their own training.

Brown.
-Economic and technological growths requires flexible workforce with a good general education rather than special vocational training (education which aims to provide specific workplace skills).

...to be continued....

BoP revision mind map

2009-03-06T21:44:00.005Z

IB vs. A-levels

2009-03-01T23:16:00.006Z

Is the IB Diploma Programme a realistic alternative to A levels?

To answer this question let's first find out what are these two programmes.

1. A-levels (The Advanced Level General Certificate of Education) is a qualification offered by education institutions in England, Northern Ireland and Wales and by a small minority of institutions, typically private, in Scotland...<....>.....A-Levels are usually studied over a two year period and are widely recognised around the world. (wiki)

2. The International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme is a challenging two-year curriculum, primarily aimed at students aged 16 to 19. It leads to a qualification that is widely recognized by the world’s leading universities. (source)

So we can see that both programmes are primarily designed for people aged 16-19 years old and are accepted worldwide.

However, after investigating some websites, I came to the conclusion that International Baccalaureate appears to be more respected, than A-levels programme : 'Under the tariff, a common IB score of 30 gives a candidate 419 Ucas tariff points against just 360 for three As at A-level.' (source)

Why does this happen and what are the main differencies between these two programmes?

A-levels programme offers a wide range of subjects (more than 100) from which you should pick at least 3 to be able to enter a university. However, there is no limit of how many A-levels can be studied.

IB Diploma Programme offers around 100 languages and 29 other subjects. Each student should choose one subject from each of the categories:
1. Language A1
2. Second Language
3. Individuals and societies (Life Sciences)
4. Experimental sciences
5. Mathematics and computer science
6. The arts

So, it is clear that A-levels is a much more specific programme and more flexible, which allows students to concentrate on the subject area they prefer and choose any subject they like. There is almost no subject that is not covered by A-levels programme (except for languages).

International Baccalaureate is more broad, but it allows students to develop their abilities in all subject areas. IB Dimploma programme also requires to have 150 hours CAS (Creativity, Action, Service), write an extended essay of 4000 words and undertake a theory of knowledge course, all of which is a great preparation for university success. However, A-levels are thought to be less stressful.

International Baccalaureate is more internationally oriented, as it is offered in 126 countries and a great number of its subjects are different languages.

Average IB pass rate is much lower (78%) than this of A-levels (around 98%). Some argue that this happens due to relatively low standarts of A-levels or due to the fact that too many pupils taking 'easy' subjects.

However the research shows that A-levels programme requires learning subjects in more depth, and 'the kind of performance meriting an E was similar to that required for 4 points and that that needed for an A was comparable to that needed for 7 points' (source).
Remember, that A-levels are graded from A to E, and IB subjects are graded from 1 to 7. So the knowledge required to pass an IB subject is not sufficient to pass this on A-levels programme.

Eventually, what is the final answer to the question posed? When I started to write this blog entry my opinion on IB programme was rather negative, because I thought that it has too many restrictions on the subjects chosen.

But having analysed advantages and drawbacks of both programmes, I've come to the conclusion that IB allows students to try themselves and gain at least basic knowledge in all subject areas and develop necessary skills for university success. So, the answer to the question whether the IB Diploma Programme a realistic alternative to A levels is definitely yes.

educational achievement

2009-02-24T20:29:00.003Z

Factors that affect educational achievement:

Cultural deprivation.

Cultural deprivation can be defined as 'the absence of certain expected and acceptable cultural phenomena in the environment which results in the failure of the individual to communicate and respond in the most appropriate manner within the context of society.' (source)

In simple words and relating it to educational achievement, cultural capital is an absence of appropriate skills for successful studying and attitude towards learning.

Working class children are more likely to suffer from cultural deprivation than those of middle class and this can be explained by the way children are brought up in such families. They are not encouraged to study better, they are not aiming to go to the university afterwards. Working class families are also less likely to encourage such activities as visiting museums, theatres, reading books, playing educational games.

According to Hyman, ' the working class have a self imposed barrier against education.'

Cultural deprivation also means lаck of certain nоrms (rules оf behaviоur in sоcial situаtions), vаlues (belief thаt sоmething is wоrthwhile), which leads to misbehaviour and educational under-achievement.

Family break-up may also be the cause of cultural deprivation. According to Murray, wefare dependency and single motherhoоd have become part of a culture that threatens to destrоy family life and social mоrality.

Another point worth mentioning is that educational system is mostly contrоlled by middle class people, which means they may be viewed more pоsitively, and thus it deprives working class.

Material deprivation.

In relation to edcuation material deprivation happens when individuals or households are unable to affrord materials or activities which are essential for successful study. It is worth higlighting that material deprivation refers not only to the lack of educational materials, but to the living standarts as well. For example, if family can't provide appropriate accomodation for themselves it will have an impact on their children's process of studying.

Another definition for the material deprivation: 'enforced lack of a combination of items depicting material living conditions, such as housing conditions, possession of durables, and capacity to afford basic requirements.'. (source)

Material Deprivation can be presented in three dimensions:

Cultural capital.
Has already written about this one here.

sociology brief notes part 2

2009-02-22T01:13:00.000Z

Meritocracy. The term 'meritocracy' was first used by Michael Young. Meritocracy is a social system where leadership is based on individual achivement, abilities and talents rather than on one's class, wealth or origin.

Social control. Social control is represented by different social mechanisms aimed to regulate the behaviour of social groups and individuals, providing social order and conformity.

In Social Control Theory, Ivan Nye (1958) introduced 4 types of social control:

1. Direct: by punishment and rewards for the appropriate behaviour
2. Internal: an internal control wherein individuals are driven by their sense of conscience or sense of guilt
3. Indirect: an internal control driven by the individual's need to please those whom he is closest to.
4. Needs of satisfaction: if all individuals' needs are met, there is no point in criminal behaviour

(source)

The Hidden Curriculum. This term was first used by Philip Jackson (1968). He argued that what is taught in school is more than the official curricuum: school should be understood as a place where the processes of secondary socialisation happen.

Definition by Michael Haralambos: 'The hidden curriculum consists of those things pupils learn through the experience of attending school rather than the stated educational objectives of such institutions.'

(source)

Hierarchy. Hierarchy can simply be defined as an arrangement of items. But in the sociological context the word hierarchy usually has a meaning 'power structure' or 'the establishment of dominance-subordination relationship'.

This is just an example of Social Hierarchy (the occupational hierarchy in the formal labour market):

sociology brief notes

2009-02-19T19:23:00.004Z

Cultural Capital.
The idea of 'cultural capital' was first introduced by Pierre Bordieau (french sociologist). He argued that economic inequality is not sufficient to explain distinctions between social classes and cultural capital is important in achieving high status in the society. 'Bourdieu reasoned that culture adds to the wealth of a particular class.'

We need to distinguish between 3 forms of cultural capital:

1. an embodied state - when cultural capital can not be separated from an individual and transmitted physically.It is often gained from primary socialisation .

2.an objectified state - when objects themselves function as cultural capital and can be transmitted physically. It can only be used by individuals having the correct form of the embodied capital.

3.an institutionalized state - when individual's embodied capital gain an objective value. 'Bourdieu suggests that institutionalization performs a function for cultural capital analogous to that performed by money in the case of economic capital.' (source)

Also, Cultural Capital can generally be defined as a combination of skills, education, personal advantages of an individual. (source)

sociology homework

2009-02-15T21:13:00.005Z

Why do some pupils achieve more than others?

As we all know, there are always inequalities among pupils' achievement: some of them hardly get 3 GSCE's, some of them pass 10 with As. But these inequalities may take place due to different reasons.

Some of the reasons become clear after looking at the statistics: for example, girls tend to achieve more that boys. Girls are brought up to be more modest and behave well, while boys tend to be more active and even aggressive, which, of course, affects their performance at school.
Boys are approximately 7 times more likely to be excluded from school than girls due to their bad behaviour, as the statistics says.

Another important point is that parents often expect girls to do better than their brothers, parents put the responsibility of being 'a sensible pupil' on a girl rather than a boy.
However, according to my own experience, I'd say that boys are more clever than girls on average. Girls perform better at subjects asking to remember and retell information while boys are better at interpreting information.

The second thing that affects pupils' achievement is the existence of peer groups, in some of which under-performance at school may be considered as 'normal' or even 'cool'.

As you can see from the bar chart below, there is a tendency of pupils of higher classes to achieve more than those of the lowest classes.

But why is the correlation between the family income and children performance is so strong?
I guess, that is because children of higher and middle class families have larger access to educational sources (e.g. computers with internet access, educational toys, textbooks) and they can afford to go to private schools and hire private tutors.

Child from low-income families may have part-time jobs as well as problems within their families (alcoholism, domestic violence), which prevents them from achieving educational standarts.

People from middle and upper class tend to live by principle 'work today for better life tomorrow', while the situation with low class families is rather the opposite.

I can also outline 'labelling' as a reason for inequality in pupil's achievement. Teachers often label children as good or bad performers, sometimes without any reason for that ( for example, a quite and peaceful girl may be labelled as 'clever' without really being so). Pupils labelled as 'bad' will continue to perform badly, while 'good' pupils try to impress teachers even more.

The way pupils are taught may also influence their performance at school, for example single-sex schools/ordinary schools, size of the classes make difference as well as teacher's actual interest in subject and the ability to teach it and make pupils interested and involved in the process of thinking.

Moreover, exams are created in a way that often leaves only one way of thinking of a subject and we are, of course, taught not to really learn the subject but to perform well in an exam. That is the problem for people, whose find it difficult to think in a one 'right' way, proposed by examiners and teachers.

Having said all of that, I'd like to add that the problem of inequality in school achievement can not be investigated only on a large scale - that is also the problem of individuals. And if educational policies have effect on general problems, these 'personal' problems can be solved only by individuals themselves.

Outline the importance of perception in Economics

2009-02-09T23:03:00.003Z

The perception is a very important aspect of Economics, as it can bring significant changes both in a positive or in a negative way.
For example, if people perceive the economic state of the country as strong enough ( even though it is not really so) that may increase their confidence, they will tend to spend more, invest more, borrow more, businesses will produce more and eventually that will lead to the faster economic growth and the general economic state improvement.
That is one of the reasons for the governments to prevent their citizens from getting news and information from international sources as it is, for instance, in China.

On the other hand, an interesting example is the current financial crisis. People's perception of the economic situation was affected by media, which 'advertised' crisis wherever it was possible. Many advertisements like 'Credit Crunch? Everything is down by 20% now!' have appeared. People are afraid of losing their jobs, as 'their colleague's relative's friend was fined because of the credit crunch' and begin to panic. Some economists argue that this lack in confidence make the crisis worsen.
The proof for that is that even different policies such as VAT rate cut and interest rates cut did not really increase consumers' spending.

Another example is people's tastes and preferences. Switzerland banks are thought to be the 'safest', British higher education to be the best, Italian clothes as the most fashionable - all this things affect the world export and import, advertising etc.

feminism

2009-02-09T00:13:00.005Z

Contrast liberal feminism, radical feminism amnd Marxist feminism.

Marxist feminists believe that capitalism and the power of classes predate sexual oppression. They claim that women discrimination exists because it benefits the capitalist society and that with the abolishment of class oppresion, sexual oppression will disappear as well.

Radical feminists, in contrast to Marxist feminists, see sexual oppression as a fundamental form of oppression, predating any other. In other words, they believe that woman is oppresed because of her sex and not as a member of a social class. Radical feminists see the reconstruction of the society including its values and norms as the only way of achieving their goals.

'Nevertheless, in contrast to liberal feminist framework, radical feminism is inclined to be suspicious of government intervention, perceiving the state itself as being intrinsically patriarchal, and also tends to focus on the politics of the private sphere, in particular sexuality, motherhood and bodies.'
(source)

While the two previous types of feminism are rather 'public' ( considering progress on the basis of the whole society) Liberal feminism is an individualistic form of feminism. Liberal feminists' way of achieving their goals lays through legislation and regulation, creating laws to support women equality to men. For example, equal pay, equal childcare duties, abortion rights etc.

feral youth

2009-02-04T00:38:00.011Z

'Youth crime is an aspect of crime which receives great attention from the news media and politicians.'. And a number of several offences commited by people aged under 25 has significantly risen during last 10 years, while the average level of youth crime stayed nearly the same. ( source )

However, the proportion of youth crime is rising as the general level of crime went down in many countries:

1. Great Britain

2. Canada

So, what are the main causes of youth crime?
I think the main causes ( and those which we are most aware of) are:

1.Poverty, which is likely to lead to property crime.

2.Troubled home life or domestic violence. People who were offended at home feel themselves right to treat others in a same way.

3.Alcohol/Drugs use, which sometimes leads to antisocial behaviour and even crime commitment.

4.Poor school education, when pupils are ill-informed about social norms and values, or unstrict rules within schools, which allow offence to happen.

5.Peer groups, which has the most significant effect on young people's behaviour. Different subcultures form their rules of behaviour, present their norms about what is right and what is not.

6.Godlessness, which is argued by some people as a cause of youth crime. I find this true to some extent, as almost every religion restricts violence and with the rising popularity of atheism people feel themselves free from 'God punishment'.

7.Labelling. It has been found out the person labelled as 'criminal' is more likely to commit a crime.

8.Media e.g. movies, tv programmes, games, music..

Another feature of youth crime is 'Male phenomenon'.
Males tend to present the greatest part of the young criminals. That happens not only because males are biologically more powerful and aggressive.
A psychological factor also affects male behaviour: parents always treat boys as future defenders and bring them up in a way that boys are likely to express they masculinity. So, some of them choose to do that through commiting crime.
Moreover, 'Аdolescent males who possess a certain type of variation in a specific gene are more likely to flock to delinquent peers' (wiki)

Oakley's rise of the housewife role

2009-02-02T20:42:00.002Z

Ann Oakley has conducted a research on the housewife role, within which she considered several questions such as how the housewife role developed, what has an impact on it and whether there is greater equality in the household roles.

Pre-Industrial world:

Women participated in the paid labour market as their work was an essential part of the family economy. They were 'breadwinners' as well as men. However, their worked in industries such as cottage or cookery.

Early-Industrial world:

Women worked in the heavy industries (mines) and factories and were placed on the same jobs as men, but were paid less.

Later-Industrial world:

Women work was restricted, they were to look after children. (Guardianship of Infants 1925)
Also, they were pressured by man, who were paid more for the same jobs.
'Men used the emerging trade union movement to squeeze women into the hometo squeeze women into the home'
The development of the new ideology 'women-housewifes, men- breadwinners', man gained a status of 'a head of family'.
Men became separated from the daily routines, women and children became more economic dependent.

book source: Ann Oakley, Woman's Work: The Housewife, Past and Present

Summarising for tomorrow's test...

2009-01-29T20:54:00.004Z

Maybe someone will find this useful:

0.National Output = National Expenditure (Aggregate Demand) = National Income

1.GDP (expenditure method) =C+I+G+(X-M)

2.GDP (by factor income) =Income from people employment and in self-employment +Profits of private sector companies +Rent income from land

exclude:
Transfer payments
Private transfers of money
Income that is not registered with the Inland Revenue or Customs and Excise.

3.GDP (output method) = the value of output produced by each of the productive sectors in the economy using the concept of value added.

Value added = increase in the value of a product at each successive stage of the production process.

4.GNP = GDP + Net property income from abroad (NPIA)

adopted from tutor2u

Recession benefits

2009-01-26T01:48:00.006Z

Who gained from the recession?

1. Employers gain as there are less vacancies on the job market, it is easy to get a high-skilled and experienced employee.

2.Employees gain in a way that their real wages are rising as prices are falling sharply.

3.Supermarkets ( as people are less likely to eat out during the recession and their spending in supermarket increases)

4. Second-hand stores, 1-pound stores etc. (as the demand for the infreior goods rises)

inequalities

2009-01-26T00:45:00.003Z

Why are there inequalities among children?

Well, everyone is an individual and each social group contains inequality within it. Inequalities among children occur for several reasons:

1. Income.
It's not a rule for everyone, but people tend to get on better with people with the same income. It is even more noticeable among children: they sometimes judge each other by clothes, mobile phones etc. Moreover, children with higher income have wider access to leisure activities such as cinemas, cafes etc and therefore tend to spend time together.
2. Health.
Disabled people or people with different health problems (e.g. obesity) are often excluded from different societies/groups.
3. Appearance
Children are often criticised for their appearance by other children and may be even discriminated by teachers.

4. Educational skills
That is also not a 'rule' for everyone, but some children may dislike pupils which get better marks than they do.
5. Subcultures
Children often form a group with people of the same subculture such as emo, goths, skinheads etc. Therefore, children which are not a part of this subculture have difficulties in communicating with such groups, which can even be aggressive to other subcultures.

6.New kid
A kid which is new to the class/town may suffer from lack of communication: people that have already divided themselves in several groups by interests may not want to invite any 'strangers' into group.

The disapperance of childhood

2009-01-22T23:27:00.003Z

According to Neil Postman (1994) childhood has disappeared. Why?

Firstly, to understand why childhood has disappeared we need to find out how it actually appeared. Childhood is rather a social concept than a biological (e.g. we often define children as a group of people below certain age). Neil Postman relates the apperance of childhood to the printing press invention. It sounds strange for the first time, but let me explain how this things are connected.

In the Middle Ages ( i guess it was before 15 century), a person became 'adult' as soon as he learnt how to speak, so that there was no actual difference about children (biologically) and adults treatment.

Printing press invention allowed to distinguish children from adults and create a 'barrier' : a person needed to be literate in order to be counted as an adult. And, actually, that was a beginning of 'childhood' concept development. Then, with the appearance of schools etc, a clear picture of how a child should behave, think, communicate, dress was created. An this picture has been developed and expanded until our days.

But, according to Neil Postman, the transforming power of television makes this 'childhood model' disappear. That happens because TV programmes do not actually differ a lot ( even though they are 'targeted' at a certain age group) and people do not need any special skills to watch television, so that televesion is available for each of us (assuming it is affordable for each of us).
Moreover, there are several aspects of our life that we do not usually want our children to know before they reach a certain age, but television provides information on this topics to everyone. Children become involved in the 'adult world' and that makes the gap between childhood and adult life disappear. That transforms the way we dress, behave, communicate. For example, Mc'Donalds that was mainly a teenage restaurant before, now is full of people of all age groups. Elder people are starting to wear their children's clother, listen to modern music, while some of the teenagers tend to dress up as adults and find a job.

Neil Postman concludes his writing on childhood disapperance with the statement about 'the culture of narcisssim' (Christopher Lasch): he sees our new generation as people stuck between 20 and 30 years, without life aims, without children, without future.

Nature vs Nurture

2009-01-20T21:59:00.003Z

In fact, there are two theories of what determines the human behaviour: "nature" theory and 'nurture' theory. The first one states that human behaviour is determined by the genetic predispositions while the second one says that people behave in a certain way because of their environment and the way they were brought up.

My opinion is that at the beginning of our lives when we have little experience of social interactions and every social event is kind of 'new' to us ( e.g. making a best friend for the first time or going to school for the first time) we tend to behave in a way our genom 'tells' us to do. Of course, some of our actions are controlled by parents and social norms which we are taught from the earliest childhood. Then, after gaining some experience from our socialising, our 'genom' model of behaviour overlaps with the 'gained' model. After gaining some social models of behaviour we just use them depending on what the situation is.
As for qualities such as sense of humour, kindness, loyalty i think they are mostly determined by the genom but however can be modified by our environment ( but NOT a lot). This point is argueable: many men, many minds. That is just a thought that comes from my life experience: i mostly have the same qualities as my father does. And with my social behaviour changing from time to time, i find my qualities remaining the same throughout my life.

So, that's it. I am still a bit confused with this question.

Sociology

2009-01-19T21:15:00.003Z

Sociology can be defined as a study of human behaviour or a study of people's interactions.
A sociological perspective is a way of seeing the world that helps to understand the social realities which make up the field of Sociology.
This video tells about the principles of the sociology and about sociological paradigms.

Basically, there are 3 Paradigms of Sociology: Structure Functionalism, Marxism and Symbolic interactionism

1. Structure Functionalists beleive that society exists as a whole system and each part of the system has its own function. All parts work interdependently for the benefit of the whole system. Society is looked at as an 'organism', where all organs work together to mantain the live of the organism.

2. Marxism (or Conflict Theory) states that conflict is unavoidable part of the society. Marxists beleive that society is represented by inequal parts (dominant and secondary segments) which compete with each other for scarce resources rather than cooperate for the benefit of the society.

3.Symbolic Interactionism investigates the interaction of different social groups and individuals as the means of recreating the society. It belives that society is a product of the interaction of our values, morals, symbolic meanings etc.

recession

2009-01-18T20:33:00.011Z

In order to fight recession government should combine a proper usage of all three policies: monetary, fiscal and supply-side.

As an example of monetary policy, interest rates have recently been cut to 1.5%, the lowest level for 314 years. In theory that should encourage people to borrow and increase domestic demand.
Here is a diagram illustrating the effect of interest rate cut on the inflation rate ( which also fell to 1.1% in December):

Some economists even argue that interest rate paid on our savings could go negative.

As for fiscal policy, there has been a VAT cut recently from 17.5% to 15%. The main aim was to encourage people spending, but this cut hasn't had much effect yet as it says here

As for supply-side policies, encouraging migration may be useful in order to fight recession:
Migrant workers are essential in delivering the key construction projects that will help to boost local economies.'

Some actions are to be done to persuade consumers to keep spending and borrowing and businesses to keep investing.
For example, setting affordable borrowing schemes or set up a scheme for businesses that minimises losses like Chapter 11 in the USA.
' companies that fail because of debt issues can survive in a downsized and restructured form are given the time to generate a compelling proposal that seeks to maximise the payments to creditors, and to save at least some of the business '

What is also going to be done by UK government:

- Planned increases in child benefit will be brought forward and child tax credits will be increased.
- Pensioners will get a £60 one-off Christmas bonus payment.
- increase road tax for millions of cars already on the roads.

exam technique

2009-01-14T10:01:00.001Z

'It's quite simple really.
When you are doing the 12 mark question at the end, you have to make sure you pass through all the levels (1 to 4).
Generally this means:
Level 1 - Define all the terms in the question, and give some basic facts
Level 2 - Apply these facts to the question
Level 3 - Analyse critically the effects of this in relation to the question
Level 4 - Evaluate "to what extent" the statement in the question is true

Maybe that wasn't the best way of explaining it, so if we take 2883 January 2005 as an example.

Question (e) is:
"Discuss the effectiveness of supply-side policies in reducing unemployment." [12]

Using the above:
Level 1
- Define supply-side policies: any policy designed to affect aggregate supply in an economy
- Define unemployment: where people do not have a job, but are able to work and are looking for work
- Give some examples of supply-side policies: education and training, reducing the power of trade unions, increasing the incentives to work, making a more flexible workforce, privatisation, etc.
Level 2
- Explain how (in theory) supply-side policies reduces unemployment
- Draw a macroeconomic graph showing an outward shift in LRAS (long-run aggregate supply)
Level 3
- Choose a few supply-side policies to go through in detail, about a paragraph each
- Possibly draw the trade union wage rate labour market graph
- Analyse how the specific policies will (or will not) reduce unemployment; there really needs to be two sides to the discussion
Level 4
- Bring all this together in summary as an answer to the question; for example: "Overall, supply-side policies would appear to be very effective in reducing unemployment in the long run, especially through education and training. However, it is important that the spending in training is in the sectors of industry that require more trained workers (not declining sectors)..."
Make sure you talk about the "effectiveness", in other questions this would be "the extent" to which the policy would be successful.
- Consider and comment on other factors: short-run / long-run effects, other policy objects and possible trade-offs, the type of unemployment (if it is just cyclical or if it is structural), etc.
- A final conclusion that takes all of this into account (the "bottom-line"

Obviously it doesn't have to be as rigid as the above; many of the points would be better expanded to cover more than one level, but some level 4 points should be explicit to the examiner.'

from the student room

back to work?)

2009-01-07T20:09:00.002Z

1.What are the consequences of sustained deflation?
First of all, we should understand the difference between 'bad deflation' and 'good deflation'
Good deflation means that the producers remain able to produce goods at lower prices by cutting the production costs, increase the productive efficiency. When the deflation becomes 'bad' it means that the businesses are no longer able to keep up with cost reductions.

So what are the consequences of this deflation?
It affect consumers behaviour. It may increase the consumers' purchasing power, as prices are falling.
But if the consumers expect even greater fall in prices later, it will stop them from buying goods = decrease their purchasing power. With the decline of aggregate demand, less goods will be produced which may also lead to unemployment in the long run.

How does deflation affect wealth?
The value of the householders' assets goes down, so householders' wealth decreases.

How does deflation affect debt?
Deflation increases all types of debt causing firm with large borrowings to fail.

!

2008-12-25T17:03:00.002Z

Merry Christmas everyone!

wednesday revision

2008-12-10T17:13:00.002Z

Today I just looked at some revision notes at tutor2u ( AS Markets and Market Systems).

2008-12-09T11:55:00.004Z

Went to my High School and got some tasks and tests for me to pass the exams in June-July.

But they are so boring to do, so I moved on to listening business podcasts from SmallBizPod.

I find this one impressive - click

"Adam talks about what inspired him to launch his first business at the age of 16"

monday

2008-12-08T14:07:00.004Z

Today I revised scarcity, the concept of opportunity cost, production possibility curve, types of goods and economics systems.

2008-12-06T20:25:00.002Z

I'm home. I've already seen my friends.
Now I need to go to school on Monday and start my revision for exams.
So lazy to do it.)

pre-Budget report mindmap

2008-11-26T23:35:00.004Z

another question

2008-11-22T23:49:00.003Z

Bates makes wage demand warning

Leeds chairman Ken Bates believes that players leaving the Premiership need to be realistic in their wage demands.

Fulham captain Lee Clark, 32, had been in line for a move to Elland Road but failed to agree personal terms.

"I know of three players who have been asking for £12,000 a week. The average Championship wage this season is going to be around £3,000 to £4,000."

Leeds encountered major financial problems after their relegation from the top flight and Bates is keen to avoid any such worries in the future.

"We have also had one player, who will not even be fit for the start of the season, asking for £12,000 a week for a two-year deal and his agent wanted another £75,000," he added.

Source: BBC News 14th June 2005 (adapted)

Questions

1.What is the percentage difference between the £12,000 a week asked for and the average Championship wage?
between 300% and 200 %

2.Calculate the difference between the average Championship wage and that of a Head teacher.
Head Teacher average wage is £1,200. So the difference is 150%

3.What is the annual salary of someone on £12,000 a week?
£624,000

4.Calculate the tax payable on a salary of £12,000 a week.
£240,224 (38% from salary)

5.Calculate the hourly wage of someone on £3000 a week assuming a 24-hour day.
£18 approx.

6.Research the amount of hours a day a footballer actually ‘works’ and then re-calculate the hourly wage. Compare that to the ‘going rate’ to see privately a Consultant Surgeon at a local hospital.

number of hours - 7
hourly wage - £245
going rate is about £45, which is 18% from a footballer hourly wage.

question 30

2008-11-18T17:57:00.003Z

Steadying energy prices helped to improve consumer sentiment in the US during January, according to the University of Michigan's index.

It rose for the third month in a row to 93.4 from December's final reading of 91.5, ahead of analysts' predictions.

Better job conditions and an optimistic outlook for US stocks during 2006 also helped push the index higher.

Consumer spending makes up two-thirds of US economic activity and is a key indicator of the health of the economy.

The dollar rose against the yen and firmed against the euro shortly after the report was issued on Friday.

Retail heating oil prices fell to a five-week low at $2.43 a gallon, down 1.7 cents from a week ago but up 46 cents from a year ago, EIA said.

On Thursday, the number of new jobless workers fell to 271,000 last week, its lowest level since April 2000, the Labor Department said.

Source: BBC News 20th Jan 2006 (adapted)

Questions:

1.What was the percentage increase in the index?
2% approx.

2.as the dollar rose against the yen this would make exports…(cheaper/more expensive)
more expensive

3.imports from Japan would now be…(cheaper/more expensive)
cheaper

4.If demand for imports is elastic, will the dollar’s rise be of great help/little help to Japanese exporters?

I think it will be of great help, because with dollar's rise, imports price for the US goes down. As price goes down, demand goes up ( assuming demand for imports is elastic), which will increase Japanese exports.

5.How much was retail heating oil a year ago?
$1.97

6.How much was retail heating oil a week ago?
$2.413

7.If demand for retail heating oil has not changed since a week ago, why would the price have fallen?
Retail price for oil is affected not only by demand. For instance, a change in availability and distance from supply, transportation costs causes change in price.

8.If a year ago demand for oil was 500,000 units and it is now 600,000 does this mean that the relationship between price and demand is direct, not inverse?
It is direct, but the numbers also prove that the demand for oil is inelastic. It means, that if price for oil rises, demand falls, but falls a little.

house prices

2008-11-15T17:55:00.003Z

The article tells us about the predictions for house prices in the near future and explains the housing market structure and the causes of falling and rising prices.
Yolande Barnes also states 2 indicators of housing-market overheating which are:

1.the house price to income ratio
in 1970-80's it was about 4:1 or 3:1, which is relatively low, comparing to recent 6:1 or 7:1

2. the cost of mortgage servicing

Moreover, Yolande Barnes talks on the nature of the recent credit crunch. An imporant point, that he emphasises in his article is the difference in roots of the US and UK downturn and, therefore, the difference in the housing markets.

'in the US as many as one home-owning household in 16 has defaulted on its mortgage or faces repossession, compared with fewer than one in 200 in Britain.' .

At the end of the article Yolande Barnes gives his opinion on what the behaviour of investors is likely to be in the near future and gives a forecast for the house prices in 2009 and 2010: 'by the end of 2009, house prices will probably have fallen 25 per cent from their peak.
'

University Requirements

2008-11-11T10:10:00.013Z

My main aim is to go to London School of Economics. I made some research on its admissions and what I have found out:

1. What is very important for me - age requirements. I'll be 17 when I finish my A-levels and i have heard that you can apply to the British universities only from the age of 18. But, luckily:

Age requirements

Admission to the School is based upon academic merit. As the School has a responsibility for safeguarding children under English Law, appropriate senior staff will be notified of an offer of admission made to anyone who will be younger than 18 years of age at the time of registration

2. UCAS Applications for the year 2010 are to be submit from September 2009 till (nearly) 15 January.

3. Also, the combination of subjects is important. The applicants with more than one 'soft subject' are not likely to get to the top universities.

Here are 'non-preferred' subjects for LSE :

Accounting
Art and Design
Business Studies
Communication Studies
Design and Technology
Drama/Theatre Studies*
Home Economics
Information and Communication Technology
Law
Media Studies
Music Technology
Sports Studies
Travel and Tourism

I study Further Maths, Economics and ICT, but I guess that ICT is considered as a 'soft subject' too.

4. A-level in Russian.

'Similarly, an A level or equivalent in your first language may not be counted' - that what LSE official website says. So is there a point in taking Russian A-level?

5. Competition

In 2007, we received 19,000 applications for 1,200 places. Competition for admission is particularly high in Accounting and Finance, Economics, Law and Management.

6. Interviews

Students are not usually invited for an interview to LSE, only those who have unusual qualifications or mature applicants may be asked for it.

7. Retakes

Competition for places at the School is intense, so it is important that you achieve consistently high grades throughout both years of your A level studies. Whilst grades can be improved by re-sitting modules, we prefer applicants who have achieved high grades in their AS and A2 examinations at their first attempt.

8. I'm not quite sure which course I want to apply for ( Economics, Management, Finance) but all these courses requirements are:
AAA or AAB grades ( including Maths).

9. I didn't see any information whether universities consider language A-level as 'preferred', but I'll find out.
I'd like to try to pass French AS-level in 2009.

When Markets Collide (review)

2008-11-06T21:44:00.003Z

'When Markets Collide', a book written by on of the leading investors Mohamed El-Erian, is an essential reading for everyone how wants to deepen his knowledge of the modern global economy ( and especially investment market ).
This books mainly tells us about the transformation in the relationship of the economies and transformations in the emerging markets, so called 'noise'. El-Erian examines the drivers ( or the causes) of this 'noise' and usually refers to his own experience.

However, the book is primarily aimed at the experienced investors or people who are deal with this markets in their work life. So, he uses special terminology which sometimes require additional thinking ( or even looking up in the dictionary) for an unexperienced reader. He also gives some interesting insights for the way the investment market will be developing in future, which perhaps might be useful for planning investment strategies.

In the first part of the book El-Eriab gives us an approach to the important of 'noise'. This importance of the noise is usually under-estimated, it is considered as a temporary event. Investors should recognise the situations where this noise can be ignored and the situations that require interpreting the signals that this noise contain. El-Erian investigates the factors of the noise and 'missing signals'

As this book was published only this year, it contains the most recent information, such as the causes and consequences of the current financial crisis. It is an essential example to illustrate the transformation of the modern economy. However, El-Erian emphasizes that "the present turmoil is neither the beginning nor the end of the transformataion phase".

macroeconomic policy

2008-11-05T21:26:00.000Z

Mohamed El-Erian

2008-11-02T21:10:00.006Z

Mohamed El-Erian is Arabic, born in 1958. He graduated from the Cambridge University and got his master’s and doctorate degree in the University of Oxford (both in economics), which allowed him to become one of the world’s leading investing managers and earn a great reputation.

He has been working for the IMF (Investment Monetary Fund) for 15 years, got the rank of the deputy director and has had an experience working at the London Citibank, teaching at the Harvard Business School.

Mr. El-Erian also made a substantial contribution working for PIMCO (Pacific Investment Management Company), the world’s largest bond fund, which he joined in 1999, as one of the CEOs (Chief Executive Officers).

And, eventually, this successful investment professional became a head of the HMC ( Harvard Management Company). It is a huge company, that deals with managing the Harvard University’s capital and assets ( worth about 35 billion dollars) - which is considered to be the largest university’s endowment. He has been working there for 2 years, but then returned to PIMCO. By the June 2008 PIMCO had more than $829.5 billion in assets under control and more than 1000 people employed.

He is also well-known as a publisher on different economic and financial issues at the world’s famous newspapers and the author of the book ‘ When Markets Collide’, which won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2008. The book tells about the structure of the modern capital markets - El-Erian shares with us his unique understanding of the global market and forecasts dramatic changes in the financial markets- essential information each investor should be aware of.

He also has made several hypotheses about the development of the world crisis. In his interview to Handelsblatt he predicted the seat of tension of the crisis to be in Share Markets and the Markets for inputs. His prediction about crisis has strong influence on the behavior of investors.

minimum and maximum prices

2008-10-31T12:48:00.000Z

Minimum price

Maximum price

)

2008-10-29T21:33:00.004Z

Demand

Demerit goods

Merit goods

Inflation (yellow version %)

2008-10-28T22:40:00.001Z

question 35

2008-10-26T18:36:00.008Z

Landers Paints Ltd have for many years produced paints and varnishes specifically for industrial use. These products have been sold both directly to the customer and through builders’ merchants. Larger firms tend to buy directly from Landers, whereas smaller customers, such as builders and decorators, use the latter.

The products are sold in large quantities in basic packaging at low prices. This enables Landers to keep costs to a minimum and prices at a competitive level. The most popular products are basic items, for instance, white and magnolia emulsion paint.

However, the recent increase in the popularity of DIY has resulted in a small fall in sales at Landers. Keen to reverse this decrease, the Managing Director, John Smith, is considering whether to launch a range of paints for home decorating. At a recent board meeting, he put forward this proposal.

‘I think that Landers should launch a range of paints and varnishes for the domestic market. Given our expertise and production facilities, the new products will hardly disrupt things around here and should lead to a significant increase in sales.’

The Marketing Manager, Shirley Thomas, reacted with caution.

‘I’m not so sure because there are substantial differences between marketing products made for industrial markets and those for consumer markets. I think it may be a lot harder than you think.’

‘Obviously, there are differences’, replied John, ‘but I really don’t think that some new packaging and a bit of advertising is enough of a reason to miss out on such a good opportunity.’

Questions:

1. Explain why the recent increase in popularity of DIY has caused sales at Landers Paints Ltd to decrease.
It's clear-with the increase in popularity of DIY the demand for the paint products decreases, so that businesses have to supply less and buy less from the Landers Paints Ltd.

2 a) Identify the key differences between an industrial market and a consumer market.

The main difference between the industrial and the consumer market is that the latter is aimed directly at consumer and the first is for businesses. Moreover, organisation buying has special decision-making (purchasing) procedures, which vary from firm to firm, while consumer buying is made according to people's personal needs. Organisations also tend to have more information than ordinary consumers ( an example of assymetric information), so that they are more likely to be interested in technical specifictations of the product, when ordinary consumers are more worried about appearance and affordability.

b) Analyse the difficulties that may be experienced by Landers Paints Ltd if they move into the consumer market.
The main difficulty may consist in forecasting consumers needs - as they are less constant than that of businesses.
Also the company may experience increase in production costs: taking retailers on for new shops, logistics for making new marketing strategy, advertising costs... And, therefore, it may be difficult for company to set the affordable prices.

3. Landers Paints Ltd decide to launch a range of products for the consumer market. Recommend a marketing mix for the new products.

Creating a marketing strategy for the new products, the 4P's of the marketing mix should be considered.

Here are these P:
Product
Price
Place
Promotion

Diversing its new products to the consumer market, Landers Paints Ltd should firstly set an affordable level of prices, so that people prefer buying this products and saving their time to DIY (doing it yourslef).

Secondly, the place of distribution this new products should be chosen correctly: it should be situated in the city centre or/and in the largest supermakerts- so that it is easy for people to consume and it creates the right impression of the product ( product for ordinary people, not for enterprises).

Thirdly, the product itself should have attractive appearance and be easy to use, the characteristics of this paints and varnishes should meet consumer's needs.

And, eventually, promotion of the new products. That's all about creating the right image of the product: this paints should be advertised as the high quality product and not requiring additional skills to use it.

picture source - http://www.tutor2u.net/business/marketing/what_is_marketing.asp

the 15th mind map

2008-10-26T04:04:00.000Z

Subsidy

question 24

2008-10-25T23:16:00.007+01:00

Cressida Grainger started her entrepreneurial career at the age of 22, running a small antiques business. Whilst on a visit to Glasgow market, she discovered lava lamps and bought some to sell on her Camden market stall. The 1960s lamps, which mix oil and water to create psychedelic patterns, were an instant success so she tracked down the inventor, Edward Craven, and eventually bought the then loss-making business from him.

In 1989, Mathmos was born. The firm started to market the lamps to a new set of fashion conscious consumers eager to buy ‘retro chic’ products. The marketing paid off and since then, Mathmos has enjoyed spectacular success, achieving £18 million of sales in 1999.

However, the business has recently run into some difficulties. Following the success of the lava lamps, competitors from the Far East have realised the potential of the products and the market is now being flooded with imitation lamps that are sold at prices that Mathmos would struggle to make the item for. This problem is increased by retailers who stock the cheaper, imported goods alongside the Mathmos originals. In effect, the Mathmos name is advertising other companies’ products.

Grainger is determined to fight back, though. With the name Mathmos linked to high quality products and first-rate after sales service, she believes that her business can be expanded in order to win back market share. Two strategies are being considered.

Option One: Diversification into other product areas, such as gifts and fashion accessories.

Option Two: Extend Mathmos’ unique position as leaders in innovative domestic lighting through the development of new lighting products.

Ultimately, Grainger knows that Mathmos must maintain its innovative edge in order to remain successful in the market place.

(Adapted from Sarah Gracie, The Sunday Times, April 9 2000)

Questions

1. Explain why Mathmos lava lamps were initially so successful.

Probably the main reason for this lava lamps to be successful is that a great advertising company was made- in order to make the consumer consider this product not as an old, out-of-fashion and useless thing, but as a 'retro-chic' product. So it was extremely fashionable. And, as we learned from the article, the right marketing strategy also played a great role in expanding the demand for the product.

2. Recently, Mathmos has begun to experience some difficulties. Analyse the key causes of these problems.

As the new firms entered the market, providing the same products for the lower price, the demand for the original product fell down. People didn't understand the difference between the original lamp and the imitation, or probably, didn't consider this difference worth overpaying for. People had already known all the benefits of the product and the target audience had been already formed - so there was no need for new firms to make a great advertising company. Therefore, they reduced their production costs, which allowed to make the product cheaper - - -> more attractive for consumers.

3. Explain how the use of market segmentation could help Mathmos to market its products

effectively.

Market segmentation is the process of classifying a market into distinct subsets (segments) that behave in similar ways or have similar needs. (wikipedia)

There are 4 main factors, using which the market can be segmented: demographical, geographical, behaviour and psyhographic bases.
So the whole lava lamp market wil be divided into several segments according to consumers purchasing abilities, product knowledge, usage and so on.
Therefore, market segmentation will increase market opportunities, as the consumer's needs will be recognised and satisfied more efficiently, that means, Mathmos will market his products more efficiently.

4. Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the possible options for development.

Firstly, option one seems to be a good idea, as if the lava lamp production diverses into other product areas, its target audience changes, so the new target audience might be wider and more willing to buy the product. In addition, it's clear that the lava lamp will be new to such product areas as gifts and fashion accessories, therefore, it should attract the consumers by its newness and exceptioness for this area of the market

Disadvantage may consist in this product being unappropriate for this area of the market, for exmaple, if nobody considers lava lamps as gifts.

Option two seems to me more profitable: it will make Mathmos a monopoly, which will allow to set the suitable prices for the new lamp products and, therefore, increase allocative efficiency and profit.
But the problem is - if there won't even be enough quantity of demand for the new types of lamp to cover all production costs? That is the thing that deals with market research- in this case, i guess, it is unavoidable .

2008-10-24T10:03:00.001+01:00

Government failure and government intervention

Inward Migration

Monetary Policy

The Prisoner's Dilemma

2008-10-22T20:07:00.003+01:00

The best way to understand the Prisoner's Dilemma is to set 2 examples.

A classic example of the Prisoner's Dilemma

Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal.
If one testifies ("defects") for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence.
If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge.
If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?

Economics application of the Prisoner's Dilemma.

Consider two firms, say Coca-Cola and Pepsi, selling similar products. Each must decide on a pricing strategy.
They best exploit their joint market power when both charge a high price; each makes a profit of ten million dollars per month. If one sets a competitive low price, it wins a lot of customers away from the rival.

Suppose its profit rises to twelve million dollars, and that of the rival falls to seven million. If both set low prices, the profit of each is nine million dollars.
Here, the low-price strategy is akin to the prisoner’s confession, and the high-price akin to keeping silent. Call the former cheating, and the latter cooperation. Then cheating is each firm’s dominant strategy, but the result when both “cheat” is worse for each than that of both cooperating.

sources:
1
2

multiple choice questions

2008-10-22T19:01:00.003+01:00

Market Failure and Government Failure.

1. A farmer tips chemical waste into a river because he can do so at no cost to itself is an example of a positive externality.

a) True
b) False

2. People may not know what is in their own best interests and thus may under-consume certain goods or services such as education or health care.

a) True
b) False

3. Government failure cannot happen if the government has the support of consumers and producers when it decides on it's policies.

a) True
b) False

4. The list below shows the estimated costs and benefits of building a new factory

Private costs 90,000 pounds
External costs 30,000 pounds
Private benefits 75,000 pounds
External benefits 25,000 pounds

From the data it can be concluded that

a) Social costs exceed social benefits
b) Social benefits exceed social costs
c) The factory should be built
d) The social costs equal 30,000 pounds

5. Which one of the following is a characteristic of a merit good?

a) Once the good has been supplied to one consumer, there is no extra cost in supplying it to others
b) It is always provided free of charge to low-income consumers
c) It may not be provided by the market in sufficient quantities
d) It tends to be provided by the government because of the problem of non-excludability

6. A free good

a) Is available free of charge to consumers
b) Has no opportunity cost of production
c) Is not taxed by the government
d) Creates no externalities

7. Which of the following can be efficiently allocated between competing uses by the price mechanism?

a) Private goods
b) Public goods
c) Free goods
d) Negative and positive externalities

8. Which of the following is least likely to be a feature of a monopoly?

a) In the long run, no profits will be earned
b) Choice for the consumer will be restricted
c) It will be protected by barriers to entry
d) Price may be higher than in a more competitive market

9. What is implied by the existence of a negative externality?

a) Individuals are not the best judges of their own well-being
b) Output is below its socially optimum level
c) Producers are not always seeking to maximise profits
d) There is a divergence between private and social costs

10. Which of the following is not a cause of market failure?

a) The existence of commonly-owned property resources such as the oceans
b) The existence of public goods
c) The existence of externalities
d) The existence of perfect knowledge of prices among consumer and producer

Answers:
1)b
2)a
3)b
4)a
5)c
6)b
7)a
8)a
9)d
10)d

again and again

2008-10-21T20:29:00.002+01:00

Unemployment

Economies and Diseconomies of Scale

Exchange rate

3 more

2008-10-20T20:30:00.003+01:00

Consumer spending

Economic cycle

Market structure

e-cigarettes

2008-10-20T19:26:00.003+01:00

Information failure occurs when consumers and producers are not given any information or they are not given exact information- so they are not aware of all aspects of things they deal with.
Talking about electronic cigarette market, the information failure consists in uncertainty whether this product is bad for health or not.
Electronic cigarettes are advertised as an absolutely healthy product and as a good alternative for real smoking. It is even said that the electronic cigarette tastes, smells and looks as a real one - isn't that attractive for smokers? And this advertisement does work - especially for the people who want to get rid of this bad habit.
Electronic cigarettes can also be consumed for economical reason - it costs about 40-50 pounds, so do 9 packs of usual cigarettes. But the electronic one, of course, you can use much longer.

Are these cigarettes really harmless?Some research has been done, but no prove was suggested, so we can't be convinced in anything totally.

Looking on e-cigarette market, we should mention asymmetric information.The existence of asymmetric information is a special case of the information failure, when different parts of people have different amount of information. For example, in online shopping services the buyer is not aware of the quality of the product bought - wrong description may be provided as well.

So, asymmetric information is certainly presented in this market as the producer gets more information about the technology than the consumer - he might be aware of all steps of producing this good. Producer may also hide some characteristic of the good in order to get more revenue from this 'amazing innovation'.

Government intervention can reduce market failure, but not entirely. Government may subsidise the research on new type of cigarettes, so that people are given right information.
Government can also introduce fines on smoking in public places and near buildings.

more more more mind maps

2008-10-19T19:45:00.003+01:00

Balance of Payments on Current Account

Capital Investment

Circular flow of income

eventually...

2008-10-19T01:01:00.005+01:00

Mind Maps:

Aggregate Demand

Aggregate Supply

p.s. thanx,Dima, for mindmanager license key)

negative externalities ( obesity and smoking)

2008-10-18T22:07:00.006+01:00

Today I'm going to talk about two examples of negative externalities, which are, actually, the most wide-spread ones.

1. Obesity
You may think that if people suffer from obesity - it's their own life.
So why is it considered as a negative externality?

In fact, obesity now became a serious problem not only for people themselves, but for the whole nation.

According to BBC News, in England almost two-thirds of adults and a third of children are either overweight or obese.
It has a great impact on social services, for instance, government has to invest money in reconstructing school gyms and canteens, so that it is suitable for overweight people.

And, of course, that affect taxpayers, which are to cover the costs of all these government actions.

What are the ways of reduction people's obesity? It is obvious: advretising heathy products and healthy lifestyle, government subsidies for healthy goods producers in order to make the price for this goods lower than the price for high fat goods.

2. Smoking

'Smoking kills' - that is what is written on each pack of сigarettes. Government is also going to take some actions aganist smoking such as:
1. Banning tobacco vending machines
2. Restricting the display of tobacco products in shops ( which is already done in Canada, but didn't affect the consumption of cigarettes).
3. Add an 'anti-smoking' picture (for example, a photography of smoker's lungs) to each pack of cigarettes.

But will that really stop people from smoking?
I guess it will reduce cigarette consumption to some extent, but won't solve the problem entirely.

However, the cost of cigarette pack may have an influence on people smoking, especially young people.
Let's compare Russia, where a cigarette pack costs no more than 2 dollars, and UK, with 10 dollars for a pack.
60% of men and 30% women smoke in Russia aganist 26% and 23% in UK.

But , on the other hand, that it is not only high prices that affect tobacco consumption, but also national habits and the way children are brought up in both countries.

Talking about impact on people's material life - the situation is similar to the first one (obesity) - tax paid by people is about 9bn pounds each year - a substantial amount of money!

book review

2008-10-16T19:54:00.005+01:00

As the MindManager doesn't work I used the time to finish my book.

'Discover your inner economist' by Tyler Cowen.

We are used to think that economics is all about graphics, diagrams, difficult calculations - but it isn't. Economics doesn't end with forecasting stock prices - it may be applied and it is applied in our daily life.
That is what this book tells us about - how to deal with our everyday problems using our economic knowledge.

Tyler Cowen explains how people's behaviour is affected by economic principles: the dirty dishes parable, the car salesman parable, the parking tickets parable - let's take the first one as an example.

If parents want to make his child do the dishes, they may consider paying him money for doing housework as a good idea.
And many of them really beleive it works, but, however effective it seems to them, it doesn't.
That is simply because the child takes status of working for the parents as immature or even humiliating.
Another bad point is that the child doesn't put an effort in doing his work properly - because he is paid for that anyway.

So probably the only way to make a child happy to do the washing up is to let him know how important it is for the family and how highly the parents appreciate his ability and willigness to help. This tactic may seem simple, but it unexpectedly does a good job.

That is only an example of what this book is about -you will find a lot more about incentives, penalties and rewards and the impact these have on our life.
You can even find out ( and I did) that you use some of this methods yourself (but never thought about it).

The advantage is that the book is written in plain language with the examples provided for each new topic, - it's like the author has a friendly conversation with a reader ).

In conclusion, I'd like to say that I enjoyed reading this book ( not just because I HAVE TO enjoy it and write a positive review :) ) and I'd advise to read it anybody who wants to get familiar with a different application of economic science.

P.S. In fact, I like reading, but I'm too lazy to do it unless I'm forced to, so, thank you, Chris ))

things to do

some key points of the yesterday's philosophy class

2008-10-14T21:22:00.004+01:00

The main topic of Monday class was 'The awareness'.

We consider ourselves being awake, but are we really awake?

That's the question.

There are 5 levels of awareness:

1. Deep sleep state ( we can't even dream in this state )

2. Dream state

3. Sleep-waking state (my usual state)

4. Waking state

5. High consciousness

To move from state#3 to state#4 there is a useful exercise.

You should concentrate on all your senses. Feel the clothes touch your skin, listen to the sounds outside, feel your feet on the ground. That is how you come to presence.

another view on this topic:

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=589307

following the David's example..

2008-10-14T00:50:00.000+01:00

#11 Clean my shoes ))))

#12 Send an e-mail

#13 seems to be unreachable...

not 750 words but anyway

2008-10-14T00:22:00.000+01:00

A short beginner’s guide to the credit crunch causes.

If you are still alive, you have probably heard about the world credit crisis, which also had a great impact on the whole economy. But let us start from the beginning....

The origins of the current credit crisis lie back in 2007, when the subprime mortgage crisis took place.
In order to avoid the economy moving into recession, the US government cut interest rates down to 1%, but with a plan to increase this rate slowly by the amount of 0.25% each year approximately.

Therefore, many people started to take ARM’s - adjusted rate mortgages, in other words, mortgages with NOT constant interest rates.

But what happened later: when the loans went back to the normal monthly price, it became unaffordable for many people to pay their mortgages back.
That couldn’t have created such a big problem unless another important factor - house prices - had played a great role in widening this crisis.

Normally the banks would cover their losses by selling the houses, but as the house prices went down, banks faced great losses and, as a result, the lack of liquidity.

Banks found it hard to borrow money from the wholesale markets and even to lend to each
other, which caused the global credit freeze.

That crisis affected the banks all over the world and for some of them ( Nothern Rock was the first) the nationalisation was inevitable.
Another important action taken by government was a bail-out of 700bn of pounds to buy ‘toxic’ assets from the banks.

That all illustrates the main events and the basic points of the credit crunch.
But it is still not over...

just a quick note

2008-10-13T00:23:00.000+01:00

The law of diminishing returns.

More and more hours I 'invest' in writing the book, less and less productive I am....

just reviewing 'The Times' article

2008-10-10T18:05:00.000+01:00

While governments are trying to prevent the economies from falling in recession and making decisions about rescue plans, let’s have a look at some strange, but rather good consequences of the recession.

According to “The Times”, during the recession people’s, so-to-say ‘non-material’, life tends to improve!

Why does this happen?

During a downturn people work less, therefore they are less stressed and have more time to, for instance, go to the gym, visit their parents or even... cooking at home!
That reduces fast-food consumption and makes people healthier! Isnt’ that a good point?

An interesting fact: it was found out that for every 1 per cent increase in unemployment rates, the death rate decreases by 0.5 per cent!

Summarising all the benefits:

1.decrease in smoking
2.decrease in drinking
3.people become healthier and lose weight ( due to increase in activity)
4.people enrol in higher education
5.decrease in death rates
6.people drive less -> roads are less crowded
7.decrease in prices for necessities, petrol and houses

Enjoy the recession!)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4916300.ece

The market for oil

2008-10-07T09:37:00.000+01:00

PES mind map

2008-10-03T21:19:00.000+01:00

factor rewards mind map

2008-10-02T20:25:00.003+01:00

philosophy courses

2008-09-29T22:48:00.000+01:00

I'm talking about that evening courses

Was it useful? Or was it absolutely pointless? I can't tell it certainly so far.
But one thing is clear: whatever you study, it improves your English, which is the first thing we came here to do, actually.
And even though I didn't understand some things our group was talking about, I hope it's not going to be a problem in a few weeks.
The teacher even wondered where we are from and suggested to explain all unusual words, that' was very nice )). In general, the atmosphere is quite friendly there, which, of course, supports learning.

BTW,
I'm also going to attend Economics courses on Wednesday.

friday entry

2008-09-26T12:39:00.000+01:00

Why are seatbelts mandatory in cars but not in most school buses?

Most of the children go to school by school bus and it is one of the safest ways for children to get to school. Otherwise, children have to go on foot or cycle,and they take risks(for example, of being knocked down by a car). But, at the same time, most of the buses still don't have any seatbelts. Why?

The main reason is children's health. It has been proved that shoulder seatbelts are unsafe for small children. Moreover, during different crash-tests it was found out, that seatbelts can cause more drawbacks than advantges, for example, in case of evacuation they can slow down the process.

As for me, I'd vote for mandatory seatbelts, because in some cases it can help people to survive and you can never be careful enough to avoid accidents.

wednesday question

2008-09-24T15:45:00.000+01:00

Is it efficient for people to share the bill when they go to a restaurant?

Usually if you go to a restaurant with your friends, you agree to split the bill and you don't mind if you pay a little more than you really have to pay out of the whole bill.

But in this case people tend to order more expensive meals, or simply eat more than they usually do.

That can be explained by psyhology: if you pay separately, you will have to pay a lot more, but if people split the bill, you'll only have to pay a little extra.

Therefore, it's more efficient for people to share the bill, in order not to pay more, because sometimes it can also be really unfair. ( for example, if you have only had a cup of coffee and your friend have tasted 7 different meals).

tuesday question

2008-09-23T12:33:00.000+01:00

Why do theatres discount prices on spare tickets just before the performance whereas airlines and rail companies raise prices for last minute customers?

Ok, the answer seems to be simple.

Demand for airlane tickets is inelastic, because if a person wants to go somewhere, he has no choice and buy the ticket even though it costs double price.

So, airlanes and rail companies administration understands that the higher the price is, the more revenue they get and raise prices for last minute customers.

Now, what's about theatres?

The demand for theatre tickets is usually elastic ( except for world famous musicals or if you are a theatre maniac ;) ).

That's why prices on tickets become very low just before the performance in order to sell all the tickets.

Email usage

2008-09-22T13:35:00.000+01:00

source: http://email.about.com/od/emailtrivia/f/emails_per_day.htm

Question: How Many Emails Are Sent Every Day?
Answer: Statistics, extrapolations and counting by Radicati Group from August 2008 estimate the number of emails sent per day (in 2008) to be around 210 billion.
183 billion messages per day means more than 2 million emails are sent every second. About 70% to 72% of them might be spam and viruses. The genuine emails are sent by around 1.3 billion email users.

thank you, Chris, it works

2008-09-22T12:52:00.001+01:00

mini-bars

2008-09-22T12:40:00.000+01:00

Why are prices in a hotel mini-bar so expensive?

So what's a mini-bar?

It's a small fridge in your hotel room, in which different drinks, peanuts, chocolate and possibly something else are kept.

Even if you eat something from mini-bar, the next day it's full again.

So it's quite easy to grab a pack of crisps from the fridge and don't worry about going to the shop.

Consequently, the demand on goods in mini-bar is usually inelastic and the administration of the hotel make prices on this goods very high so they can make a profit from it.

Mind Maps!

2008-09-21T16:45:00.000+01:00

Recycling

2008-09-21T12:12:00.000+01:00

Why are some countries so much more successful in recycling waste products?

Recycling is an important part of environmental progress of each country. Usually successfully recycling countries are those which have special recycling programs, such as providing incentives to recycle waste. For example, if you have to pay an extra fee for each can or plastic bag you throw away, will you carry on doing it? As for me, I find it much cheaper to recycle and, as a result, to save money and spend it on something more useful. That is how this 'environmental policy' works. And that's how some countries, using such policies, make people recycle waste products.

By the way, can anybody tell me how to post a video from YouTube ( but not to download it)?

2008-09-18T12:37:00.000+01:00

Why are child safety seats required in cars but not in airplanes?

It's clear that the quantity of car accidents are much higher that airplane crashes, but the chance of surviving in plane crash is almost 0. That's why, I guess, there's no need to put child safety seats in the plane cabine - seat belts are quite enough ( for example, during the turbulence).

Brown and white eggs, what's the difference?

2008-09-17T08:31:00.000+01:00

Why are brown eggs more expensive than white ones, even though the two types taste the same and have identical nutritional value?

After looking through some web-sites, I've found out, that there's no difference between brown eggs and white ones (except for colour, of course :). The colour of the shell is determined by the breed of hen and it doesn't affect an egg's nutritional value or taste. But what is important - hens that produce brown eggs are usually larger than those who produce white ones -> they need more food. So farms spent more on them and that is the only reason the prices on brown eggs are higher.

fashion industry

2008-09-16T12:05:00.000+01:00

Why do female models earn so much more than male models?

Let's see, what is the target audience of fashion channels?Of course, women.

It's also clear that women are more interested in fashion than men, they purchase more clothes or jewellery, they appear on the covers of famous magazines much often than men ! Have you ever seen the man who spent 6 hours, looking for the pair of shoes that suits his clothes perfectly?

And that's why, famous designers are much more interested in female models, so it's obvious that the demand on female models is higher and they earn much more than men.

one more homework )))

2008-09-16T11:50:00.000+01:00

Why did Japanese kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

You can think that there was no reason for kamikaze pilots to wear helmets except for protecting themselves... Of course, they needed to stay alive to get the target, but the helmet was not only the part of the protection system. Those helmets had special microphones which were used by pilots to be informed and controlled, so they could reach the target successfully.

It is also thought that the helmet was a part of their full uniform and they just wanted to keep this tradition, but, I believe, the first reason is the most important one.

homework

2008-09-15T12:35:00.000+01:00

Why do 24-hour convenience stores have locks on their doors?

Actually, there are two reasons:

The first one is that employees can be trained to lock the doors in case of robbery or emergency.

The second one is that an employee can lock the door for a few minutes to go to the restroom in case there are no customers.

Ok, I've done my first economics homework )).

2008-09-14T17:06:00.000+01:00

my new blog))))