Ayiti Game Reflection

1. I find the game really hard to play at first, but after playing it several times, I found out the tactics used to keep the family from collapsing. Overall, it was fun and quite engaging.
2. The game was about surviving in poor countries. In which, the player need to assign each characters to different roles. Such as go to work or go to school. The game's duration is 4 years, 4 seasons in each year. I would describe this game to a friend as an 'economic' survival game.
3. I first chose happiness thinking that it would somehow affect the gameplay. However, it does not. In the second and so forth I chose money. Since it is the most important thing that can make you alt 4 years.
4. The hardest decision is assigning roles to the family. We need to consider the right person to get education and who should sacrifice and go to work. Sometimes killing off a character is essential to keep the whole family to last.
5. The strategy is that during the first year, I sent everyone to work to collect money. Once the family is in good shape I started to send the daughter to school. After that, I switched her role to go work and then back again. giving every single child education costs a lot of money.
6. Their main challenges, in my opinion, are healthcare and natural disasters. They are very fragile and can die very easily. Also, typhoons can suddenly left the family devastated and eventually perished.
7. Financial problem is the main obstacle for giving education.
8. The game is far more dramatic and tragic. Since it happens in 4 years, anything could happen.
9. People die very easily, money is the most important thing for survival, and education is very useless for the short-run.

Unemployment Rate in Thailand

How does the government define and calculate unemployment rate?

Unemployment rate is defined as the number of people who are unemployed expresses as a percentage of the total labor force. Unemployment rate is usually calculated by dividing the number of people who are unemployed over the number of people in the labor force.

Statistics

       Age groups:

      15-24 (youth group) -> 4.1%

      25 and over (adult group) -> 0.5%

      Region
      South = 1.3%
      Northeast = 0.9%
      North = 0.6%
      Central = 1.0%
      Bangkok = 0.8%

Labor Market Regulations in Thailand

Minimum wage: 300 baht per day
Social Security: each party contributes 1.5% of the wages to the insured totaling to 4.5% of the basic salary not exceeding 15,000 baht. The funds will go support workers undergoing one or more of the following: injury or sickness, disability, maternity, death, child welfare, and pensions.
Holidays: 13 traditional holidays per year, requested no more than 6 annual holidays

What does the government do to reduce level of unemployment?

Monetary Policy: Cutting interest rates causing AD to rise, increase GDP, and need for employees.
Fiscal Policy: Increase AD and economic growth.

Life Is Better; It Isn't Better. Which Is It?

   I chose to interview my mother for this assignment and she has given me a lot of examples of how life has changed compared with my grandmother’s. The examples clearly proof that life is better now than the past.

   The first thing is education. People in the past, especially women, are satisfied with high school level education. However, in my mother’s generation, education is noted essential for judging someone. High school level education is not as adequate as a bachelor degree in order to get respect from society and to get reliable jobs. 

   The second example is transportation. In my grandmother’s generation, people need to use boats in order to get in or out of the city. There were not BTS, MRT, or whatsoever available now to us. Life was pretty tough back then, since if you want to go somewhere, you need to walk or ride on the boat, which will takes ages.

   The third is medicine. My mother said that she never had chicken pox before because vaccines are already available back in her time. On the other hand, my grandmother experienced chicken pox because vaccines have not yet been invented.  This also goes with other medicines, vaccinations, and antibiotics. Technological advances bolster human lives and increase our rate of survival.

   The fourth example is clothing. My grandmother is adept at sewing and making things associated with fabric. Why? As a matter of fact, back in her time processed clothing was very hard to find, very pricey, and sizing was poorly constructed. Most antediluvian people bought their own fabric and made clothes or bags by themselves. Years later, my mother’s generation provided more supply of clothing (but of course, not millions of brands like we have now), in which makes our lives easier.

   The last thing is the internet. There was no internet back in my grandmother’s days and also my mother’s when she was a student. The public library was like Wikipeida (but reliable) of that time, life was pretty tough for students back then since they need to travel to the library and wasted time finding the right books.

   Overall, I agree with my mother that life is getting better. Despite our loss of ability to steer boats, stronger ankles, our instructed immunity, ability to sew, and determination of finding stuffs (replaced my laziness and stronger fingers for typing). I still strongly agree that what we gain clearly canceled out what we lost.

Thailand GDP graphs

The Business Cycle

The 4 stages:

1. Recovery - GDP increases, unemployment rate decreases, aggregrate demand increases, price increases
2. Boom -Beginning of contraction, inflation
3. Recession - GDP decreases, unemployment rate increases, aggregrate demand decreases, price decreases
4. Trough - End of contraction, unemployment, the trough cannot go lower because there are still people who demand goods. The economy begins to recover again after trough

Is GDP An Obsolete Measure of Progress?

Major points:

• GDP doesn't measure: the general progress in health and education, the condition of public infrastructure, fuel efficiency, community and leisure.
• Because it's averaged, the GDP mystifies and masks the gap between rich and poor.
• What's good for the GDP is not always good for the individual, take health care: rising costs may be tough on families, but it boosts the GDP
• Happy Planet Index (HPI), which looks at the degree of human happiness generated per quantity of environment consumed is a better indicator of well-being than GDP
• The GDP is often precisely wrong in that it's not measuring progress, just the making of stuff. 

Link to the article

13.2 GDP Research: Thailand

The Circular Flow of Income

Ploy IA rough draft

Possible Internal Assessment Articles

1.  http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/game/335532/sony-faces-challenge-with-new-playstation

Demand and its determinants: The new playstation receives a lot of pressure to outcome other console producers and to keep up with consumer needs. 

2. http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/tourism/332428/trang-building-more-artificial-coral-reef

Production negative externality: - Fishing industries are destroying coral reefs

 - The government's department of fisheries is providing money to create artificial coral reefs to protect habitats for marine lives.

3. http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/gadget/335647/waste-not-want-not

Production negative externality: Electronics companies release a lot of waste into the environment, destroying the ecosystem and wasting natural resources.

Amazonian Rights

I believe that free market can help the Yagua tribe from poverty. They are using the bartering system rather than using real cash, this stops them from having an efficient and rightful market system. In other words, they should develop their exchange system as their first step. Like in the comic book we read in the beginning of the year, after the money system has been introduced to the island, people are able to trade more freely, which leads to an economical breakthrough. Therefore, the free market can be achieve much easier. Once free market is achieve, laws and systems will be implanted. Once that happens, people will view Amazonian as an organised and a governed community, not a barbaric tribe with no serious control. The strong standpoint of the Amazonian will support them to rise against interlopers and bring back their environment. In, which they will become significant, other communities will want to trade and to do business with them and the Amazon will be more connected to the outside world. 

Not only the free market can help Amazonian people to gain their land rights, but their lifestyle will be different. Although it's good to protect the old traditions, but they need to choose what benefits them most in order to survive. However, it might not be that simple, there is no doubt that other communities will try to take advantage off the Yagua people, but as Lorena said "What's the point of owning the land if we can't control it". I think it's time for the Yagua community to stand up and take its risks.

The problem with Antibiotics: Negative Consumption Externality

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jan/20/antibiotics-bacteria-resistance-alice-roberts

As we all know, antibiotics help us from common illness. However, using excessive antibiotic causes the bacteria to develop a resistance to the medicine, therefore making it less effective. This is an example of negative consumption externality: as new antibiotics are consumed, our immune system becomes weaker while bacteria becomes stronger. 

Reflection on Bangkokpost article

After reading this article, I realized that Thailand is facing a hard time trying to balance its labor laws to achieve a good healthy economy. As a developing country, Thailand should focus more on increasing productivity of the workforce instead of focusing on labor protection as the article says. I'll now list important points on how can minimum wage and labor laws be bolsters to Thailand's economy and how, at the same time, suffering it. 

  Advantages: 

 1. Protect the rights of employees and employers - This is what Thailand is focusing on, which it shouldn't as much, but still it is a good thing to help poor families and improve working conditions for workers. 
2. To regulate the restrictive practices of powerful employers - To control and limit the power of employers and to regulate maximum and minimum pay for different jobs. This is a good thing, because if the government doesn't interfere, a firm might pay a worker average of 100 baht per month and that is too low....So, to protect workers from getting too low wages, minimum wage is the right thing to do. 

3. Raise wages of very low-paid workers - Yes, obviously the government's main goal is to raise wages of low-pad worker, which is good for the workers, but firms? not so much. 
4. Reduce discrimination - According to the article, Thailand labor rules enforce firms to hire 1 disabled person every 100 normal workers they hire. Or else, they can pay an entire one year salary of that worker to the ministry's fund for handicapped. Most firms don't do the latter, so handicapped people are hired. 

  Disadvantages: 

 1. Workers get paid more than they are worth - the minimum wage might be unsuitable for some workers. If you have a worker that always come late and forget all the meetings versus a worker who is very hardworking and determined, you would likely want to pay a better wage to the second worker and pay very little to the first. However, the minimum wage tells you to pay for example, 100 baht per day to the first worker, but his dedications should worth only 50 baht. 
 2. Raise production cost -> price increases -> reduce demand - This is the result from increasing wages of low-paid workers. Producers need to pay more for labor in order to produce a certain amount of product, but since the cost of production increases, producers will not produce as much and the price will likely to increase. Thus, causing demand to decrease. 

 3. Increase unemployment - Firms might not be able to pay the new minimum wage to every worker, so they will tend to decrease their labor force(Most firms will turn to technology and machine-power instead), which increases unemployment.

Minimum wage sounds like a wonderful idea to keep workers well-paid without being oppressed by devilish firms. However, it may not seem as wonderful as you think, since everything has 2 sides, so does minimum wage.  Although it is essential to control the rights of labor force, but if it's not implemented correctly, it can suffer the economy as a whole. :(


Link to the article: http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/economics/323831/wage-hike-compounded-by-tougher-labour-rules
Picture:http://www.imglols.com/wp-content/main/2012_03/the-truth-about-working-for-minimum-wage.jpg
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-14WV7nNX1OvnUIjIbCVQR5ahru1xUURFumMif59LzqpaEnb8cUMWtU6amhpFVaojCDcjWDCrbkEAVIWIpzgD2fNjBqYlALXt_rhisKxVpOF4vtqpilIoEuN3eUMjOrr6AK-i-UP0q57g/s320/MinimumWage.JPG

Demand Curve worksheet

Freedom's Sound

Adam Smith and his ideas.......

ONCE UPON A DIME reflection!

“Once upon a dime” is divided into three parts. Each part portrays a significant change in the economy, starting from the origin of money to the foundation of the federal bank. I really enjoyed reading the cartoon, it was funny, colorful, and really helped me to understand the history of economics (although Mazuma island doesn’t exist in real life  :).

The first part of the cartoon is about the origin of money. Before money exists, the people of Mazuma(a fictional island in the cartoon) used a system called trading to exchange valuables. However, the trade system contains many flaws. First, it does not support direct trade between individuals. For example, when Captain Sharky and Dr. Millicent wants flowers for their wedding, they need to trade fish for a spear, a spear for coconuts, coconuts for a net, and then a net for some flowers. This method is troublesome, because they don’t have a medium of exchange. Second, the trade item can’t hold its value over time. Third, most trade items have poor portability and durability. To solve the problem, Bloomfield (another character in the story) came up with ‘dime’, a painted stone that measures value and can be acceptable for all change of goods. Money has been invented!

 The second and third part of the cartoon focuses on the developing economy of Mazuma. Paper bank notes with higher value was invented, along with bank, check, and loan system. Every time a problem arises, Bloomfield tends to invent a way to solve or improve the situation. However, loan system causes people to have too much money to spend, which leads to inflation (continued rise in prices of money), the uncontrollably price rising lit the idea of the federal bank. The federal bank controls how much someone can lend and determine the interest rate of the other small banks, like a mother giraffe looking after her baby giraffes :)

               After I finished the cartoon, I noticed how the economy has developed from trading fish for a spear to exchanging a piece of paper for an ice cream. It shows how human can make value out of the simplest things and make life much easier. I wonder what will happen to the money system 100 years from now on. If the economy keeps developing, what problems will take place? Will there be a new medium of exchange? What determine the amount of money (dime) each Mazuma people can obtain when dime was first invented (how was it measured)?