Assignment 3 – MacroEcon CMC 2020

Posted bydudeworld33Posted inEconomics

It’s difficult to make it through a shopping trip without purchasing something that was grown, developed, or assembled in a country other than the US and in fact many goods are produced in multiple countries.  Post your responses to the following questions on your blog.

  1. What surprised you most about the concepts in this chapter?  Why?
  2. What is your opinion about international trade?  Overall is it good or bad?  Why?
  3. Did your opinion about trade change after reading the chapter? Go back to your thoughts on the buy local movement in your last reflection.  Can we think about trade with China and trade with Wyoming in the same way? Why or why not? 
  4. Give an example of a recent purchase you made that was primarily produced overseas.  Was there a locally produced option? How much more would you be willing to pay for the locally produced option? Why?  If you did pay more, was there a trade-off?

Here is a podcast on International trade with Donald Boudreaux that you might find interesting – http://www.economicrockstar.com/donald-boudreaux-on-international-trade-tariffs-and-protectionism/

  1. This chapter really dives into the opportunity costs of time, labor, and resources. The section about LaBron James mowing his own lawn is a fun discussion. I think about this in my own life as a successful IT professional getting paid a decent salary. Personally I do mow my own lawn but that’s for a few reasons. For one, during my lawn moving time, I don’t have an opportunity to make more money doing IT. I get paid a salary and working hour 41 vs 40 doesn’t make me any more direct income. I do personally work about 50 hours each week to get my salary and to prove to management that I deserve more when the time comes for raises. The point here is I probably won’t make more money and will burn myself out at work if I replace mowing my lawn with working IT. Second, I grew up mowing lawns as my first job as a kid back in North Dakota. Yard work was just one of those weekend things we did and I feel like it was part of who I am, a steward of the land we have. My family moved from Germany/Hungary to North Dakota to get land during the Homestead act of 1862 when Lincoln gave away free North Dakota farm land. Imagine taking 6 kids across Europe in 1870, then getting on a boat for weeks, landing in a strange new world where you didn’t know the language, and then making your way west and north to this place with brutal winters, all for the change of having some cheap farm-able land. And the third reason I mow my yard is because I like the exercise and listening to my podcasts while I do it. 🙂 Either way, the point is I should focus my efforts on just doing IT and trade for all the rest of what I need. I do feel like I’m also being cheap here thinking about how adding up paying for all these services can take from my salary. All those little services add up so if I have the time I’ll work on all of those ‘other things’.
  2. International Trade is good for everyone. It requires some regulation and some boundaries to control the forces in the market a little bit. Everyone benefits from healthy trade. It allows us to specialize, focus our efforts, and balance our wants and needs.
  3. My thoughts on trade lined up well with this chapter. I do buy local because I like the local things around me. But if it’s more expensive than the same item on Amazon, I usually can wait for the UPS truck to deliver my out of area goods. I also buy local from my friends with local shops and restaurants as I like to support my tribe.
  4. I recently purchased a “local” Colorado made mountain bike. The frame was actually made in Vietnam, most of the other parts from Taiwan and China, but it’s assembled here in the US and designed in the US. I did look at some of the other foreign options and in the end went with the local bike shop, and ‘locally’ made option based on the local engineering as the bike’s designers ride Colorado trails to design bikes. Also the local bike shop gives me a service discount going forward to help me maintain my purchase. Now that I think of it this doesn’t count as being local at all since everything was manufactured over seas. Our local region doesn’t really make much of anything, other than memories as we are a beautiful tourist town here in the Vail Valley.