Downplay Society

Okay so after my first day in Microeconomics, we learned the basics. The Law of Supply, The Law of Demand, Scarcity Rule and The "Thoery" of Equilibrium. A quick refreshed for those reading who haven't hit an ECN class in a while.

The Law of Demand is all about the consumer... They make demands, oh yes we do. When Price goes UP, the Quantity we buy goes DOWN and vice versa. Thats because consumers enjoy low prices! Easy enough. If a pair of socks cost $0.10 I might actually buy new socks. If they cost $0.02 I might buy 2 pairs!

The Law of Supply is producer (seller) sided. When Price goes UP, Quanitity follow suit and goes UP. Since producers like to make money they want to sell more if the price is high. More Goods and A higher price means more money!

Scarcity is what keeps this all in context. There are limits to everything. Limits to land, labor, capital and entreprenuership. Capital meaning equiptment, not cash, cash is paper. Equiptment like machines, pens, paper, so okay maybe cash is capital in this sense. The last and upcoming factor of scarcity would be information, that is left for another debate.

Quit Smoking? Earn Cash!
Quitting smoking never sounded so great. I can make money with the money I would have been spending on cigarettes. This definitly a good thing.

Internet Stats
The internet is growing rapidly, there is not telling what people do on the internet. Or is there? Between the 94,000,000 American adults who go online every single day this Fall, 63% use search engines, 77% use email, Im guessing its somewhere around 90% that use MySpace. Such a captive audience but a diluted market.

Opening Thoughts: I just started browsing around for some ideas to blog about and I stumbled across two blogs that gave me some inspiration. I wasn't sure how to approach recording each so that it would benefit you as a reader as well as myself as the blogger, so I listed the thing I learned in bulletpoints, included a link to the page(s) that contained the information and left my remarks on the closing thoughts. I am open to format and content suggestions/feedback from fellow established bloggers.

Bubbles

• The world has been blowing bubbles for atleast 400 years.
• The average shelf life of toys is less than 18 months.
• There is a market for bubbles and research that goes into making bubbles last longer as well as making them bigger and even adding color to bubbles.

Original Source: The 11-Year Quest to Create Disapearing Colored Bubbles - Popular Science
Original Blog: Simplicity

Buddies and Business

• There are panels that research the differences between going into partnerships with friends versus strangers.
• The Bible is used to back up the con of business-with-a-buddy.
  
• "Proverbs 29:21 "If a man pampers his servant from youth, he will bring grief in the end."
  If you pamper an employee because he is your friend, you will bring greif to yourself when he will not follow direction." - Anyonymous Comment
  
• Founding a company is hardest in the startup process, most poeple have a hard time hanging in when they have to sacrifice time and money. This goes for any business founders, friends or strangers.
• Sometime a friendship will help the business and strengthen, sometimes it will destroy the business and destroy the friendship, sometimes it helps business but hurts the friendship and vice versa.

Original Blog: Noam's "Founding Fathers" blog

Closing Thoughts: I'm thinking that it is too broad of a topic to decide if starting a business with a friend is a good or bad thing, there are too many variables. I'm thinking as long as the friends setup some boundaries between eachother to protect their friendship first, then work on their roles and responsibilities in the business it should work.

Another key component in starting a succesful business with a friend would be integrity. It's difficult sometimes to confront a friend about something that needs to be addressed in hopes to keep the friendship going smooth. Same goes with strangers-now-business-partners, some people may want to build a relationship with the stranger by letting go of issues as not to confront the other and damage the new relationship.

As for the bubbles story, I am not sure why I found it so fascinating, but, I enjoyed reading most of the article on the newly developing bubbles. It not only tuned me into a new market, but also inspired me to keep my eye out for colored bubbles in the future. Cool stuff, I would prolly buy it atleast for a gag-gift sometime.

While sitting in a cubicle at my previous employer, after a lengthy proposal meeting I pitched to upper management, I was confronted by the CIO of our company. He praised me for the great work I did and asked me the question "Have you thought about college?" Of course I thought about college but I didn't think that I needed it, nor had the time for it. He then gave me some insight into the future of the company, the future of the industry and a basic college-like lecture on Methodology. His 2 minute shpeal inspired me to go to college and get my degree. That day I went back home and looked at colleges online, found one that seemed like a perfect match and that August I was back in the classroom. Whether or not he was implying that he thinks I need college, or was just encouraging me to go for my own benefit, I am not sure, but either way, I respect the man fully.

I am currently enrolled as a Management major, but I am deciding whether to switch to finance or management information systems. I also part-owner in a web design company that I started with an old friend of mine. Our company has been part of roughly 20 projects, with about 6 full time clients.

I tried day trading for a while and made some novice mistakes with penny stocks, so steered away from that for a little while. I would like to become involved with real estate at some point and have a few ideas for emerging real estate markets. I would say I am an expert in computer and internet skills. I know several programming languages such as MySQL, PhP and Visual Basic, although I do not plan on becoming a computer programmer, its moreso something I picked up along the way.

When my time comes I would like to be remembered as honest, generous and wise. Meanwhile I would like to accomplish great things to shape this world and the lives of the people I love.

An recently read novel inspired me to try out blogging for the first time. The book is entitled The Digital Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online I have read blogs a many times in the past, but never was inspired to start writting my own until now. I think I have some valuable insight to offer as well as some learning that I could do from keeping up with a blog semi-frequently.

My goals for this blog:

• To learn more about this world and more about myself.
• To have a place to explore some thoughts at 3AM.
• To improve my writting skills.
• To improve my free-typing skils. (Being able streamline typing with thinking.)
• To inspire someone else to start writting a blog.
• To update atleast once a week.