Climate Change and the Economy

A circular flow of how climate change can effect.

When it comes to climate change and how it can have affect on our economy the best options to regulate during a drought is either canceling fireworks, or not allowing bonfires during the drought; however, I think bonfires is the better option, because it will be easier to inforce and have less externalties. When it comes to bonfires government can help by having cops give tickets when we are in a drought and are banning bonfires, also people will more likely to not have them because its not as serious as fourth of July fireworks. This holiday's tradition is having fireworks to celebrate the freedom of our country. Fireworks would also have many externalities and none of which are positive. If we were to regulate fireworks consumers will not be buying fireworks which would be less tax the government can collect of them, and it would also lead to unemployment because the firms are not making enough money to pay the workers. Where bonfires will not have such a big impact on the economy in a negative way.

Should the Government Regulate Gas Prices?

This shows what would happen if demand exceeded supply. There would be an extreme shortage.

Definitely not! The benefit of having the gas prices low is awesome; however, that one big pro does not come close to measuring up to the cons, AT ALL. The first problem with regulating gas prices is -in my opinion- obvious. Controls prevent the price system from rationing our available supply, for instance in 1973 and 1979 the government set a maximum price for gas consequently owners sold gas as first come first served, so if you didn't get there in time to fill your tank and they ran out you were out of luck and had to try again next time. Not to mention because of the first come first serve policy gas station owners used there was a very long line at the pump, which ended in you spending more money, because of time wasted waiting in line and as soon as you got o the pump it would run out. It didn't take long for customers started paying extra so they didn't have to wait in the long line. People literally bribed the owner! Oh but don't worry not everyone had to pay in order to get to the front of the line. The people who were longtime customers, close friends, and the politically connected got there way in the front because they were "special". Sure now days there is a way around that we have tons of gas stations with self served pumps, and more than one pump at each station. This is a very valid point, but here is the second problem with government setting a price for gasoline, It will cause a huge imbalance in supply and demand! For those who do not understand the severity of that you most likely more "here and now" kind of people, but what about 20 years from now when we are out of the resources needed to produce gas? Overtime we (U.S. citizens) demand more and more gas for our cars, and as demand continues to rise supply stays the same or even falls. Yes its true, in the long run demand in gas is some what elastic, but in the short run the demand is inelastic. Meaning to be able to lower consumer demand, even the tiniest bit, there needs to be a drastic change in price. Maybe your thinking well what's the worst that can happen if demand exceeds supply? To answer this question if the prices don't rise then gas pumps will run completely dry! Prices are used to allocate scarce goods! Of course there is always the option to tweak gasoline so cars can still run on it, or even replace gas all together! That would be an absolutely brilliant idea if it didn't take billions and billions and dollars to do. Environment regulations already have affected refineries to an extreme extent. Ever since all the global warming issues were brought up by environmentalists there are tons of restrictions on how to make gas! Still not fully getting where I'm coming from? Now that the government is controlling what you can and can't put in gasoline to produce it refineries have to reinvest in new tools and machines needed in order to do this, which would be fine if these new changes weren't happening on a regular basis. Some factories have had to shut down because they were not able to pay for this or they were in so much debt just trying to keep up with the new discoveries and ways to produce gas. So in my opinion regulating gas price would cause a lot more trouble then if we just let them continue as they are.

Entrepreneur Steve Chen

Taiwanese entrepreneur Steve Chen was born in August 1978, and at the age of 8 immigrated to the U.S. growing up in Illinois. During high school he worked at a 7-eleven to save up money to put his way through college at the University of Illinois. Chen dropped out of college to work for PayPal where he met Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim. After selling PayPal to ebay Chen and Hurley immediately were thinking about starting a new company that they made using the bonus checks they received from PayPal. At a dinner party the two were talking about how they were going to share the videos they took. Realizing that the videos were too big to email and that it takes suck a long time to upload them the idea was born! Chen thinking about how websites like, flickr, made it easy and fast to share digital photos, Chen didn't see why not they could have a similar program only use it for videos. In 2005 they launched their finished product YouTube, which was ranked as the tenth most popular site just after a year. With 100 million clips viewed daily and 65,000 videos uploaded every 24 hours, one is likely to see videos of their closest friends, of their extended family, and of "Mishka the talking dog". The video sharing site helped to launch "the old spice guy" and make it easier for society to share videos with their friends! Chen currently serves as chief technology officer, even after selling YouTube to google for 1.65 billion in stock. Steve Chen is now named one of "The 50 people who matter now", and YouTube is considered "The ultimate form of reality TV". You can see from this brief overview of Steve Chen's road to success you can see that he used the commonly used acronym "HUNT" to help him out. First starting out with a small idea of a website used to share videos, as him and Hurley began to thoroughly think this out they new what they wanted this website to accomplish and what resources they would need. They imagined a website that was easy to upload and share videos, and all they needed was a program similar to the one used by sites like flickr. Next they went through all the possibilities that might cause a barrier, for instance some videos are too large to email too friends, and then they found a way to be able to do this with out email. He then acquainted himself with fellow co-founder Chad Hurley, after which they took the first step and acted on their vision! All in all the biggest thing I learned from Chen's journey was that when one success is sold use the money earned to make a new invention and make more money! Which can be used in many different life experiences other than economics.