2008 Presidential Election

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page3/story?page=jeopardy/041130

I'd like to be on Jeopardy one day...

370 CA313374 Parksplace Los Altos High School 97994.61

The Dow took a big hit, and so did my portfolio. I think I lost about $7,000 in one day... am I too sad about dropping from 100 to 370? Not really... that's the thing about fake money. You don't really care all that much. I changed my portfolio around, sold some safe investments and bought highly risky, volatile stocks... and thus, you see my balance of below $100,000....

What's the lesson here? Well, if this were my real money, I would feel very uncomfortable picking and choosing my own stocks. I would probably do some research and let mutual fund managers who do this stock picking business for a living decide what stocks to purchase. But because I enjoy the ups and downs of the stock market and more risk-tolerant than the average investor, I would allocate some "play" money to invest in individual stocks... but even I wouldn't want to take that random walk down Wall Street with $100,000 of real money... maybe I should let you guys invest your Park's Place Currency in the stock market???? What do you guys think?? Bring it up in class if you're interested....

Stock Pick of the Day: HPQ (Hewlett Packard)

Tuesday, November 16, 2004
For complete argument, visit www.xanga.com/coachjpark

On "fair" taxes: As you can see, our current tax code does discriminate against those that make more. There are those that argue that a proportional, or flat tax (Steve Forbes) of say 15% would be a fair system.... cut out all the deductions, credits and the like and tax everyone the same amount.... even in this system favoring "rich" folk, the rich would pay a lot more in taxes in terms of amount paid.... there are those that would go even further (Alan Keyes, namely) and abolish the income tax and institute a national sales tax.... aside from the implausibility of any of these radical changes occurring in our tax code, these changes would probably serve to increase the gap between the rich and the poor....

Our current tax code of 10, 15, 25, 28, 33 & 35 % brackets, or progressive tax code is, however flawed, a fundamentally "fair" way of collecting taxes....


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On minimum wage: Assume an equilibrium wage of $5.00 an hour and an equilibrium quantity of 50 million hours of work. Well, if you artificially raise the wage to, say, $7.50, well then, you can see that you will have excess supply of labor... You'll have a supply of 75 million hours (workers will want to work 75 million hours), but a demand of 25 million hours (businesses will only want to hire 25 million hours)... thus you have a surplus of 50 million hours of labor... so, essentially, that is why I believe that minimum wage should not increase... mandating that businesses pay for health care essentially is the same thing as increasing the minimum wage....

What's best for the economy is not to let sick people die, and it is absolutely essential to make sure we have Medicare and MediCal available to those that need... what I'm suggesting is that it is NOT the fundamental purpose of the government to give health insurance. Sure, it would be nice, but at what collective burden to society?

1. A producer’s average cost drops as production rises – this is known as

Price discrimination
Franchise
Patent
Economies of scale

2. A company has exclusive rights to sell a new good or service for a specific period of time

Franchise
Patent
Price discrimination
Monopolistic time frame

3. An industry that runs best when one firm produces all the output is known as

NO ANSWER CHOICES HERE

Aren't these questions that you guys think about every day? Stock tip of the day: Buy Amazon, Short sell retail stocks, buy Southwest Airlines (LUV)

I'm starting up my 401(k) and for my first $3,000 I want to invest in just one stock. Which one should I buy? I like Southwest.. if southwest is under 14.00, I'll buy it for sure... it's debt to equity ratio is great, one of the top companies to work for, the only profitable airline out there, continues to thrive despite 9/11 and there will always be a demand for airline traveling... unless I can somehow create a patent that will allow me to travel across oceans without the aid of airplanes... the airline industry does tend to be economies of scale in which a natural monopoly tends to dominate.... now obviously, airlines are not monopolies because monopolies are price-setters and The price at which profit is highest is the point at which monopolies will set their price level... Question #5 -- Why don't shoe companies offer price discrimination for shoes? Why do movie theatres do so for movie tickets, but shoe companies not for shoes???? Jun-bo better get the extra credit....

1. A market in which a large number of firms compete to sell the same product is known as

oligopoly
monopoly
monopolistic competition
perfect competition

2. What is NOT a condition of perfect competition?

high barriers to entry
sellers offer identical products
many buyers & sellers
buyers are well informed about products

3. What is a commodity?

a product that is similar but not identical
items that have high start-up costs
a product that is considered the same regardless of who makes or sells it
items that suppliers can charge high amounts for

http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=koreahn&tab=weblogs&uid=140872669

Larry David is waiting for a car to leave the parking lot, but the guy is taking his good old time..... and then another car pulls out, and then another car takes his spot... when I'm at Cal State Fullerton looking for a parking spot, nothing exactly like that happens....

Curb Your Enthusiasm is just an R-rated version of Seinfeld... funny stuff..

As for finances, I'm making a more conscious effort to not buy McDonald's-type food... even it means my having to pay $15-20 on Korean or Japanese food, I'll do it.... food is probably one of the expenses in life that you really should skimp on....

I recently registered for the Spring semester, but this time I'm taking just two classes: Finance 340 - Intro to Investments (I'll learn about the stock market in depth) and Advanced Econometrics.... although I would like a master's degree in economics, I have this passion for finance as well, and at the same time, I have to realize that I am first and foremost a teacher, and then a student.... also, taking 2 classes costs $1000 whereas taking any more than 2 classes will cost me $1600... after a Saturday morning class, I went to the campus Carl's Jr. and paid $5.38 plus $.50 ATM charge plus $.25 ranch fee charge for a Bacon Swiss combo and pulled out $20 cashback, so that I'll have cash on hand... one of my financial flaws perhaps is my reliance on credit and lack of cash availability... total cost for meal ($6.13... the cashback is NOT an expense, because I just transferred funds)... then i bought two bluebooks for $.54....

now I'm off to dinner... probably some korean food... and then off to work on an econ project of my own...