RS9 Why The Price Of Coke Didn't Change For 70 Years

This podcast is all about Coca Cola and how for 70 years they got away with selling their product for no more than 5 cents. Planet money talks about how this totally fights against the law of supply and demand on so many levels. It all started in 1886 when Coca Cola started selling their soda, they said from the beginning it was going to be sold everywhere at 5 cents apiece and they were going to do there best to keep it that way. This all came about when two lawyers came up to the company president asking him to use their bottles and the way he got rid of them was by telling them that he was going to sell Coca Cola at 5 cents forever. This stayed true for 70 years, which goes against all law of demand because all they were was breaking even at best. Something they did to help them out was called the ninth bottle objective and what it was is when someone went to go buy a coke, one out of nine times it would be empty which then forced people to put another nickel in to get a coke. This ultimately helped them out because it would come out to 7.5 cents for the ninth bottle.

I think it was a great thing what Coca Cola did back in the day for selling their product for just 5 cents for 70 years. I personally love soda and I would have lived during this time period when it was sold so cheap, it really helped them become a big name even in today’s world because of prior success and for how cheap they were selling it for. This is a prime example of an excellent marketing scheme to get their brand name out there for years. I also have no problem at all with the ninth bottle objective, yeah I would have to put in another nickel but for all the times I bought a soda for only 5 cents I wouldn't mind every once in a while having to pay 10 cents to get a soda.

RS8 Manufacturing The Song Of The Summer

      Ever summer there is that one song that everyone will remember. It starts off with everyone getting dropped off at a writing camp to make the best song. The cost starts with 25000 a day for just recording time alone. Song writers bring an idea to the camp for the producer who had brought beats for it. That’s when they start getting the melody to the song and the concept. It takes about twelve minutes to get the name of the song once they have the beats. The camp cost 200,000 alone and then with paying the song writer and the beats guy, the price gets even higher. Next part is the vocalist who helps Rihanna or the artist get focused. It cost around a million dollars because everything needs to click at once to get the song recognized. Billboards, advertisements and radio play are just some of the things that are put into that. Relationships with the radio stations and the DJ are established by being paid for first and then the artists keep coming back with favors along with requests. It’s illegal for producers to pay radio stations for play of their songs. After all of the money has been paid to get the song of the summer, Rihanna spent around 1.3 million dollars alone just for the song “Man Down”. The song wasn't even the song of the summer.

      I personally think that this podcast could show people a side of the music industry that isn't normally seen. I know that when I used to listen to songs I would think that artists have the life and make so much money because they record the song and then give it to the radio station to play. This obviously isn't the case and a lot more goes into then that. I like the fact that producers work that hard and pay that much money to get a top hit out. Sometime it can work in your favor and you can have the song of the summer that everyone won’t forget but then like what happened here can happen and after all that went into the song “Man Down”, it still was not the song of summer 2012. I also had no idea that producers practically bribe radio station DJ's to play there songs, I thought it was more like that when artists were finished with a song the radio stations DJ's just couldn't wait to play it, but that is not the case.

RS7 Gangnam Style & Katy Perry

Zoey Chase and Robert Smith had two different podcast within a several days of each other. The first talked about a hit Korean pop song, “Gangnam Style”, and the now world famous singer Psy. The second podcast is about Katy Perry’s success last year and how it didn't really translate to her making the money that most people would assume she would.

Korea has been waiting for this moment for a long time where a pop song of theirs makes noise all around the world. America has been known forever as a huge export of pop music because no matter where you go in the world most likely you will hear American pop music being played. This is the first time that a Korean pop music song has been competing as a top pop song across the world. Psy’s song “Gangnam Style” is a huge step for Korea in becoming a name in pop music. They are going to look to continue the progress they had made so far in music to continue to dish out hits to the world. They use YouTube as a way to get their music viral to everyone and once one person watches it and likes it, they then share that song to all of their friends and then this goes on and on. I personally think that it is good thing for Korea to have put out their first successful song. Not only will people in Korea be happy but if this continues but people in America will be happy to listen to international music more if they continue to pour out hits.

Katy Perry had huge success last year and was one of the most popular artist of the year but does her success actually mean she made a lot of money. Most people would think so but for the most fact Katy Perry didn't even break even. Katy Perry sold 2 million albums and 24 million songs downloaded on iTunes but all of her overhead cost and everything else that needed to be paid made this happen. Even five of her songs were eon top of the charts last year and she had a movie about her life. I personally think that the music industry is going downhill with all of the illegal downloading of music and such. There is no way people will continue to buy music if there is a free way it can be obtained. It is going to kill these popular artists because they won’t get nearly half of the money they would have if there was no way to illegally download music.

RS6 An Economist Gets Stoned

The podcast talks about the money side of marijuana, both if it was legalized and if it stays illegal. They start off by talking about how in California there is about 1000 medical marijuana distributors and some of them might be getting shut down because of obvious reasons that are the same as if it should be legal or not. People start off to talk about how if it was legalized it will be cheaper because people won’t need to smuggle it in and pay for all the necessities of smuggling drugs. If it really is cheaper a lot more people will use the drug as well. The counter argument to that is if marijuana is legal it will get taxed and thins such as transportation cost and distribution cost will have to be paid for. The podcast goes on to talk saying it’s overestimated the amount of money marijuana will bring the government.

I first off want to say that I believe that marijuana should be legal in all states because of the economic growth it can bring. I also believe that they are underestimating the amount of money it will bring in. If it was ever legalized over all the states I would say that more than fifty percent of the population would do it on a regular basis. Marijuana would become a little more expensive but not that much more because right now there is a predetermined price of marijuana and if it was legalized they wouldn't really drop the prices because they know they can sell it for that much and people will buy it. It will also help provide jobs for people because growers, transporters, distributor’s workers and many more positions would open up. Marijuana would help money flow around the economic system as well because of how people feel when they get high and get hungry. Things to smoke out of will be sold at more places and possibly different designs and more job availability. I believe cigarettes are worse for people with more predetermined bad side effects then marijuana which has really non beside maybe being a little lazy or sluggish. Once they legalized alcohol again they made so much money from the taxes and organized crime went down. That could be the same if weed was legalized.

RS5 Sir Ken Robinson

Sir Ken Robinson says that creativity should be held on the same level as education and is just as essential. He makes this argument at a TED Conference and goes on about how it shouldn't be that education is held on a higher level than creativity and it shouldn't be. One of Ken Robinson’s main points was that people grow out of creativity and are born being creative they just grow out of it because it is not important to people in society. He also says that no one is original anymore because they don’t want to be “wrong”; being creative with things such as art you can’t be wrong but because creativity is not important to people it makes everyone similar.

I completely agree with Sir Ken Robinson because throughout life art and classes such as that are important in early development of kids for a reason and as time goes on it is almost just forgotten in a sense. Art majors are hard to come by and people who like to draw and are also good at it. We need more types of people who are creative because these are the types of people who really think differently than someone who stops art classes and their interest in drawing at a younger age. It is also because once you get past a certain age people choose majors and interests that will make them money and most of the time people who are creative and are majoring in art have a hard time getting jobs in today’s society. That is why it’s hard to come by people who are really interested in drawing and being creative still because of the importance people see education and that’s not how it should be.

RS4 Fear Thy Nature

Anthony Sallemi

Professor Engel

MICROECONOMICS

20 September 2012

            The podcast “Fear Thy Nature” is based on the show Sleep No More and the famous 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. Sleep No More was created by the British theater group Punchdrunk and was made to show how human behavior is influenced by outside circumstances. In the show people come in right away, are given masks and are advised not to talk to anyone or use their cell phones during the show. It takes place in a warehouse and the audience members are supposed to be in a hotel and walk around and just go from place to place. The actors and actresses do not wear masks but they also don’t talk so everyone is on their own to do what they want in this “hotel”. The audience members are allowed to follow and the actors or actresses at any time and or walk around independently. The masks in this situation prove that people will act differently because their identity is hidden but yet not one commits any serious crimes at the same time. The second thing that is talked about in the podcast is the Stanford Prison Experiment which is when student volunteers were asked to play the role of inmates and prison guards. They were studying the psychological effects of being an inmate or a guard.  Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist who created this experiment intended for it to last two weeks but only ended up lasting six days in fake prison situated in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. It only lasted that long because the guards liked the fake power so much they were abusing it and the inmates while some of the inmates took the abuse some could not handle it.
            After listening to the podcast I think it’s interesting what the makers of Sleep No More did and what their intent was. The British theater group Punchdrunk changed up what everyone was used to when citizens usually go to shows with actors and actresses and let them interact with people, audience members, actors and actresses like never before. It shows how outside scenarios can change the way people act and especially when they are wearing masks. It hides their identity so it lets people be who they want to be because of the mask and them being what they want to be is the secondary effect of wearing the masks. Also the Stanford Prison Experiment is another interesting situation because volunteer college students were asked to be a part of this mock prison so psychiatrist could study their behavior. The way they act is obvious to me that it would happen because of past experiences people who are given fake power can take it to their head and feel as if they are really in charge. In this case information is good but costly because yeah they found out a lot of information during the experiment but at the cost of the inmates that got abused. Both experiments show how outside scenarios can change the way people act and I feel that it is needed for citizens to get out of their element every once in a while and do something they aren’t used to doing. 

RS3 Economic Meme

RS2 Maastricht, Marijuana And The European Dream

Anthony Sallemi

Professor Engel

MICROECONOMICS

9 September 2012

The podcast “Episode 395: Maastricht, Marijuana And The European Dream” is about a Dutch town named Maastricht. This is the town where the European leaders signed a treaty that would make the euro the currency of Europe. Maastricht is also a place where marijuana is sold legally at coffee shops. People from all around bordering towns would come to just get high and hang out, that was until the mayor said that Marijuana could not be sold to foreigners. The reason for this was the pot smokers would cause problems such as; littering and parking illegally. Coffee shops are starting to lose money quickly and customers, according to one of the shop owners he said that ninety three percent of sales come from foreign buyers. Citizens from Maastricht have started to buy their marijuana form drug dealers because these coffee shops are starting to tell users to sign documents to say they are members of these shops. The citizens want nothing to do with this because after they sign these documents it shows that these people are drug users when they just want it to be anonymous.

            After listening to the podcast I believe that the mayor is wrong in making a law that foreigners can’t purchase marijuana. Yes they can be a nuisance when they are high and cause problems but that shouldn’t be a reason to ban them from coming to Maastricht to get high. Citizens of this town can cause the same problems the foreigners do, littering and parking illegally can easily be enforced by law enforcement, to me there are more positives then negatives of foreign drug users and there are multiple secondary effects of this decision. These foreigners first of all would keep coffee shops in business while helping out other businesses in the area with these new customers, if there isn’t a reason for the tourist to come everyone in Maastricht loses out on business. It would keep money flowing in the town and not lose out on this great opportunity for business. The guidepost test of a theory is its ability to predict is a good example for this because the mayor thought he was doing something good for the town but at this time there have been more negatives then positives. All the town of Maastricht would have to do is strictly enforce littering punishment and parking illegally punishment to make sure people do what they are supposed to be doing. I personally believe that the mayor should not have banned marijuana for tourists.

RS1 HOW TO BE A GENIUS

Anthony Sallemi

Professor Engel

MICROECONOMICS

3 September 2012

  

            One word most people would love to be called when growing up is “genius”. Some of the most notable geniuses in history are Mozart, Newton, Einstein, and Stravinsky. Others such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Pete Sampras were considered geniuses in their respected sports. It is said that giving the title of genius is not just handed to you but it is earned from hard work. "These people don't necessarily have an especially high IQ, but they almost always have very supportive environments, and they almost always have important mentors. And the one thing they always have is this incredible investment of effort." (How To Be a Genius). I believe and agree with what Dobbs says here because it is one thing to be smart but to actually work hard and accomplish something is a completely different story. Being a genius takes hard work and complete dedication in everything you do.

            Being dedicated and putting in the hours to succeed is the main point to this article and well know artist scientist and athletes are used to portray the main point. Also that just because you might have a high IQ doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to have a great life and accomplish everything you want to you still have to put in the work. This is shown in a study of adult graduates of New York City's Hunter College Elementary School where they at least had to have a 130 IQ and the average IQ of the School was 157. “Though the Hunter graduates were successful and reasonably content with their lives, they had not reached the heights of accomplishment, either individually or as a group, that their IQ's might have suggested.” (How To Be a Genius). This goes to show that no matter how smart you are if you don’t work for what you want it isn’t just handed to you. Stephen Hawking’s says that people who brag about their IQ’s are losers. Even he knows it means nothing until you can accomplish something and then right after he said that statement he worked rigorously on the black hole theory and made a name for himself.

            The author of the article David Dobbs, talks about how all through his childhood he was praised for being so smart but as he went on in life he realized if he wanted to be successful he would have to put in the work. “By my early thirties I saw the obvious: my smarts and "talent" - above average or not - would count for little unless I outworked most of the other writers. Only when I started putting in some extra hours did I get anywhere.” (How To Be a Genius). If you want to be someone successful in life it has to be worked for.

            The author states that hard work leading to success could encourage you, or overwhelm you. Dobbs says it could motivate you to put in the extra work because in the end it will pay off. Others can say it could overwhelm them because those are the type of the people that get things in life handed to them and finding out that doesn’t work when you get older might scare them.

            I believe you assigned this article to us because you wanted to send us a message that we are not going to get an A by just coming to class. Being a genius takes hard work and dedication in everything you do. We are going to have to do the homework, do the readings, and actually work for a good grade in the class because in the end it will all pay off.