Unemployment solution

I was reading about unemployment today and how it is impossible to go down to zilch. Unemployment is indeed a hard problem. The government cannot just allow the unemployed and their families to starve or resort to crime (or throw themselves onto the tracks…). Yet it isn’t a good thing if the government hands out taxpayer’s money for people to do nothing. Is there a way to find a Golden Mean?

My inspiration stems from two sources
1. My classmates and their talk about how we should send mainly failures to the army. It sounds damn elitist i know, but our Prime  Senior Mentor once suggested this, though it faield most unfortunately
2. The story about how this poor guy stole just to go to jail to get food

lloyd’s proposed solution is basically to —

Draft all unemployed people. Recruit them, immediately put them in the army. They may not necessarily be part of the military combatants but they can be stuff like clerks, cooks or even parachute folders. That would grant them a job and some income.

Basically, “if we can find money to ‘kill’ people, we can find find money to help people” — a quote from Tony Benn, a former British politician who is extreme left. Perhaps there are other roles in which the government can provide apart from the military.

I will not go into the possible consequences of such a move — but it is feasible in my opinion. If you can conscript and train all 18 year olds, you can do the same for the unemployed as well.

Maybe this policy may not even involve much money being paid out…Perhaps not being sent back to the army would be a good reason to get a job — ANY job, even a cleaner. Essentially, disincentivise people from being unemployed ^.^ I don’t believe there’s such a thing as being “unable to find a job” just “unable to find a job that would suit a person’s tastes/preferences”

I have a slight problem with the definition of unemployment — more often than not the main phrase left out of the definition is “looking for a job”. Why the distinction? Perhaps it is mainly for women who’d willingly stay at home — to not count them as unemployed and thus screw the statistics up. My point ofview on the evolution of gender roles means that men can as well. But regardless of gender or the willingness to look for a job, it does not change the fact that they *can* contribute to the labour force and they have the potential to do so.

There probably is only one problem with this idea i’m toying with — we can’t exactly pinpoint who is unemployed to force them to become militarymen. Then again, why would that matter — its not our fault if people “refuse our help”. Just wait till theyre desperate enough and they’ll seek this avenue of employment and income.

 

the buyer’s dilemma

I have been trying to get my hands on second hand books for next year. My book prices are seriously crazy, 20 each for 11 to 15 english books, 80 each for econs, bio and math. I already have a bio book but the stupid ______ is changing the book.

i’ll probably be getting my english, history, bio (SEMI-relevant), econs (3/4- relevant) books from my Year 6 senior foc — though i plan to treat him lunch as a thank you (It’s unlikely that he reads this post btw)

But I am going to have to buy my math book from some other senior…

Today I received an email about the book, sure i was excited, but the issue got harder when he asked for the price specifically. Big mistake — I should have asked about price first in my reply. Damn.

Here he has the advantage in selling if i’m going to tell him what price i am looking for first considering that I don’t know how much the books is worth to him. This most annoyingly is like a sealed auction, people offer their auctions in an envelope and no one sees the price. No one is really too sure whether to offer a higher or lower sum, people will give the highest amount they are willing to pay. A brilliant if you ask me.

If i offer too low a price, someone else may get it or he may not be willing to sell it. Though he will if no one else wants to buy it.

If i offer too high a price, enough said — i could have gotten a lower price.

Or i can wait.

If i wait too long, someone else may get the book first.

If i don’t wait long enough, i may lose out on someone else offering the books at a lower price.

People say that “the early bird catches the worm” however one may realise that fatter worms may appear later. By then the bird would have missed the chance.

Bearing in mind that this is the First person to send out the email about selling books even before his exams are over, what am i able to judge from his behaviour? What implications can i draw with regards to the price?

I’d say that he is rather opportunist judging from the fact that he is following “the early bird catches the worm” mantra and this may mean that he will try to get the best he can out of the deal. Naturally, anyone would. He’ll have to wait to see if the other people on the email list want to offer a higher price.

Lloyd’s evil resolution?

It was essential that i balanced the information towards my end. I’m going to check the market out — for the buyer’s side at least. I’ll also have to wait for more willing sellers in the meantime. I foresee that there will be more willing sellers in time to come since year 6s naturally have the incentive to get rid of their books and get some money out of it.

For more information, ask me online. i realised that my blog can be googled. tmd.

 

Advertising

“However, some economists argue that advertising is economically valuable because it increases the flow of information in the economy and reduces the asymmetric information between the seller and the consumer. This intensifies competition, as consumers can be made aware quickly when there is a better deal on offer.”

It depends on the kind of advertising really. Most advertisements do not provide that much information about the product and costs but rather make their brand name known (which is the main function). It probably still has some purpose though since no company would spurge money for nothing -_- I suppose the main function of advertising is after all to ensure brand loyalty (which may affect elasticity, i’ll have to give that more thought to evaluate whether its true)

Seriously, nowadays i don’t even know what products some ads are advertising (not that i have seen a lot on TV sicne i don’t watch TV) in other words, im unable to provide examples right now.

The only reason advertising *may* be valuable is if -everyone- is advertising. Counter advertisements and competition in terms of advertisements would help a person decide, but often than not just leaves him fuddled up -_- (maybe its just me) What this means however, is that it may be in fact disadvantageous to certain (usually the newer) companies who *Can’t* afford to advertise. The bigger companies that can afford more and larger scale advertising are able to use it.

But its often assumption that advertisements provide a form of competition (i seldom see how one product offers a clearly better deal in terms of price) I can always choose to buy both (maybe not at the same time, but eventually) if i want to. That’s what i would hope to do at least, shrug.

The fact is that in advertising, no company is going to tell you how their product is inferior or more expensive (oh please la -_-) If they were advertising something expensive, they would show the appeal of the product first and let you bother with the price later. Yes, the cost of something is seldom mentioned (only in the instance of supposed large discounts) in order to avoid turning people off.

Perhaps the internet is now the tool for information to balance out ( I mean i have found cheaper IB textbooks online and some which the scool is selling us at a lot cheaper because of the SGD to UKD conversions) I still refer to rely on recommendations from my network if anything

The best and most effectiv ekind of advertising ever