iPod Cell Phone

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/30/technology/personaltech/ipod_phone/index.htm

CNN reports claim that Apple Computer and Motorola plan to unveil a cell phone with iTunes software sometime in the next week.

The new phone brings together two of the most popular digital services- the cell phone and Apple's iPod. The iTunes software on the new phone would allow users to transfer music files from their personal computers to their cell phone. The report from the New York Times is not clear whether or not users would be able to download music directly from the Internet to the new phone.

Apple, Motorola, and Cingular have neither confirmed or denied reports of the new phone hitting the market soon. According to the New York Times, Apple is going to make some sort of music-related news event in San Francisco on September 7.

My question is this: Will this marriage of digital technology set a new precedent for cell phones? Will this new phone create a new market for multi-use technology products?

Hope for the coast?

As hurricane Katrina moves its’ way through New Orleans, many economic issues emerge. Experts are now predicting that Katrina could be the costliest hurricane to every hit America. The reason the damage is expected to be so great is not just due to the magnitude of the storm but also because of the level of development along our nation’s coastlines. Over 50% of our nation’s population lives on a coast while coastlines make up less then 20% of our landmass. The result of this population density is devastating on the environment because coastal zones are considered very ecologically fragile. For decades the effects of our presence in the Gulf coast area have been evident. Biological diversity is decreasing, and we are losing over 100 square miles of land mass along the coast every year due to our unnatural control of the Mississippi River. From an environmental standpoint it is clear that coastal zones need to be managed in a way that does not threaten the ecosystem; however, the majority of the public does not base their decisions on whether or not an action is environmentally sound.

As the frequency of devastating hurricanes hitting the American coastline increases, I wonder if an economic reason to leave the coast will present itself. The more money that insurance companies have to pay out as a result of hurricane damage the higher insurance premiums will be for both businesses and residences, causing a shift in the demand curve. Eventually, some insurance companies may even refuse to insure those places all together, causing a shift in the supply curve. Either occurrence would prove beneficial for the environment.

Do you think that the day is coming where population density will actually decrease along the southern coastlines?

There is a lot of very interesting and alarming information about the current condition of our coastal zones at

http://www.ocrm.nos.noaa.gov/czm/

Park offsets high gas prices

Due to the increasing gas prices, Cedar Point amusement park decided to lower admission costs so they did not lose business. Park visitors can save money on tickets even though they are spending more to get there. This is the first time that Cedar Point has ever reduced prices. Management thought they would lose too much business if they did not compensate the consumer.

The rise in gas prices has affected everyone. Travel is down, people are walking and riding bikes more, and business are losing money because of it. The reason gas prices are high is because of high demand but low supply. Cedar Point is a unique situation because it is the only one in the country. People have to travel to get there so gas prices affect Cedar Point's business. Business need to do what they can to stay competitive. Money is a very sensitive subject to people. They work hard to earn it and before they know it they spend it. Now they are spending all their money on travel to get to a place, thus not having the finances to spend it on leisure activities. Business hope to cut their losses and will offer certain things to its customers. Also, when people see they are saving money (lower entrance price to park) they think its a good deal and will do it. Sales always attract customers.

Woman wins $3 million on penny slots in Nevada

A elderly woman in Nevada recently won $2.99 million on penny slots. The previous record was $2.06 million. The lady plays three times a week and has been for a very long time.

Will publicity of record jackpots increase the number of people who gamble at slot machines? Casinos are trying to increase the quantity of people gambling by offering high rewards for low risk. For example, this lady won nearly $3 million on a $.01 gamble. With gas prices setting record highs and travel down the potential for a high rate of return may draw vacationers to Las Vegas instead of other places.

Concerned colleges try to stanch flow of cheap beer

College campuses are concerned with the amount of beer that students are consuming. They believe a primary reason for the amount of beer consumption is because it is so cheap and available. The article proposes if alcohol prices were increased students would purchase less beer. Many students turn to beer because it is cheaper than other forms of entertainment.

Would increasing the price of beer or making it less available really reduce the amount of beer consumption? The article was an example how price can effect demand. College students are typically known as having a limited budget. Raising the price of beer may stop some students from buying as much beer, but won't eliminate drinking completely unless a equally fun source of entertainment is available at a cheap price. College students drink beer. An incoming freshman now has more access to it than he or she did in high school solely on the fact that they become friends with the people who are of legal age to purchase it. Something should be done to make stricter laws of supplying beer to minors. Recently in Massachusetts, when a person purchased a keg, they must register the house with the local police as to where the keg will be as well as the person who purchased the keg must sign the side of it and they are held legally responsible if under-age people are consuming that beer. I think something along those lines would probably work better on college campuses. Change the entrance to bar to all be 21 or above. Would the bars really lose that much money? How much income do they really make on the under-age kids?

JCPENNEY's Marketing to teens and tweens

It's interesting to me how they use the term "lure" in this article, because thats exactly what they are doing. The retailers are trying to get teens to buy more clothes by using technology. The part that is interesting to me is, How many of these teen's parents know how to access and understand the sites mentioned in the article.

Ethanol to Stop Gas Hikes?

Ethanol, the fuel of the future? That's what some are calling the new form of fuel that is made primarily from corn, but also can be generated from other sources. Even though still in an infant stage, the production of ethanol will more than double from 2006-2020 thanks to a bill signed recently by President Bush.

Will this really help to ease gasoline prices though? Perhaps in the future it might, but two things need to happen to aid that. 1) There needs to be more information and accessibility to this alternate type of fuel. I know I haven't seen a gas station with a sign for "Ethanol" up around this area. 2) To use this ethanol based fuel, a a consumer must have what is called a 'flex fuel' automobile. Once those cars become more prevalent, stations might be more apt to market the ethanol fuel.

I pose this though, in the short term, will this new fuel truly help to lower gasoline price? As Dr. D has noted, adjusted for inflation, gas is now lower than it was in I believe the 70's. So surely, scarcity of resources alone can not explain the fluctuation of gasoline because if oil were becoming that scarce then simple economic theory would suggest the price of gasoline to be higher now because over time we have depleted more of the resource. So many other factors play into the cost of gasoline, i.e. transportation costs (it's nearly $9/gal in Sweden), terrorist threats and even impending weather threats along the costlines.

Regarding the Ghost of Julian Simon

The late economist, Julian Simon, was an ardent crtic of doomsayers who said the world was running out of resources. If, indeed, the world is running out of a particular resource, then simple economics suggests that its price should rise. Thus, in 1980 Simon offered a $1,000 wager to any doomsayer who thought the price of a scarce resource would rise over the course of 10 years. The noted ecologist, Paul Erhlich, took the bet and chose five metals (copper, tin, chrome, tungsten, and nickel). By 1990, the price of all five metals was lower than in 1980 and Simon had won the wager.

Now, you can read about a new $5,000 bet over the price of oil between John Tierney and Matthew Simmons.

[Thanks to Frank Stephenson at Division of Labour for the link.]

Flat Panel for All?

I’m sure we’d all like to have one of those nice flat-screen TVs to hang on our wall, but the cost for one have ranged in the thousands of dollars. On the bright side, there may soon be a chance for the middle income families to have ambient light technology as well.

Originally, there were few competitors in the industry, with Sony capturing the bulk of the market. Now though, due to increasing demand, more companies have entered into the rat race. Over eight companies now compete against each other, forcing one another to lower their price in order to sell. Since its debut, the plasma TV has dropped in price by as much as 35%, according to USA Today. Another reason prices are continuing to drop is that the inputs for the production of the TVs have become cheaper as suppliers also find ways to trim costs.

As consumers, do you foresee an even larger drop in price? If so, by how much?

Taiwan and Chinese Tax

Chinese government decided to cancel the tax of fruit importing from Taiwan. The Taiwan ministerialist said that Chinese government intented to devide the emotion of the government(Democratic Progressive Party) and farmer.Most of the vote of Shuibian Chen, the president of Democratic Progressive Party, is from the farmer in the North in 2000. However, the government agree to talk about this issue with Mainland China because of the pression from local farmer. Chinese government choosing Taiwan Farmers Association to talk with was because that this system blonged to Nationalist Party which was alway against Democratic Progressive Party.

Why the downsizing

Recently Morgan Stanley said that they would ahve to cut jobs, about 1,000 brokers to be exact. The firm says that they will see those who are not up to the standards of the company and then let them go. Why the reason for the sudden downsizing? Did they have a surplus of investment bankers? Are citizens not needing the help of investment bankers to invest their money as much as they used to? Perhaps the stock market is down, but from what I have heard, investment banking is extremely difficult and it takes a lot of intelligence to be one, so the ones that are not "up to standard" aren't by any means underqualified.

Competition

The two biggest medicine companies announced to incorporate. It showed that both of these two companies agreed that the competition would never disappeared.

Investors supported Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. to purchase the stock of Ivax Corp by 7 billion 400 million dollars yesterday. The stock of Ivax Corp. had increased by 10% to 25.17 dollar; in contrast, the stock of Teva only had increased by 0.2% to 31.23 dollar.

A lot of companies insists that competition is able to improve the development of the medicine market, but in these two companies point of view, competition will opress the price of production.

Fighting Pollution

Pollution is an externality of driving cars, burning gasses, and running factories. The government has placed emissions taxes on companies and other regulations as a way to clean up the air and to limit pollution. Scientists are now trying to develope concrete and paint that will help to break up the pollutants in the air. Do you think that this will be an effective way to cut down on pollution? Will this new technology cause the government to be more lax with emissions amounts?

Smart business or a monopoly??

AMD filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel last year. AMD alleges that Intel's size gives it an unfair advantage in the market and that giving perks to customers who buy more, and other Intel practices control the market. Intel says these are just smart business practices. So what do you think- is Intel really a monopoly or are they just doing smart business? And is AMD turning out to be real competition-they controlled twenty percent of the market at the time of this article?

Is it a monopoly?

Recently, Microsoft held a conference in which it told consumers of its new OS, Windows Vista. I told about how it would be clearer and more user friendly than Windows XP is. A while ago though, Microsoft had some trouble with Congress because people started accusing it of being a monopoly.

The reason I am showing you this article is to demonstrate that there are no other OS (Operating Systems) for a PC that I am aware of. Even if there is, I have never seen it advertised. Just because other companies do not want to go into the market for fear that they could not compete with Microsoft, does this make their company a monopoly? This case is slightly different than the Intel situation because there were other companies producing a chip.

Smoking in Public Places

A recent debate has ocurred on whether smoking sections in public restaraunts should be banned. Second hand smoke is an externality. Basically, a person or group of people are affected by acts that they themselves are not committing. Second hand smoking is then a negative externality because it has negative effects on others who are not smoking. I have read that some ways to correct some negative externalities are through taxes. Can you think of any other ways to correct this problem without any taxing being paced into effect?

AMD files antitrust suit against Intel

A contemporary monopoly case: AMD against Intel.

According to the complaint, Intel has forced major customers such as Dell Inc., Sony Corp., Toshiba Corp., Gateway Inc. and Hitachi Ltd. into exclusive deals in return for cash payments and other deals.

Intel has bullied 38 companies, including large-scale computer-makers, wholesale distributors and retailers, to secure a monopoly in the highly competitive x86 microprocessor market.

I don't think this is a monopoly. Intel through its hardwork and correct marketing strategy established a right position and a right product in the market. Having a huge share of the market has two sides. One is Intel is really big, two is consumer's preference. I personally think that AMD is inferior to Intel chips. So i buy Intel. Why I think Intel is inferior? becuase I know AMD's history is shorter than Intel, and everyday I saw high quality ads on TV promoting Intel product. Intel put much more effort to promote its product than anyone else. So consumers have some brand loyalty to Intel. And Intel can give its customers: Dell, Sony, etc. a better deal than AMD. It is a natrual thing when company shopping around for cheap chips and choose the better deal.

a right position and a right product in the market is not a fault and should not be considered monopoly.

Harry VI's first day: 8.9 million

The sixth volume of the Harry Potter saga sold more than 8.9 million copies in the first 24 hours it went on sale in the United States and Britain to become the fastest-selling book in history, publishers said.

"British book chain WH Smith reported sales of 13 books per second across the 391 shops it opened into the early hours of Saturday, compared with eight per second for the fifth Harry Potter adventure."

seems publisher had full preparation for the first day sale, if they didn't print enough copies, then people would have to wait for the back order. They had foreseen the huge demand in advance.

Apple: Beware back to school blues

$0.99 for each song downloaded, iTune on apple.com counts for 38 percent of Apple's total sales, up from 16 percent a year ago. When i see this number, I couldn't believe it. I did expect the music downloading could be so huge. So I think the music on iTune is elastic. But if it increase its price for one more cent, it will decrease the quantity demanded dramatically. And it will affect the total revenue which will decrease.

Apple sold 6.2 million iPods for the second quarter. i think the music for downloading and the iPod is complements. When the quantity demanded for Ipod goes up, the quantity demanded for music must go up because each 20 giga bytes harddrive can download approximately 2000 songs. And downloading from peer to peer software is illegal, so people would go to iTune to download legal music.

anybody have any idea? or anybody know the elasticity for music online? i mean the exact number.

Poge's Purchase

A manager of Pogo Producing Co. said that Pogo Producing Co. announced to purchase the Northrock Resources in Canada of Unocal Corp by 1,800,000,000 U.S dollar.

It was a huge deal and decision for Pogo, because this Co. was only valued $3,300,000,000, and Pogo had to sell its assets in Thailand Hungary for this purchase.

The Chief Director of Pogo, Paul G. Van Wagenen said that this deal could make the cycle of petrol storing and exploitation of this Co., which had 35 year-history, up to 9.3 years.