Category: Microeconomics

Categories
Externalities

Annoying Roommates

Garrett and Jonah became roommates after a tornado destroyed Jonah’s apartment, but it turns out that their habits aren’t exactly conducive to being roommates. Garrett passively aggressively lets Jonah know that he’s messy when it comes to taking a shower so he buys Jonah a bathmat. In return, Jonah suggests that he get Garrett a pair of noise-canceling headphones since he’s so bothered by every noise Jonah makes. The two go back-and-forth listing the various ways they annoy each other.

Categories
Health

Is Insurance a Pyramid Scheme?

Mateo comes down with an ear infection and Jonah comes up with an idea to create a store insurance policy. Originally, the store raised money for medical bills by putting a donation jar out for customers to donate spare change. When Jonah realizes that takes a lot of work, he proposes creating a pool of funds from the employees and have them contribute monthly to cover someone’s bills. Unfortunately, he’s created a semi-pyramid scheme that requires individuals to donate money to help one individual.

Categories
Health

The Cost of Healthcare

After a coworker comes down with an ear infection, the team members decide to try and raise money to help cover the costs of medicine. Jonah decides to come up with a group health plan where each member donates money from their check and then covers the medical costs of store members whenever the become sick. Amy sarcastically points out that this is basically what health insurance is meant to do.

Categories
Health Public Choice

The Life of an Insurance Fund

When Mateo gets sick, Jonah comes up with an insurance fund to help cover employee medical bills because the store does not offer health insurance. The team members join the plan because it only costs $20 each month, but Jonah has promised to pay previous medical bills. Jonah and Amy quickly find out each team member, especially Sandra, has a lot of pre-existing conditions and they realize that they can’t cover everyone’s costs at one time. The two try to break the two groups apart, but the members in the pre-existing condition group will have to pay significantly more to cover all their costs.

Categories
Consumer Choice & Behavioral

Nonrefundable Movie Ticket

Glenn wanted to see Saw because he thought it was about carpentry, but he quickly realized it was a horror movie. He wasn’t having a good time and even threw up in his lap, but his wife didn’t want to leave because they paid for the ticket and it was date night. Glenn and his wife should have left if they weren’t enjoying their movie since the tickets were non-refundable, but like many people, Glenn and his wife fell for the sunk cost fallacy.

Categories
Health Principles

Curing an Ear Infection

Mateo has come down with an ear infection and everyone in the store has a way of curing it. While some recommendations are more appropriate than others, each believes that their method will cause Mateo’s ear infection to be cured. The problem? They’re mixing up correlation with causation. Each of them believe their method will cause the ear infection to diminish, but they may only be experiencing a correlation.

Categories
Labor Unemployment

Good Bye Travel Agencies

Structural unemployment occurs when the skills and trades are no longer in demand from the general population rather than market fluctuations. Adam’s girlfriend, Amy, quickly points out that his travel agency failed because people use the internet to book travel and no long need travel agents.

Categories
Labor

Employee Appreciation

After a recent uptick in the amount of union activity in the store, the corporate office has decided to institute Employee Appreciation Day. Jonah is quick to point out that this particular day always seems to occur whenever they are trying to get people to sign union card. He advocates for the union instead and mentions that joining a union may provide more long-term benefits, but Amy and Dina work to convince the employees that a union is unnecessary.

Categories
Labor Labor Law Public Choice

Election Day

It’s election day and Cloud 9 has placed pamphlets in the break room encouraging employees to vote for anti-union candidates. Cloud 9 knows that unionization could result in much higher labor costs, so they spend that money to encourage workers to not form a union. This form of managerial opposition is part of the explanation for the decline in unionization rates in the United States.