It is Monday yet again. Nobody likes Mondays. For some reason my bed was exceptionally comfy this morning, I didn't want to leave it.
There really was nothing special about today other than the fact that it rained. Today's rain was pretty scary. The rain came our of no where and came down really hard. I don't think I've ever had to walk through rain so violent. Right when I decided to head for class (a five minute walk from my dorm) is when it began to rain the hardest rather than the light sprinkling that proceeded it, so that was an interesting trip; I got soaked. Outside it wasn't at all cold, it was wet; sitting in the air conditioned room while being wet is what was cold.
After making my wet trek through the rain, I was at lecture. Because my professor is of at a meeting, today's lecture was taught by one of his TAs, Mr. Lopez. I liked Mr. Lopez's lecture. He definitely didn't hit us with as much information at once as Professor Mesznik does. He also had a power point that accompanied his lecture which made it all more visual.
Lecture today was about foreign direct investment which in short basically is international trade and international business. For example, if an American company goes and sets up a store in another country, such as McDonald's, this is considered foreign direct investment. We also discussed the idea that if a company is temporarily set up in another country, such as a mining company, it will actually cost more in the long run. This is because it is a cost to build the facilities and advertise and once the company/business is up and running it will make money, but once the company/business has done all of its work (such as mining) it is a cost to tear down the facilities and rehabilitate the land.
Then later in the day, in seminar, we discussed several topics such as banks and what would happen if they went bankrupt and the market force of supply and demand. The forces of supply and demand are what make economics work. The buyers will determine demand while the sellers determine supply. In the market world of demand there are concepts called compliments and substitutes. Compliments would be things that buyers typically by together such as coffee and cream. If the price of one compliment goes up, such as coffee, the demand for the specific other will go down because less people will be buying its compliment. Substitutes are things that usually aren't consumed at the same time and you could be consumed instead of the other. For example, you probably won't have both pasta and rice in the same meal. You may have pasta one day and rice the next but not together. If the price of one substitute goes up, then the demand for the specific other will go up. This is all very interesting.
After seminar, meeting with Mrs. L, and calling my sister, I went to my dorm and took a short nap. At about 6:00 PM I met Jackee in the library to do homework. We had to finish a 300 word essay (mine is a little longer) describing an economic project or invention in history and explain why it was economically significant. I chose my topic to be Eli Whitney's cotton gin. I chose this as my topic because the creation of the cotton gin made the production and exportation of clean cotton a very large part of the southern market. The cotton gin also led to further innovations due to the production of cheap cotton. Cheap cotton led to textile manufacturers which led to further innovations.
I was in the library from about 6-7 PM (we took a break for dinner) and then 8:30-10:30. I got all of my work done for tomorrow. I still have to do a little more homework that the TA assigned which is due Wednesday. We're just about in the middle of the course and it hasn't yet become too overwhelming, let's hope it stays this way!
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