Google

In March 2001 Google's market share was about 90.1 %; We could pretty much consider Google as a monopoly. This was different than what U.S society was used to in the 90's because then we had Excite, Ask Jeeves, Likos, etc. At the time many thought of Google's search results as superior compared to its competitors. From this Google became more popular, so popular, that its brand began helping the company take control of the "Search Engine" market.

But now is Google taking second place to Bing?

From my research I have found that Bing isn't quite taking the place of Google just yet...But, Bing is growing slowly more and more. In January Bing received more "hits" than Google; Some people have been claiming that Bing offered more accurate results. Personally I've used both and have found much difference in results.

There also has been some drama between the two competitors. Google accused Bing of monitoring its search results in order to make their own search results better.

In closing, I don't mind if Google and Bing transitioned to be on the same level as one another, although I know Google  take a huge loss, and Bing a huge gain. Monopolies to me, in a sense, limit choices anyway and for the user that is not always a good thing. I believe if people aren't having success with one thing that they should be able to have choices.

Sources: Business Insider
247 Wall St.

Fair Trade Products

Fair Trade products are products that are brought directly from producers in low income countries by the U.S to help stimulate their economies, by cutting out international trade. To be deemed Fair Trade the producers themselves have to make sure working conditions are well and healthy and must be paying their employees sufficient wages. By using this Fair Trade system the U.S is suppose to be creating more jobs by securing and increasing demand for these imported products directly from the producers. Some of these Fair Trade products include coffee, wine, bananas, tea, fresh fruit, cocoa, and vanilla beans. This system was created to keep producers from paying their workers extremely low wages and to keep them from pocketing too much of their profit. This plan, in fact, has succeeded in its efforts. It has raised wages for some sellers and some workers in low-wage countries. Some economists worry about the effects on a broader economic scale. Some of the main concerns are that the views of fairness by these Fair Trade advocates seem to be highly subjective and not economically realistic.  Some even argue that it may hold some of these producers back, seeing that they already are making a good profit off of these higher prices products, from expanding their operations to more efficient ways of production, whether it has to deal with employment, new technology or whatever.

In my opinion the Fair Trade system is a good one that will help countries that are poorer than us. But there is always the side that has to think about the issues within our own country and whether we should devote more to helping ourselves before we always try to go out of our way the help others.

Price Elasticity of Demand: Decriminalization of Illegal Drugs (pg 130-131 in Meier text)

The text has an excerpt about the legalization of drugs and how it would affect their elasticity. The article has two different perspectives, one that agrees with legalizing drugs and one that doesn't. One side argues that the legalization of drugs will not change the inelasticness of the demand for drugs, that regardless what the price people will still have the same demand for them, and if it were to increase, it would only be slightly. If drugs were to become legal it would reduce drug trafficking and would help problems that arrive from trying to deter selling and using of drugs like, enlarged police forces, overcrowded prisons, overburdened court systems and human costs.

In contrast, one the main arguments of the opponents of legalizing drugs are that drugs are in fact, elastic; Drugs in fact would sell more in the price went down because of them being legal. They claim that "occasional users" that may not do drugs all the time because the prices are high and because drugs are illegal, may do more if the prices go down. These users often use substitutes for expensive drugs, such as alcohol. Overall, from this perspective people feel that drugs will become more acceptable to society, therefore increasing the demand.

I can see the pros and cons of both sides. I believe that legalizing drugs would prevent a lot the the hassle associated with illegal drugs. People who do drugs are going to do them regardless if they are legal or not. Drugs are a sickness and are associated with psychological and physical issues on why they choose to do them. On the other hand the idea of not making drugs legal because these "occasional users" may use more is not as logical to me as the opposing side. Personally I don't believe in occasional users, all addicts have problems no matter how much they use. If drugs were to become legal, if these people only use drugs sometime I would assume that they will continue to only use drugs sometime, no matter the price.

Post 2- Chevrolet Volts

Right now the market for automobiles is down, a minor or major reason could be the extremely high gas prices, although in the last couple weeks gas has gone down a little. Despite the overall drop in automobile sales, one car in particular is becoming very popular, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. The demand for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt is rapidly increasing. Of course if the demand is increasing, prices are rising. Apparently the price tag on this vehicle has not went up just a small amount of money, but in some cases $10000 up to $20000 above the suggested retail price. One reason that the demand has gone up for the Volt is because it is fuel efficient, having capabilities of 37 mpg on gasoline and 93 mpg equivalent on battery power. The demand of this vehicle has created a shortage in the supply, another reason for the inflated prices. In addition to the current shortage GM has made a decision to only produce 10000 Volts this year which will likely increase the inflation on the vehicles price even more. Even with all the competition found in the car dealing industry prices are still clearly over the top. To consumers $44,995 for the Volt is a good deal found at Glendale Hyundai , compared to the $51,999 at a Town and Country Chevrolet.