Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Kara Kummer
Economics 1740
24 August 2016
1. If the government gives everybody the same freedom to work and reap the rewards, some
will do better than others. The result will be ____________________, but not
____________________.
2. Immigrants who arrived in the late-1800s/early-1900s found that America was truly a land
of opportunity. Describe the factors these immigrants encountered which helped them
thrive.
Factors: Since there were few government programs to turn to and no one expected them,
there were fewer rules and regulations and so the immigrants found a free market with no
3. Although Hong Kong had no prospects, no natural resources & little land that could be
Hong Kong: The British government couldnt be bothered with Hong Kong affairs so Hong Kong
was given economic freedom. Since the governor of Hong Kong favored free markets he never
introduced of the policies that other governments did and since there was no government
4. Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar decided to imitate the Hong Kong model with
__________, __________ and _______________. Estonia is widely seen as the most ________
Answer #4 successful
5. Explain how the lead pencil & the smartphone are examples of invisible hands.
Invisible Hands: The things we use every day and take for granted are the result of a complex
interaction with thousands of people all over the world. It takes the cooperation of thousands
of people, and many different hands, from people all around the world to create and supply the
6. Explain the concept of creative destruction as described in the Free or Equal video.
Creative Destruction: When something new comes on the market, a company can either fail or
adapt. If they can adapt they will create new jobs. To increase wealth and opportunities, we
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have to stop doing old things in old ways and start doing innovative things in new and better
ways or be creative. Destruction happens when a business fails because they cannot adapt to
the constant renewal of the economy. When and old way of doing something is no longer
needed and people lose their businesses. These old factories and old shops close down and
7. Johan Norberg describes how his home country of Sweden taxes heavily & then redistributes
wealth. Describe the benefits & drawbacks that this approach has on the Swedish population,
Drawbacks: The rewards for working hard and taking risks was reduced and the unemployment
rate was high. People tended to stay home sick and collected 80% of their income in
8. Explain the statement Free markets regularly turn luxuries into consumer goods, as
Consumer Goods: People with a lot of money can afford buy the expensive goods and be early
adopters. This creates a bigger market for these luxury goods and companies get more
revenue. Then, these companies can streamline the production of these high cost goods and
in turn create lower cost versions that everyone can afford to buy.
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9. As Milton Friedman said, The society that puts equality before freedom will
_______________________. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a
__________________________________.
10. Professor Friedman uses the analogy of a race to explain the concepts of Equality of
Equality of Opportunity
o All race participants are given the opportunity to begin the race at the same starting
Equality of Outcome
In this class, we apply the Equality of Opportunity concept. All students begin on the same day,
receive the same course information & have the same amount of time to complete the
coursework. While there is no guarantee that students will earn a respectable grade, all
Classroom
The grade would be determined by combining all points earned (by the class as a
whole) & dividing them equally among each student. All students would earn the same
Unless the class average were unusually high or unusually low, the most likely
result would be all students would earn a grade in the C range (C+, C or C-). Grades in
1. Would you approve of using the Equality of Outcome method in calculating your final grade?
2. What are the pros & cons to the student in using this method?
No, I would not approve of using the Equality of Outcome in calculating my final
grade. I do think that everyone should get the same opportunity to achieve a good grade in the
class but I think it should be up to the student have to work for the grade they desire. Weather
that be an A or a C. for example: If the student works hard they should be able to achieve and
A. Conversely, if the student does not work that hard they will get the subsequent grade.
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Pro: Equality of Outcome in the Classroom would benefit the students that are
struggling in the class and are not able to keep up, either because they dont understand the
coursework, or they cannot keep up with the time constraints or deadlines. In the end they will
Con: Equality of Outcome in the Classroom will in turn have a negative effect for
the students that are able to follow the coursework, time constraints and deadlines, should not
have to settle with just a passing grade if they can end up with an A or B.
Workplace
employees would be paid the same wage, regardless of their job duties, education,
performance or skill.
processing company. In April 2015, CEO Dan Price set a $70k minimum salary for all 120
employees. He also announced that he was taking a pay cut from $1 million to $70k.
1. Would you approve of using the Equality of Outcome method in calculating your salary? Why
or why not?
2. What are the pros & cons to the employee & the business in using this method?
No, I would not approve of using the Equality of Outcome method in calculating
my salary. I think employees should be paid based on their knowledge, skill and education. If
the employee has made the effort to become knowledgeable in their field, either through
schooling or on the job training, they should be rewarded with a competitive pay.
employees would not need to fight for higher paying jobs or have to prove they deserve a
higher pay. Employees would feel that everyone is being treated equal and there would not be
Con: If employers used the Equality of Outcome in calculating salaries, and all
the employees were being paid the same salary, employees would start producing less.
Employees would not feel that they needed to excel in their job to make more money.
Conversely, employees may also be required to do duties that they are not qualified for may
end up being overburdened with duties while others did the bare minimum.
Reflective Writing
Communicate Effectively
working on this assignment. To complete the assignment, I used many different methods. I
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watched the video on a computer with dual monitors. Being able to have the video playing on
one monitor enabled me to have the questions open in a google doc on the other monitor. This
made it easy to follow along and answer the questions as they were addressed in the video. I
prefer to use google docs while working on assignments, that way I can access them on any
computer or my phone. Last, I downloaded the google doc to word doc on my laptop so I could
format it. Students were given the freedom the format our answers however we chose. So, I
chose to do a simple double line spacing and easy to read font and size, along with numbering
and bullet points. This made my document easy to read and uniform.
professor to understand. I also made sure to follow the requirements of the assignment when
answering the questions. Students were asked to answer the fill in the blank questions with the
precise language that was used in the video. Also, for the short answer questions, students
were to summarize in their own word. When summarizing in my own word, I made sure I was
giving my own voice to the answer and not just quoting the video. For the few times I was using
quotes from the video, I made sure to put them in quotation marks.