Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Attendance!!!! And a video

Please watch these videos by your colleagues, Zheng, Lang, Jorge Osuna, Carlos Landazuri, and Michael Fitzsimmons, and leave a brief comment to verify you watched them.



35 comments:

  1. We simply need to deploy technology to have limitless amounts of water everywhere in the world.

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  2. I think the problem of available fresh water is what has most environmentalists scared. But, not having water to drink is an incentive enough to have scientists build a very efficient and cheap way of converting salt water to fresh water.

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  3. I agree with Lang that having a gov't. fixed price would not be helpful. Also, what is the cost for the kind of technology that would desalinate sea water? Is the demand for fresh water high enough to support this industry?

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  4. Gov't involvement in the supply/distribution of water always seems to turn out terribly. The problem is not that we don't have enough fresh water, it's that we don't have enough fresh water in every area. I'm curious as to the cost to desalinate sea water. The technological costs seem to have gone down 90% in the last few years, but that doesn't say how much it still costs.

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  5. If it becomes more necessary to desalinate water, then the demand will rise, and more people will be willing to supply it.

    -Jorge Osuna

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  6. I think that supply and demand should determine the price when it comes to water. The problem is not how much water we have, but the cost to desalinate it.

    As for the Hayek video, I agree completely with the statement that people want socialism, but not the means to implement it. Good intentions do not guarantee a favorable outcome.

    -Courtney Colvin
    ccolvin@gmu.edu

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  7. I'm always been fascinated by the concept of water and capitalism. One of my favorite economic discussions involves the diamond-water paradox. Great discussion in your video, especially the closed system point.

    Michael Fitzsimmons

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  8. I think a good point is brought up in the Hayek video about the once-in-a-while need for government intervention. The example mentioned about how a company wouldn't have any incentive to form an army, is one that I have overlooked. It's important that things like this are recognized when we argue for or against this type of government.

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  9. Good Summaries!

    I personally enjoyed Hayek's points in Chapter 4. He even goes as far to say that any technology requiring additional government intervention is not worth it. Sacrificing liberty for the temporary satisfaction of a new advancement is wrong. The man wanted his freedom!

    -Emily
    elaffert@gmu.edu

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  10. An interesting point Hayek made in Chapter 3 was that he felt government intervention was needed but only during certain times such as when competition falls short and/or when there is a service that the market is not willing to produce (such as military). Altough these seem like basic ideas, it wasn’t until this was brought up that I realized not only is government intervention not necessarily a bad thing, but also that complete severance of government would be a detriment to society. Therefore, I agree that some form of government involvement is necessary. However, the degree of it will always be debatable.

    -Khattera
    kjahed@gmu.edu

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  12. If the fresh water shortage is ever a big problem, the demand for desalination will rise to meet it. For the current time being, it is unnecessary but rather hype and I agree with Lang that we do not have anything to worry about.

    Hong-An Nguyen
    HNguyen4@gmu.edu

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  13. I recently heard Canada is trying to stop the export of their fresh water to the United States. This seems like a good example of how to deal with the issue, people should find ways to deliver it rather than believing we are "running out" of water.

    Ayoung Jennie Kim
    akimp@gmu.edu

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  14. Thought about Chapter 8 when I saw this commercial.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIp5kI22hjk&feature=related

    Isnt the cost of the water subsidy for farmers offset by the lower cost of produce and fruits? This would not necessarily be 'efficient' since not everyone consumes produce and fruits in the same quantity but everyone has to pay for it equally anyways.

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  15. Related to the Hayek but sort of tangential - I've always found interesting the creative destruction argument of Schumpeter that societies will tend towards socialism, not because capitalism is inferior to socialism, but because capitalism is so good at what it does that it becomes politically unpopular, and so the society opts for socialism instead.

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  16. We have to admit that the water resources are limited, especially the freshwater. I can't agree with all the myths in the book. Our earth is a closed system, but we can't totally get the clean water from low-flow toilets, and at least we need other resources.

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  17. Our water is not drying up, but our drinking water is drying up. I think there is still a long distance before we use seawater.

    Chun Hu
    chu3@gmu.edu

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  18. Everyone, I think, should begin to take attention on the problem of the limited resourse - water. I agree with Lang. I think the government should make some law or rules to prevent people from waste of water. Then, although the earth is closed system, the water which we save can survive more people who don't have enough water in some poor countries.

    Doudou Chen
    Dchen9@gmu.edu

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  19. i don't think that we are runing out of water since 71 percent of earth surface is covered by water. and also lang's presentation pointed out that the world is a closed system so even the water is evaporate, it would never leave the earth. therefore, the real problem of water is not the diminishing resource of water, is the market of water.

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  20. The problem of running out water is quite controversial. I agree to the book which says the water cannot be run out. However, people save water for their own reasons. They want to save the water fee. Also, I think how to solve the problem of hydroponic areas is the most important issue.

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  21. In regards to the "inevitability of planning" that Hayek writes about, I find it (sadly) amazing that the scenario unfolds in such a similar fashion as it does today. Milton Friedman was a great at pointing out the cases of Monopolies most often resulted from government involvement in the industry. So the government gets involved, creates an undesirable situation, then proposes to take even more control to solve the problem that they, in a large part, are responsible for creating in the first place.

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  22. The problem of running out of water has been there for a long time. I think we have to use technology to make the seawater to drinking-water to solve this problem. The price control can not make any sense, we have to drink water everyday, but the supply is limited.

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  23. Found the presentations to be pretty interesting. Don't really see a water shortage in the foreseeable future.

    Carlos L

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  24. Presentations are done very well. The water shortage is not the issue. Having treated water available for the households is the challenge. Even if we are surrounded by the water, getting this water treated and have it reached to remote areas requires great capital and labor.

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  25. It seems to me that the problem isn't with the supply of water necessarily, but with the institutions in place in the areas of the world that continue to experience shortages with basic necessities such as food and water. In the West, people are not concerned with running out of water as they might be in other, less fortunate parts of the world. As for the Hayek chapters, it seems like Socialism has its merits in theory, but it is impossible to implement in a way that affords us the same gains that we get from capitalism and the free markets.

    -Rebekah
    rhannifa@gmu.edu

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  26. There is no need to worry about the shortage of fresh water. We need to think about effective and efficient ways of providing it to the people in need.

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  27. Video's very interesting, with the water supply info, seems like it would be a long time before our society need to worry about it.

    Richard Cheatham

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  28. I agree that there is no significant shortage in Earth's fresh water supply, and in theory we should not be worrying about "saving water," however I believe it would be beneficial to further develop desalination. With a larger supply, we might be able to more effectively and efficiently provide clean water to people in need.

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  29. Great job on the presentations. The chapter on sex, booze and drugs really rang true to me, especially the parts about encouraging concentration. I've maintained for some time that maintaining a minimum drinking age may reduce the amount of drinking done by minors, but it makes the drinking that takes place far more dangerous on two fronts. First, it's far easier for a student to hide a bottle of liquor than a case of beer in their dorm room, encouraging consumption more potent alcohol. Second, the increased potency of the drinks makes it much easier to accidentally drink too much at the same time as it discourages minors from getting help (or at least increases the threshold at which they'll seek help) when one of their peers does get alcohol poisoning.

    ~Bruce
    beberha2@gmu.edu

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  30. I couldn't agree with Hayek more when he says that planning to some degree is obviously necessary in order to establish a functional and efficient society, but too much central planning can have severe effects on the individuals in that society. When an individual has freedom to be an entrepreneur and allocate their own scarce resources in a rational way, they have the incentive to act as rationally as possible, increasing overall wealth. Central planning that is in opposition to competition will only have negative effects on social welfare.

    -Trevor Schneider
    tschnei2@gmu.edu

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  31. Great presentations. I found chapters on Miller very interesting and surprising. I think that coming from a different major all the information on those chapters was new for me. I never rationalized how government laws and probitions on "goods" like alcohol and drugs had such a double impact on society.

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  32. These were interesting and did a good job of condensing the data contained in our readings. There is a lot of overlap between what is in these chapters and what my public choice class is covering. Namely, how bans and other pieces of legislation perceived to be socially beneficial impose negative externalities on society. I'm reminded of a lecture discussing the dangers of the "magical ban-it button".

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  33. Since the world is a closed system as the book and Lang said, we are not really running out of water. By getting clean water from the ocean according to new technology, we can access more water, and convey them to those areas which are lack of rainfall and lakes. However, I am kind of confused if the water is badly polluted, can it be use again?

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  34. The videos are basically based on the theories in the books. Probably it'll be better if adding more perspectives themselves and drawing more diagram based on theories we learned from all the econ classes.

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  35. Great job on the presentations. From watching the videos, one can see the pattern on what happens when there's too much government intervention in society's decisions which agrees with the concept of "Good intentions not always causing the best outcomes.." As seen in the Sex/Booze & Drugs chapter, the prohibition of alcohol and drugs created a higher increase of prices but at the same time it also increased the consumer's demand (due to scarcity of the 'good' and increased the individual's risk.

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