The American Market System

It seems to me that any weaknesses that the American capitalist-based market system has is outweighed by it's ability to hold closer to the principles that this nation is founded on; namely maximizing liberty. While the main problem with these free, market economies is that it is certainly true that not everybody can or will succeed. However, the large majority of the people have equal opportunity to succeed, which is much more fair then other nations and economies throughout history.

Another reason I believe the American capitalist system is more effective than other forms of economic systems is the vast competition it provides in almost all areas of the market. In command or socialist economies there is not much need to compete with anybody else, consumers would have little to no choice in  their economic decisions, and therefore there is not much need to improve various goods and services for the people. Whereas in our system, the large competition that it present drives forward entrepreneurship and improves more technology, medicine, etc. Which in turn makes the vast majority of the population more happy.

When involving services to the public such as health-care, is it morally acceptable to do these things for a profit motive?

Opportunity Cost

December 2011 I was given my first paycheck working at my new job, The Original WOW! Burger, of around $500. Naturally, I had many things that I wanted to spend this money on, things such as food, clothes, gadgets, etc. However, it was also the Christmas season and I had certain obligations to get Christmas presents for my girlfriend Sara and my father. Of course, I spend the money buying a new jacket for my dad and new UGG boots for Sara. Not knowing the economic example I had just made, I had just weighed out my decisions and contemplated the opportunity cost of each of those decisions.

By spending the money on the various Christmas presents, my opportunity cost for making this decision could be a potentially infinite number of things. These could vary for just using the money on food and gas throughout the next couple of weeks to buying other goods I might find appealing. Furthermore, I could have also saved some or all of the money in a savings account in order to start saving money for a later time. Ultimately, I'm glad of the decision I made because It made the people I love happy.

The only question I have when thinking about the economic idea of opportunity cost, is it seems as though when looking back at a decision, since the opportunity cost can in most cases be so many great things, how is it very useful to economists?

Scarcity, yo

If I had to choose a part of my life which I think was most scarce to me, the most prominent one would be my scarcity of time. 

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Everybody (including me) only has 24 hours in a day and it is up to us how we each choose to spend those 24 hours. In my individual life I have certain responsibilities, such as, my daily schooling, my responsibilities at home, my homework for the next day. Combined with my responsibilities with the girl friend and other friends this leaves me with hardly any time rest in the day. What it comes down to is either choosing between a good night sleep or staying up later in the night in order for me to accomplish other things I want to do in my day. Even that isn't a easy decision because a good night sleep is almost vital to functioning properly the next school day. Everybody, and especially me goes has to decide every day how they are going to live their lives based on the scarcity of time.