Last year, when I was in the horrible, awful process of moving, I had an assortment of unwanted textbooks, clothes, and furniture that combined was worth over $1,000. I faced two options. I could take pictures of all my items and upload them to eBay or Craiglist or even Facebook Marketplace to sell them for what they were worth. Or I could sell my textbooks to my friend who was taking the same class in the fall at a heavily discounted rate. My pockets would not be as full, but I would be helping out a fellow classmate. Faced with these two options, I texted my friend and sold my textbooks to her. Combined with a couple other sales, I walked away from my unwanted things for a grand total of little more than $200. Continue reading “What I Didn’t Know About Adam Smith”
Tag: adam smith
Adam Smith Reigning In The Unicorns
First appeared at GenFKD
Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” has been smacking proclaimed unicorns in the tech industry, protecting the rest of us from another economic Armageddon.
There has been chatter about the dangers of the unicorn economy that has stemmed from the breeding ground of technological innovation—Silicon Valley. With 155 unicorn companies at a total valuation of $550 billion, the media, along with economists and forecasters, sees this as an economic time bomb and warn the masses to hide into whatever financial bunker they can find. But as we are well aware (or not), it’s typical (and ironical) for the media to blow shit out of proportion and not tell the whole story. Continue reading “Adam Smith Reigning In The Unicorns”
Oil Cartels and Those Damn Dirty Pizza Dealers
International oil cartel OPEC is back at its shady ways, but, thankfully, the organization is doomed to fail.
Whenever we hear the term “cartel” there is always a negative connotation involved with its use. We tend to correspond the term with the drug cartels of Mexico and people like “El Chapo,” the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel who escaped a maximum-security prison in July.
Less talked about are groups like taxicab cartels, which have been involved in passive-aggressive disputes with Uber and other ridesharing companies. Well maybe not in France after cab drivers essentially rioted because of Uber. These are just a few examples of cartels, but one that affects our lives quite a bit and has recently engaged in some fishy economics, is the oil cartel, known as the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries, (OPEC).
Oil is not only the magic juice that makes our cars run, it essentially makes the world run, which is why some key oil producers banded together to form a cartel.
Continue reading “Oil Cartels and Those Damn Dirty Pizza Dealers”
