Nathan Hino

Professor Sherwood

ECON 120

21 March 2021

Assignment 1

1.) Firstly, to prevent this problem in the future the Zimbabwean government needs to

regulate the influx of currency being dumped into the economy. Secondly, to combat the

current problem, the government probably did the right thing by switching over to more

stable currencies like the US dollar. Following stabilized countries, the Zimbabwean

country could remove the old currency and figure out a new rational plan by using other

countries currency meanwhile.

2.) A. It is true that the people who used to work on the farms were working in a slowly

dying profession. This was because the era transitioned to more technology oriented one

with machinery taking its place. Therefore, those jobs were replaced by engineering,

mechanical, and transportation jobs. It does not mean that the amount of jobs necessarily

decreased, but simply replaced by higher qualified jobs or other jobs that make the

transportation of food easier to the consumer.

B. My uncle is a farmer and was slowly pushed to become a semi-truck driver instead

because of other farmers with higher tech equipment were stealing his business. Fixing

the farming equipment definitely does not replace all the jobs lost by the newer

equipment. However, as seen, there has been a drastic increase in the ways that food has

been prepped over the years, jobs such as, cook, manager, business owner, and more.
 Because of the high amounts of food being produced, it allows for a lot of business to be

flood through these restaurants as a result.

3.) A. As seen with the Zimbabwean example, the printing of money does not solve the

problem in the least, but actually creates more problems. Opportunity, education, and

government infrastructure are keys to creating a wealthy country. Without the previously

mentioned keys, a government of a country can produce as much currency as it wants,

but all it would do is decrease the value of its own currencies in relation to the goods

produced by other nations.

B. Page 12 #5: Technology has allowed the world as a whole to become well-off then a

thousand years ago. Also, as government policies and infrastructure has become

increasingly better over the years, it most definitely dropped the poverty rates. There are

many programs and plans that allow for people to get out of their situations if they choose

to do so. However, there will always be people who chose not to work, or enjoy being

homeless, and those rates most likely will be constant throughout history.

C. Page 12 #1: The economists in that day probably thought that the crash was non-

fixable and unpreventable. Some economist probably wanted to increase the money

supply, but sometimes governmental influences prevent certain actions from proceeding.

From what it seems, the Federal Reserve did not want to increase the amount of cash

supply in the economy. That event probably gave to many learnable experiences to the

economic community which is most likely why the Covid-19 crash was mitigated quite

efficiently.
4.) Page 22 #2: It is because that switching between different skills that are heavy in skill

sets can be very taxing on certain individuals. For instance, some jobs take thousands of

hours before the mastering it completely, so it is no wonder that people are reluctant to

switch professions after years of dedication towards it. This is prevalent in many courses

in college. While studying for four different classes at the same time, it can be easy to

mix and mash ideas pertaining to different subjects – resulting in a weak understanding of

desired outcomes.

5.) Page 23 #2:

A. Kana has absolute advantage in cleaning the kitchen, and Mitchell has the absolute

advantage in making miso soup. Because it cost Kana 2 miso soups less to clean the

kitchen than Mitchell, she has the comparative advantage in cleaning the kitchen.

Because Mitchell can make 4 miso soups in an hour compared to Kana’s two, he

should make miso soups.

B. Sienna has the absolute advantage in both baking cookies and laying drywall.

However, because Ethan can lay the drywall for a room for 10 cookies as opposed to

33.3 from Sienna, Ethan has a lower opportunity cost to lay drywall which gives him

the comparative advantage in laying drywall as well. And, Sienna has comparative

advantage in baking cookies.

C. Kara has the absolute advantage in glass sculptures, and Sara has absolute advantage

in full-page newspaper ads. Kara has the comparative advantage in glass sculptures as

it cost 2 full-page ads lower than Sara. And, Sara has the comparative advantage in

full-page newspaper ads as it costs ¼ of a full-page ad per glass sculpture.

 D. Data has absolute advantage in both poems and physics problems. Riker has

comparative advantage in poems while Data has comparative advantage in physics

problems.

6.) Page 23 #5: For certain items, the United States can still have a productive advantage

over china that would not be worth the cost of the transportation of goods. One big

example would be cars, even if China could produce the same car at a lower rate, the cost

of bringing multiple cars overseas would be too drastic for the wage gap.

#6 A. If it took South Korea 5 hours to produce an auto then the US would have

comparative advantage in Airplane production. If it took 3000 hours to produce an auto,

then South Korea would have comparative advantage to make airplanes.

B. As long as South Korea’s auto making time is over 5 hours, then the US would have

absolute advantage in both.

C. 12.5

7.) Page 25 #2: That whole process probably took Thomas a few months to make a failed product

which would have otherwise took him 2 hours of labor at a minimum wage job to pay for.

Division of labor is truly a wonderful thing. It provides companies with the means to acquire

metals and plastics from other companies to produce toasters – probably thousands or tens of

thousands a day. Specialization is the probably the single most important aspect of how modern

society is allowed to function.