As I have mentioned in my online-themed posts, there is a daily checkpoint question given each day. For the most part the questions will be on the class subject of that particular week. The basic classes (the ones given to brand new students) will often throw in questions about finances and career choices. The economy class I had recently taken was/is a basic class.
I had originally decided to approach my assignment from a different angle as I had asked my instructor about non-profit organizations during one of the lectures. I had wondered it any would be considered oligopolies and so had pulled up references for that. I had actually tried three or four approaches before I had about 20-30 references. I knew I would not end up using them all and actually ended up going in the same direction as my post. I called my final assignment "Show Me the Money" and added a thesis statement though I probably didn't need one since it was a starter class for many of my peers.
APA Style is the writing style that is
required by the school. APA stands for American
Psychological Association. Many instructors
seem to put a greater emphasis on the style itself than they do with the
content. I think that is annoying. I had more examples, but it was only supposed
to be 600 words and I have over 800. I'm
pleased that I have received full credit for this assignment. I double spaced for the assignment itself,
but will do not so here. It just looks
weird as a post.
Show
Me The Money Conflict
"Everyone should be respected
as an individual, but no one idolized. - Albert Einstein.
All people deserve to be treated
with respect regardless of what position
they hold. A single mother struggling to
put food on the table should not be treated as though she does not matter, nor
should a president of a large company expect to be worshiped or take advantage
of others because he has more money or power.
We are all human beings, not statistics. Oligopolies and poverty levels
are statistics.
An Oligopoly can be defined as a few
large firms that control a larger percentage of the market than all the other
competitors put together (Study, 2013).
Oligopolies form from competition and advertising enticing the customer
into believing that theirs is the best product (O. Market, 2017) . They do this by offering goods at a lower
cost or a deal of "buy one get one free" or some other
"reward" for purchasing said product from them and not their
competitors.
For example, there are several cell
phone providers - but according to study.com (2013) it appears that AT&T and Verizon deal with more than half the
consumers' cell phone plans, followed by T-Mobile and Sprint. Those four cell phone plan providers make up
for 99% of all consumers with cell phone plans leaving every other cell phone
provider all lumped into one percent.
Some of the lures these markets have
used is, "keep your same cell phone number" "switch for
free" "we will pay your old phone bill if you make the switch"
and there are consumers who actually go back and forth between companies trying
to get the best deal. Then there are those who choose not to deal with the
larger companies because they all seem to fail at great quality customer
service. It is not just cell phone plans
that have an oligopoly, but fast food chains as well.
I have never considered the food
industry as having oligopolies and yet Welker's Game Theory (2013) used two
popular food chains to explain oligopoly.
Burger King and McDonald's have long time seemed like rivals - trying to
outdo one another enticing consumers with prices or selling how the meat is cooked or how fast service.
Some people are under the impression
that it is the American Dream to get ahead, to build an empire and earn
billions of dollars. That may be the
case for some, but not all Americans have that dream. According to The Founder, the McDonald Brothers had set up shop just to make an
honest living. It was not their dream to
blow up so big that they would lose control over a concept they had. Ray Kroc believed it was his dream to head a
food empire and kept the McDonalds name, though the McDonald brothers were no
longer involved. Kroc paid a high price - though not as high a
price as did the McDonald brothers (Hancock, 2016).
According to 20/20 the top six fast food chains - including
Burger King and McDonald's - made up for
6.6 billion dollars in 2015 and yet 52% of their employees are on some kind of
welfare assistance. The cameras followed
Terrance Wise, who worked for both McDonald's and Burger King. As he spent most of his day either working or
traveling to get there, it gave him little time to spend with his family. It's disheartening as he watches unsold food
being thrown away (Reality, 2017).
I live in Douglas County, which once
was a thriving community. Sawmill
workers may have had dreams about how they would spend their money after they
retired from the saw mill where they had worked for many years and expected
more to come. When the sawmills closed in 1978, those who could afford to leave
Myrtle Creek packed up their belongings or sold off what they could, to find
work in another location, generally in another state. Circumstances changed whatever dreams they
may have had (Heilman, 2014 p 78). Very few people (if any) choose to be poor.
A rich person may donate $1,000 to a local charity and use it as a tax write off. For him to write a check for that amount is
no big deal. For him, it may be just
chump change. Another man may spend only
$7.00 on a swimsuit so that his daughter may have a birthday gift to unwrap
(Reality, 2017) and though the amount of $7.00 seems so much smaller than $1,000, the
poor man is giving everything while the rich man gives something that he may
consider small.
If we treat one another with
respect, regardless of our position, we create better human beings. Humans should be made to feel humane and not
a statistic. Respect may be the first
step taken towards stamping out the poverty.
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