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REC100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Information Overload, Organisation For Economic Co-Operation And Development, Leisure Satisfaction

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School
University of Waterloo
Department
Recreation and Leisure Studies
Course
REC100
Professor
Kelley Mc Clinchey

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Document Summary

The research on life satisfaction is concerned with how and why people experience their life in positive ways. There is a positive relationship between leisure satisfaction and life satisfaction. This positive relationship is evidence of how important it is to have time for leisure but also to have meaningful leisure - if we are to promote our life satisfaction. Define life satisfaction and how it is measured. Understand the link between life satisfaction and leisure satisfaction. Define the concept of flow and understand the conditions under which it occurs, and. Define the term leisure boredom and identify the factors that contribute to it. Due to others not being able to handle the affects of war - he became interested in understanding why they were not able to handle it. Then went on to study psychology - more specifically the route of happiness. Moment of ecstasy: creating a new reality. Flow experience: flow happens in different realms.

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Related Questions

Topic:
How would you explain the finding that people in high-income economies seem happier than people in low-income economies, but, over time, people in high-income economies do not seem to be any happier even if their country grows richer? Briefly discuss.

Optional Reading:

Income and Happiness

The Declaration of Independence in 1776 identified “certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” This did not guarantee happiness but did establish the pursuit of happiness as an “unalienable” right, meaning that right cannot be taken away, given away, or sold. Eighteenth century philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham argued that government policy should promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.

Many people today apparently agree. In recent polls, 77 percent of Australians and 81 percent of Brits believed that a government's prime objective should be promoting the greatest happiness rather than the greatest wealth. The United Nations in 2007 sponsored an international conference on “Happiness and Public Policy.” Thailand now compiles a monthly Gross Domestic Happiness Index. Even China has joined in the fun reporting a happiness index based on polling results about living conditions, income, the environment, social welfare, and employment. Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom are also developing happiness indexes.

Economists have long shied away from asking people how they feel, preferring instead to observe their behavior. But more now see some value in asking questions. In the most extensive of polls, the Gallup organization asked people in 130 countries: “How satisfied are you with your life, on a scale of zero to ten?” The results, reported in 2007, are not surprising. Most people in the high income areas, such as the United States, Europe, and Japan, said they are happy. Most people in the poor areas, especially in Africa, said they are not. Also, within a given country, income and happiness are positively related. After evaluating all the results of the Gallup world poll, Angus Deaton of Princeton concluded: “The very strong international relationship between per capita GDP and life satisfaction suggests that, on average, people have a good idea of how income, or the lack of it, affects their lives.” 8

So these results are no surprise. What does puzzle economists is that other surveys suggest that in affluent countries people do not seem any happier over time even though each generation became richer than the last. For example, in the United States, the proportion of people who say they are happy has stayed about the same despite 60 years of economic growth. In Japan, happiness responses actually declined despite a substantial increase in real income over the last 50 years.

Here are two possible explanations. First, people begin taking for granted those luxuries they most desired. For example, two generations ago color TVs, automobiles, and major appliances were luxuries, but now they are must-items for most households. Computers and flat screen HDTVs will soon move from luxuries to necessities. As each generation attains a higher standard of living, people become less sensitive to the benefits, they take them for granted, and thus they say they are no happier.

Second, research suggests that what matters is not just the absolute level of income but income relative other people in the reference group. Imagine you have a choice between (1) earning $50,000 a year while others in your reference group make $25,000 or (2) earning $100,000 a year while others make $250,000 (suppose, too, that prices remain the same, so $100,000 is double the real income of $50,000). Which would you prefer? Studies show that when people face this hypothetical choice, most pick the $50,000 option. That is, they prefer to make more than others even if that means a lower real income. Thus, if all incomes rise on average over time, this does not affect that aspect of happiness linked to one’s relative standing. As the social critic H. L. Mencken long ago observed, "A wealthy man is one who earns $100 a year more than his wife's sister's husband."

SOURCES: Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling On Happiness, (New York: Knopf, 2006); Marina Kamenev, “Rating Countries for the Happiness Factor,” Business Week, 11 October 2006; Angus Deaton, “Income, Aging, Health, and Wellbeing Around the World: Evidence from the Gallup World Poll,” Princeton Working Paper, (August 2007); and “Where Money Seems to Talk,” Economist, 12 July 200

Read or listen to Morals in Business: Walter Pavlo Share your thoughts and opinions regarding this real life situation. Be sure to include your ideas about what businesses can do to avoid similar problems.

https://spotlightenglish.com/listen/morals-in-business-walter-pavlo

Transcript Voice 1 Hello. I’m Marina Santee. Voice 2 And I’m Ruby Jones. Welcome to Spotlight. This programme uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live. Voice 1 Would you consider stealing six million [6,000,000] dollars from a company, if you had the chance? Most people would immediately answer “no” to this question. The majority of people consider themselves to be good, honest citizens. Walter Pavlo used to describe himself like this. Walter was a young, successful business man. He studied hard. And he worked hard. In time, he got a good job at an international communications company called MCI. MCI managed billions of dollars each year. Walter’s office was a highly pressured working environment. Walter worked hard to meet targets and goals. If someone had asked him back then - would he steal six million dollars from the company? He would have answered, “No way!” Yet only a few years later, Walter went to prison for stealing money from MCI. What made this good man turn to crime? Here is his story. Voice 2 Walter Pavlo was born into a good family. His parents taught him Christian values. He said; Voice 3 “I was taught, ‘do not steal’; ‘do not cheat’; ‘be honest’; ‘be truthful in everything that you do.” Voice 2 Walter held these values for a long time. However, slowly, other values in the business world began to influence him. At the age of thirty-two, Walter was a senior manager at MCI. He managed millions of dollars. His job was very pressured - and difficult. Then, for the first time in his life, it looked like Walter would not meet his targets. He had to do something. He asked a co-worker for advice. His friend told Walter to cheat a little. He told him that everyone else was doing it. It was normal. Voice 1 Pavlo looked around him. It seemed that his friend was right. The world of business was full of successful cheats. Maybe a little dishonesty was not so bad. In his mind, Walter rationalised cheating. He made it seem reasonable. Voice 2 Pavlo learned how to hide customers’ debts. He made small changes in the company’s financial books to make them look better. This meant that Walter kept his good record of achievement. And it meant that the company’s records looked good to investors. Voice 1 However, this led Walter to a bigger temptation. Why not use the same method of dishonesty to enrich himself? Again, Walter rationalised his plan. He said later; Voice 3 “To me it looked like everyone was cheating. And I joined in. It did not seem that bad. Customers were getting richer. And I wanted my share.” Voice 2 Something else was happening inside Walter. He was becoming hostile in his heart. All around him were lies and cheats. He saw that people only cared about themselves. He saw the company and customers making themselves richer. He said, Voice 3 “I hated the customers. I hated the company. And then, I hated myself. Then, nothing mattered anymore.” Voice 1 And so, Walter set up a secret bank account in the Cayman Islands. Customers with debts paid money directly into this bank account. Then, Walter made their debt disappear on MCI’s records. Over a six month period, Walter and a co-worker took six million dollars! Voice 2 However, as time passed, Walter became afraid. He lived in fear of getting caught and arrested. The lies and secrets created much pressure. Walter said he became emotionally unbalanced. He came to believe that he would surely be caught - it was only a question of when. Voice 1 After a few months, MCI noticed a series of payments going into a Cayman bank account. They questioned Walter about it. Walter remembers; Voice 3 “I just said I did not want to talk about it. In a way I could not avoid uncovering my secret, because I was no longer able to hide what I was doing.” Voice 1 Walter resigned from MCI. He hoped that the investigations would stop. But they did not. MCI called in the police. Voice 2 Pavlo admitted his crime. His punishment was a prison sentence of three years and five months. He would also have to sacrifice some of his future earnings - over the next twenty-seven [27] years. Voice 1 In prison, Pavlo learned a lot about himself. He looked at the process that resulted in such severe crime. He said; Voice 3 “I do not think of myself as a bad person. For me to do something bad, or illegal, I have to make myself believe it is not bad. I rationalised, reasoned, what I was doing. I did this so much that I became far removed from reality. I told myself things like - everyone else is doing it, I need to get by, my family deserves this - and so on. This is what happens to a lot of people. They will rationalise in order to do something wrong.” Voice 2 Walter finished serving his difficult sentence in 2003. Life outside of prison was not to be easy either. His wife had divorced him. His friends had disappeared. No one wanted to employ the man who had stolen millions. However, people did want to hear about it. Voice 1 Many businesses saw the power of telling such a story. It could prevent their employees making the same mistake. Business schools and universities wanted their students to hear Walter’s story. Voice 2 And so Walter decided on a new kind of work. Today, he goes into business schools, companies and universities. He tells his story. He warns people of the easy path that leads to crime. He gives this message to business students: Voice 3 “The chance of you facing a difficult moral decision at some time in your business life is one hundred percent. It will happen. There is no way round it...” “You will never know what your values are worth until the test. The things that your parents have taught you, the things that you learned in school. What about them? When you are tested, what will you do?” Voice 1 Walter Pavlo’s values had not survived this test. However he hopes that his weaknesses may strengthen others. He hopes that his story will strengthen people’s values. And then, when they are tested they will not fall. Voice 2 The writer and producer of today’s programme was Marina Santee. All quotes were adapted for the programme. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. Computer users can hear our programmes, read our scripts and see our word list on our website at http://www.radio.english.net. This programme is called, ‘Morals in Business: Walter Pavlo’ Voice 1 You are welcome to comment or ask about today’s programme. You can e-mail us at radio @ english . net. Thank you for joining us today. Until next time. Goodbye.

Need help revising, and recommendation for a conclusion.

Throughout this paper is my understanding of what I have learned in class chapters 1-4, expressing my understanding and opinions. Economics is the study of how we deal with scarce resources. Microeconomics specially deals with business in the home country exclusively. This type of economics affects small businesses in the home country only. On the other hand, macroeconomics concerns our national welfare concerning trade and international business.

I believe that many things affect our economy on a microeconomics level. Things such as our understanding of our country in reflection to the world are very important. That is why we study ourselves before we study the macroeconomic principle of the world. Understanding ourselves is what microeconomics teaches us. Working from the inside out. The world is a place where there are differences in our wants and what we get. That is what makes items scarce. That is what positive economics is. Positive economics deals with what is and what we have. The other type of economics is called normative statements. This deals with what we should receive instead of what is and deserved to some extent. It's our scarce resources that determine our allocation of resources and how we use our resources and time. This is where opportunity costs come in, giving up something to do something. A successful business or country never ignores opportunity costs. We must ensure that we have a comparative advantage instead of the absolute advantage. Our resources must be used to achieve maximum output. Comparative is met when we have fewer opportunity costs to make some certain products than the other person or entity.

My initial understanding was scarcity was oil potentially running out, but we have so much of it that you can always find more with techniques such as fracking. Now it's obvious to me, one of our most scarce resources is time. You cannot avoid the 8,760 hours in a year. I understand that people have unlimited wants but limited resources. Everything has a cost and we must make a choice as we don't have unlimited farms, factories workers, etc. scarcity forces choices and this ties in with opportunity cost, for every gun made, a theft from the hungry is made.€ The opportunity cost not being used to feed the poor, but to make guns. And I find it easy to understand no one can have everything choices must be made on benefits. If I'm going to school, imp giving up making cash, as I'm giving up money for an education, I value education more. Scarcity is also related to the invisible hand. As it's an achievement that leads free markets and capitalism through competition for scarce resources.

My understanding of the invisible hand is a person neither intends to promote public interest and does not know how much he is promoting it. Only intending on his own gain. Without being his intention a person can be lead by the invisible hand to do good for society by pursuing one's own self-interest. Going into equity and efficiency the invisible hand does ensure both equity and efficiency. People work in their selfish ways to maximize profit while also contributing to the economy as a whole. It can also be argued that as the invisible hand wants to ensure efficiency, it cannot guarantee efficiency, because it can fail to produce an efficient allocation of resources, which in turn lead to a market failure. It can also be argued that it can't guarantee equity because not everyone gets a fair price. The way I like to remember efficiency is with a real-life example, like a reduction in the number of workers needed to produce a particular good for a particular amount. Equity refers to the ownership interest in an asset, for example, if a person owns a house with a market value of $800,000 and owes $100,000 on the mortgage leaving a $700,000 equity in the home.

It can be predicted that if the price of beef increases - ceteris paribus-the quantity of beef demanded by buys will decrease. In other words, if the price of beef increases, then the quantity of beef increases, then the quantity of beef demanded will decrease because all things have to be equal. In-class lecture thought me all other things remaining the same.€ Economists use ceteris paribus to determine the effect of a factor when all other factors have been held the same and helps simplify the study and get a more refined data set.

Economists deal with many issues that pertain to assuring that both a countries domestic output is efficient and that there is an effective trade balance. This means that there are a balance and limit on the amount of imports. Also, this means home production must be able to meet export demands. There are many factors that affect the production of goods and their effect on shifting the production possibilities frontier. This involves evaluating every detail including knowing the products and any close substitutes and compliments. It also involves knowing how an action or other external force will affect demand. This is called price elasticity; Substitutes are products that can replace any given product or service. An example of this would be Coke and Pepsi. The presence of substitutes affects price elasticity because if there are other options, then any change to the price or quality of the product will cause a shift of the demand curve. O course, price is a huge reason why the demand for a product decreases or increases yet it doesn't shift the curve because of the price only. This price change will cause a domino effect that will end with the shifting of the demand curve because it will cause an increase or decrease in demand of the substitute good if the price change is either lower or higher respectively. This price change serves as a catalyst that will change people's desire to spend more money on a more expensive product and that will instead choose to buy the substitute good for cheaper or buy more of the desired product. The change in the price of actual products will not shift the demand curve yet the change of the price of substitutes will because it serves to change people's purchasing behavior. On the other hand, compliments serve to boost demand when there is a decrease in price. The use of complementary goods is dependent upon another product. An example of this would be hot dogs and buns. If the price of hotdogs decreases then, conversely, the demand for hot dog buns will increase because of this change in price. In this scenario, the decrease in price will cause a positive shift in the demand curve because of people's desire and willingness to buy more buns. This is an example of a demand shifter. There are a few other demand shifters. The shifters of the demand curve are changes in expectations, disposable income, price of substitute goods and complements, tastes and preferences, and population size and composition. Changes in income affect the demand curve because if income is lower then people tend to save any extra income instead of wasting it. Disposable income is minimized and spending is lower. This also causes people to see a perceived value of things and distinguishing between what is necessary and what is a relative luxury. The lower the income, the higher the saving and avoidance to spend. An example of this would be if someone needs to buy some medication and it is relatively expensive, that doesn't mean that someone won't buy the medication just because it is expensive. It is necessary. Other factors that contribute to spending and demand are having a price ceiling and price floor. Having a price ceiling is a limit on the price of the product this is a government-imposed idea that is meant to protect consumers from unfair pricing and other conditions that may be malicious or obscure. This affects demand because if there is a price ceiling there is a limit on profit on a unit-to-unit basis. The other factor is the price floor. This price floor was created to encourage competition and affect consumers' willingness to pay because sometimes this new price may be higher than the original price. This causes a negative impact on a product that has a less than wanted perceived value. Many factors contribute to economic prosperity and certainly do help assure that information is analyzed and implemented into an economic and business plan.