What is Human Nature?

Human nature is made up the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviors which make a person unique; Personality arises from within the individual and remains fairly consistent throughout life. Human nature varies person to person in both male and female, personality plays a vital role in human nature the triads like emotion thoughts feelings etc all play an imperative role.

These characteristics may vary person to person or in other words we can put it in a way that the person lacks the element of happiness, smile etc.  to understand his/her nature. Human nature is such a thing that can change within a second to understand it in a better and detailed way we can look at the example below.

Suppose there is a meeting going on within the office and there the clients are being briefed about a certain topic as different people present their part of the presentation the client’s attitude changes  by their questions in between to the presenter making the presenter and the team confused, more like creating a barrier in between effective communication. This might be against your nature in such a way that you might not like or accept this attitude by the client’s pin pointing while the presentation is being presented. This act might arise ager within you and you might point out to one of the client sitting either to wait for the presentation to end or either raises his hand if he/she has some query on which immediate action is needed. Or to cut it in a very rude manner while surely depict that the personality or the nature of the person lacks courtesy or etiquettes on how to handle situations ethically.

It is basically a lot of things which reflect human nature, it can be the way a person meets talk,  share ideas, handle or tackles situations or even leading a team with objectives and goals so a person should show that he/she has to have all triads present in his/her nature to avoid the unseen.

In this world people deceive us by their human nature by showing false personality and not being their own self but following others footsteps which they think are right and try to impose their way of things as they perceive which causes the other person to suffer and thus his thoughts ideas go in his subconscious this way motivation is needed and personality comes to a halt. Life seems to treat us in many different ways in which we are tested upon our personality in which our distinctive nature is made to tackle them effectively.

Let’s take the example of the James Lange Theory  this theory can be applied anywhere as it caters to human nature, to understand this theory let’s suppose a person is walking in the street and suddenly a dog appears in front of him since every person knows his/her fight mechanism he stops and focuses to the dog watching his next move, when the dog barks it is assured that it will or is going to attack sooner or later thus the autonomic arousal is in result fear and he then runs away to save his life.

It is clear that human nature plays a vital role in taking spontaneous decisions in different situations there is this flight and fight mechanism that is always working in the brain.

Let’s take another example of a school going child who has to do homework but since he is not allowed to play outside with his friends according to Freud this desire of playing outside will go into the subconscious of the child and in result his nature to finish his work would change into something different, which would bring up aggression, anger in his personality.

There is nothing in this world which does not possess nature it is basically GOD gifted and thus we find nature in every aspect of life. There is an old controversy of nature and nurture according to Plato Nature is something that is God gifted (Brain, Biology, Heritatery) there is the element of innateness present in it. On the other hand Nurture is something which is basically based on observation and experience it’s the social learning from others in other words to understand nurture we can say that its distinguished by society, learning and culture. The nature versus nurture debate is one of the oldest issues in psychology. The debate centers on the relative contributions of genetic inheritance and environmental factors to human development. Some philosophers such as Plato and Descartes suggested that certain things are inborn, or that they simply occur naturally regardless of environmental influences.

Human nature has a lot of influence from socialization, since we meet interact and share experiences one learns a lot from his/her social circle. It is in the nick of time we decide either to accept or reject a person from our personal understanding, since it’s the judgment of human nature that depicts the relation to take further or reject it to avoid personal issues in life. A very similar example is of our decision to make friends our enemies within different arguments, this decision is not done on the basis of human nature but it’s the ego which makes the person to act this way

In the end I’d like to conclude with my opinion that human nature is derived from personality and the better upbringing of the personality with a good moral and social value will make the his/her human nature stand out and thus will have a good social status and value among the peers and society

Guidelines for producing a short documentary

Before shooting the film

 

The starting point is, of course, to think of an interesting topic that all the members of the group are enthusiastic about.

 

Watch documentary movies.

 

Choose a subject that you find fascinating and is accessible to you. Choosing a subject that is compelling & timely will result in a strong and relevant film. It is often better to focus on a local personality or local event so that you will have access to loads of resources for your film. Besides, it's much simpler & cheaper to shoot at home than abroad.

 

Become an expert on your chosen subject through research. Research your subject as thoroughly as possible. Gain knowledge through the internet, books, and word of mouth. Attend events pertaining to your chosen subject.

 

It is important to formulate the basic idea of the film as precisely and clearly as possible. If you do not know why you want to make this film, what it is about and where the story is going, then it might not be a very good idea for a film.

 

Find a selection of different documentaries, discuss the qualities of each film and note the good elements. This will probably give you an idea of how you want to structure your own film. During these screenings, however, keep in mind that most documentaries are not made on the same basis as the short fiction film – this limits the degree to which you should be inspired.

 

The preparation phase is very time consuming in the documentary genre. It requires thorough research on your topic or source of inspiration. In order to get a fairly good understanding of your person and his or her story you need to visit him or her and make some test interviews. This will give you an impression of the person's limits and boundaries, and what s/he is willing to talk about.

 

If possible, bring a video camera (to the first meetings) to find out how the person reacts to the camera, and to let him/her get used to its presence before the actual shoot. It also gives you a chance to map the different locations and thus plan more precisely what you want to be in the film (a test film is the basis for working out a fairly accurate storyboard/preliminary script.)

 

As regards the screenplay, there are different ways of structuring the material in a documentary.

 

1) The Linear Narrative Form, also known as classic Hollywood storytelling;

 

2) The Discursive Narrative Form, which gives priority to information, facts and logic;

 

3) The Episodic Narrative Form, which juxtaposes situations that have no narrative or causal relations.

 

4) The Poetic Narrative Form, which is built up around visual poetic associations.

 

 

The Camera plays a role: it acts on the sender's (i.e. your) behalf. Remember that the camera angles and movements are significant for the degree to which you express respect for, solidarity with, antipathy against, etc., the people in the film. (In some respects you always make films about yourself – even though you are working in groups). Before the shoot starts make sure you have agreed on certain principles for operating the camera (of course this is of special importance if the camera is operated by more than one member of the group).

 

It is a good idea to draw up a set of rules, some aesthetic narrative guidelines for what you can and cannot do. This will save you many discussions during the shoot and will ensure you a fairly coherent style (it easily becomes rather mixed with more than one director).

 

For instance, you can make rules about the interviews and the rooms where they should take place; whether or not the interviewer should be visible in the picture; whether the camera movements should be calm or swift; in which rooms or situations the camera should be on a tripod or handheld; whether the persons should be filmed from below, at eye-level, from above; if the interviewer's questions should be cut out (in which case a certain interview technique is required); whether you want to use voice-over commentary, and so on and so forth.

 

Note that one of the dangers of operating with a set of aesthetic rules (like using the storyboard method) is that the interviewee may become too "stiff" and tense. The rules are only meant to be guidelines – not dogmas – and you should be willing to change them as you go along.

 

It is important that you reflect on what sort of "voice" you want in your film already in the preparation phase (before working out a storyboard):

 

1) The Expository Mode: The viewer is addressed directly "with titles or voices that advance an argument about the historical world," and often images merely become illustrations of what the authoritative commentary (voice of God) maintains. A logical connection between sequences is predominant.

 

2) The Observational Mode: The camera acts as 'a fly on the wall,' style and mise-en-scène become invisible and in its purest form inter-titles, interview and voice-over commentary are excluded; the filmmaker is unobtrusive and the viewer is left to interpret reality for himself.

 

3) The Interactive Mode: Different kinds of dialogue and monologue are dominant. Most often these films are based on interviews.

 

4) The Reflexive Mode: This renders visible the epistemological and aesthetic reflections that are the basis for the production, thus drawing attention to the process of filmmaking. The poetic representation focuses on experiencing the world, not on the objective representation of it; it attempts to perceive the world aesthetically, and is often emotional in a poetic way. Remember that a documentary can speak with many 'voices.'

 

If your film contains an interview session it is important that you experiment with different interview techniques before you start shooting. It can be difficult to find the right technique; at any rate it should always be developed in accordance with the people in the film. Find out whether the person is dependent on the interviewer's response or if s/he is a natural storyteller. This is important when you decide whether the interview in the film should have a visible interviewer (dialogue) or a hidden interviewer (pseudo monologue). The choice of an inaudible interviewer challenges your interviewee to a larger extent: S/he must be able to handle a 3-4 second pause between your question and his or her answer while remaining natural and engaged. The interviewee should always make clear who and what s/he is talking about (without depending on the information incorporated in your questions). Not everyone can handle an interview situation like that. Many people are – to a large extent – dependent on the interview being more like a conversation.

 

As you develop your method for the interview, try out different ways of asking questions. Your questions should be phrased in such a way that the answers are delivered within a limited time and do not omit any important information.

 

Furthermore, you should test different interview set–ups (i.e. different positions of the camera, the microphone, the interviewer, the interviewee, lighting, and so on) for aesthetic reasons as well as out of consideration for the interviewee.

 

An interview is always an artificial situation, and it is important to make the interviewee feel as comfortable as possible – some people find it difficult to avoid looking into the camera if it is placed right in front of them.

 

Deciding what style of music (if any) you want in the film can be very time consuming. Your choice of music plays an important part in the overall impression of the film, and these discussions should not be postponed until the editing phase. Music is an important factor when it comes to creating a 'mood' in the film, and the wrong choice of music can ruin the production. Discuss whether the music should be supportive, controlling, disturbing, or contrapuntal in relation to what is visually expressed. If you make a test film on location, try out different types of music with the filmed material.

 

A storyboard might be useful even though you are making a documentary. By making a storyboard (instead of improvising your way through) you get a high degree of control. This ensures that the project is realistic within the given time.

 

By using a storyboard you reduce the risk of lacking important shots in the editing room. It is clear, however, that the storyboard of a documentary cannot be as accurate as that of a fiction film (which does not mean that it shouldn't be as detailed as possible): You cannot plan the exact length of the different shots, at least not those involving 'real-life' people. Try not to be too ambitious when it comes to the number of stories that you want people to tell. Telling a story often takes longer than you expect.

 

One of the fascinating aspects about filming reality is that it cannot be controlled. Invariably, new possibilities will turn up along the way. Thus, the storyboard should always be regarded as a preliminary script that can be adjusted on location. Just remember that the danger of improvising a lot is that you might end up with a story lacking some of the essential elements.

 

Consider whether you can give information 'the cinematic way' and show rather than have people tell the story (through talking-head monologue, explanatory voice-over, and so on).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Shooting Phase:

 

Shoot the 'soft' things first (the daily chores). Don't shoot the interview until the person has become used to the presence of the camera as well as his/her role as an 'actor.'

 

As regards the interviews, compared to the interviewee the members of the film group are 'high status' (because you control the technical equipment and know what is to be filmed). In order to make the best of the interview and make the interviewee feel more comfortable, try to place yourselves in a low status position. You can tone down your high status position by pretending that you are not in complete control of the technical equipment. It may also have a relaxing effect if the interviewer improvises his other questions instead of reading off a script.

 

If a scene doesn't turn out as you planned (and it has to be re-shot), don't indicate that the interviewee didn't do well (even if that is the case). Instead, find some other excuses for re-shooting the scene; for instance, that the sound wasn't good enough, the picture was out of focus and so on.

 

When you need to check your filmed material, it is a good idea to leave one or two members of the group to chat with the interviewee (while the others check the pictures). Let the interviewee finish his or her story, even though you have already gotten what you wanted (to show respect for what s/he is saying).

 

In order to balance the unequal relationship between interviewer and interviewee and to make the interview situation less artificial, it might be a good idea for the interviewer to share some stories and contribute to the conversation.

 

Be careful about the technical side of the production. Making a documentary – filming 'reality' – is not an excuse for poor technical quality.

 

In order to make your persons appear as natural and spontaneous as possible, it is important to shoot the different scenes at psychologically the right times and places.

 

If the person is occupied with something, s/he is more likely to forget the camera.

 

If you use such camera movements as panning and tilting, make sure you have several takes of each shot in which the camera is moved at different speeds. This will give you more possibilities in the editing room.

 

If the camera is handheld it is important to keep it fairly steady. Make sure the picture pauses for 4-5 seconds every now and again, as this gives you a natural place to cut.

 

Avoid zooming unless you have deliberately chosen the aesthetics of television. It is difficult to edit a shot that contains a zoom. If you need to get closer to an object it is better to move the camera.

 

In general it is good to make the shots a little longer than first intended – you never know what you might need in the editing room.

 

Be ready to switch on the camera (or leave it on) if something unexpected happens that takes the full attention of your character to sort out. It might turn out to be a magical moment that you should consider using instead of one of the scenes from the script. In general, you need to be spontaneous and open to chance.

 

Shoot the general pictures in different formats (e.g. full shot as well as close shot). Often people find themselves lacking a particular format in the editing room. In general, extra pictures might come in handy.

 

Using the potential of cinematic techniques without drowning reality is a fine balancing act. On the other hand – don't rely so much on reality that you forget that you are actually making a film.

 

Be ready to make changes – maybe even to give up the original concept of the film (i.e. throw away the storyboard) if you find out that what you had planned doesn't really work. This goes for the shooting phase as well as the editing phase.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Editing phase:

 

Basically, the editing principles of fiction and documentary are the same. However, there are more possibilities when editing a documentary, as you are not bound by causality in the same way and thus do not need to tell your story in a certain way, which gives you a high degree of freedom; you should therefore consider alternative ways of piecing the material together. Try to maintain certain sensitivity towards the raw material in order to avoid forcing it in the wrong direction because you are too focused on the story you had planned to tell.

 

Rather than throwing the good story or the good feeling overboard, it might be better to give up on style, aesthetics or beautiful pictures.

 

It can be difficult to identify the unnecessary 'darlings' or 'bad bits,' especially if you have become hypnotized by the material and are no longer able to see what works and what doesn't. It is always a good idea to get somebody to view your production with a fresh eye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BASIC STEPS TO FOLLOW In CLASS:

 

Step 1:

Write a good documentary script, and do your research thoroughly.

 

Step 2:

Create a shot-by-shot outline of the script and use this as your guide. A timeline is also beneficial.

 

Step 3:

Lease or purchase a camera, tripod, microphones and video editing equipment. Without these basic tools, you will not have the means to make a documentary.

 

Step 4:

Contact all of the people you want to interview and set up times to meet with them.

 

Step 5:

Stick to your outline and relay the story. Film everything on the script.

 

Step 6:

Film two or three times more footage than you expect to use. It can always be edited later.

 

Step 7:

Edit the footage into a concise 90-minute film. Enlist the help of experienced documentary makers or editors to help you with this process.

 

Step 8:

Write a documentary treatment, which includes a synopsis and other details about the film. Submit it to film distribution companies for consideration.

 

 

 

 

Customer Choice and Demands

It is not the province of economics to determine the value of life in “hedonic units” or any other units, but to work out, on the basis of the general principles of conduct and the fundamental facts of social situation, the laws which determine prices of commodities and the direction of the social economic process. It is therefore not quantities, not even intensities, of satisfaction with which we are concerned. . . .or any other absolute magnitude whatever, but the purely relative judgment of comparative significance of alternatives open to choice.
Frank Knight
 eople adjust to changes in some economic conditions with a reasonable degree of predictability. When department stores announce lower prices, customers will pour through the doors. The lower the prices go, the larger the crowd will be. When the price of gasoline goes up, drivers will make fewer and shorter trips. If the price stays up, drivers will buy smaller, more economical cars.  Even the Defense Department will reduce its planned purchases when prices rise.
Behavior that is not measured in dollars and cents is also predictable in some respects. Students who stray from the sidewalks to dirt paths on sunny days stick to concrete when the weather is damp. Professors who raise their course requirements and grading standards find their classes are shrinking in size. Small children shy away from doing things for which they have recently been punished. When lines for movie tickets become long, some people go elsewhere for entertainment.
On an intuitive level you find these examples reasonable. Going one step beyond intuition, the economist would say that such responses are the predictable consequences of rational behavior.  That is, people who desire to maximize their utility can be expected to respond in these ways. Their responses are governed by the law of demand, a concept we first introduced in Chapter 3 and now take up in greater detail.
Predicting Consumer Demand
The assumptions about rational behavior described early in the book provide a good general basis for explaining behavior. People will do those things whose expected benefits exceed their expected costs. They will avoid doing things for which the opposite is true. By themselves, however, such assumptions do not allow us to predict future

At the old prices, the original combination (two Cokes and two hot dogs) gave you a total utility of only 64 utils (45 from hot dogs and 19 from Coke). If you cut back to one Coke and three hot dogs now, your total utility will rise to 67 utils (57 from hot dogs and 10 from Coke). Your new utility-maximizing combination—the one that best satisfies your preferences—will therefore be one Coke and three hot dogs.  No other combination of Coke and hot dogs will give you greater satisfaction. (Try to find one.) 

To sum up, if the price of hot dogs goes down relative to the price of Coke, the rational person will buy more hot dogs. If the price of Coke rises relative to the price of hot dogs, the rational person will buy less Coke. This principle will hold true for any good or service and is commonly known as the law of demand.  The law of demand states the assumed inverse relationship between product price and quantity demanded, everything else held constant. If the relative price of a good falls, the individual will buy more of the good. If the relative price rises, the individual will buy 

Thus far we have discussed demand solely in terms of the individual’s behavior.  The concept is most useful, however, when applied to whole markets or segments of the population. Market demand is the summation of the quantities demanded by all consumers of a good or service at each and every price during some specified time period. To obtain the market demand for a product, we need to find some way of adding up the wants of the individuals who collectively make up the market. 

This is, of course, an extremely simple example, since only two individuals are involved. The market demand curves for much larger groups of people, however, are derived in essentially the same way. The demands of Fred, Marsha, Roberta, and others would be added to those of Anna and Betty. As more people demand more Coke, the market demand curve flattens out and extends further to the right. 

Elasticity: Consumers’ Responsiveness to Price Changes 

In the media and in general conversation, we often hear claims that a price change will have no effect on purchases. Someone may predict that an increase in the price of prescription drugs will not affect people’s use of them. The same remark is heard in connection with many other goods and services, from gasoline and public parks to medical services and salt. What people usually mean by such statements is that a price 

The Advantage

The advantage of letting people know that you have been, and are planning to be, in business a long time is that it informs them that you have something to lose –potential future business -- if you engage in dishonest dealing.  In effect, you are providing poten­tial customers with a hostage, something of value that one party to a contract (the customer) can destroy if the other party (seller) does not keep its promises. There are numerous other ways that businesses create arrangements to provide hostages in ways that make their commitments to honest dealing credible.  Before examining some of these arrangements, however, it is important to consider an important feature that hostages should have.

The use of hostages has a long history, and is traditionally thought of as a way to reduce the likelihood of hostilities between two countries or kingdoms.  For example, if King A intended to wage war on Kingdom C and wanted to keep Kingdom B neutral, he could assure King B of his good faith by yielding up his beloved daughter to King B as a hostage. Assuming King A really did love his daughter, he would then be very reluctant to break his promise and invade Kingdom B after conquering Kingdom C. But even if King A does have a compelling incentive not to wage war against King B as long as his daughter is King B’s hostage, a potential problem remains.  King B may find the daughter so attractive that he values her more than her father’s promise not to invade.  Therefore, King B may decide to join with Kingdom C against King A and keep the daughter for himself. This suggests that an ugly daughter (one only a father could love!) makes a better hostage than a beautiful daughter.

A firm’s reputation can be thought of as a hostage that the firm puts in the hands of its customers as assurance that it is committed to honest dealing. A firm’s reputation is an ideal hostage because it is valuable to the firm, but has no value to customers apart from its ability to ensure honesty.  A firm has a motivation to remain honest in order to prevent its reputation from being destroyed by customer dissatisfaction, but customers cannot capture the value of the reputation for themselves. The more a firm can show that it values its reputation, the better hostage it makes.

Consider the value of a logo to a firm. Companies commonly spend what seems an enormous amount of money for logos to identify them to the public.  Well-known artists are paid handsomely to produce designs that do not seem any more attractive than those that could be rendered by lesser-known artists (many of whose artistic efforts have never gone beyond bathroom walls).  Furthermore, companies are seldom shy about publicizing the high costs of their logos.

It may seem wasteful for a company to spend so much for a logo, and silly to let consumers know about the waste (the cost of which ends up in the price of its products).  But expensive logos make sense when we recognize that much of the value of a com­pany’s logo depends on its cost. The more expensive a company’s logo, the more that company has to lose if it engages in business practices that harm its reputation with consumers, a reputation embodied in the company logo.  The company that spends a lot on its logo is effectively giving consumers a hostage that is very valuable to the company. Consumers have no interest in the logo except as an indication of the company’s commit­ment to honest dealing, but will not hesitate to destroy the value of the logo (hostage) if the company fails to live up to that commitment.

Expensive logos are an example of how businesses make non-salvageable investments to penalize themselves if they engage in dishonest dealing.  Such investments are particularly common when the quality of the product is difficult for consumers to determine. The products sold in jewelry stores, for example, can vary tremendously and few consumers can judge that value themselves.  Those jewelry stores that carry the more expensive products want to be convincing when they tell customers that those products are worth the prices being charged.  One way of doing this is by selling jewelry in stores with expensive fixtures that would be difficult to use in other locations: ornate chandeliers, unusually shaped display cases, expensive counter tops, and generous floor space. What could the store do with this stuff if it went out of business?  Not much, and this tells the customers that the store has a lot to lose by misrepresenting. The idea of firms intentionally making their profits vulnerable to the actions of others may seem inconsistent with our discussion on “make-or-buy” decisions.  In that early chapter we argued that firms often forgo the advantages of buying inputs in the marketplace by making them in-house to protect their profits on their investment against exploitation by others. The difference in the two cases is important.  When firms put their profits at risk as a hostage to consumers, those consumers cannot capture the profits for themselves. They can only destroy them, and their only motivation for doing so would be that the firm is no longer satisfying their demands. In the case where a firm incurs the disadvantage of producing in-house to protect its profits, the problem is that suppliers can actually capture those profits for themselves by acting opportunistically, or dishonestly. So in some cases protecting profits promotes honest dealing, and in other cases putting those profits at risk promotes honest dealing.  
The importance business people attach to committing themselves to honesty sometimes leads them to put their profits in a position to be competed away by other firms that will benefit from doing so.  Consider a situation where a firm has a patent on a high quality product that consumers would like to purchase at the advertised price, but a product that would be difficult to stop using because its use requires costly commitments.  The fear of the potential buyers is that the seller will exploit the long-term patent 

Consider the value of a logo to a firm. Companies commonly spend what seems an enormous amount of money for logos to identify them to the public.  Well-known artists are paid handsomely to produce designs that do not seem any more attractive than those that could be rendered by lesser-known artists (many of whose artistic efforts have never gone beyond bathroom walls).  Furthermore, companies are seldom shy about publicizing the high costs of their logos.  

It may seem wasteful for a company to spend so much for a logo, and silly to let consumers know about the waste (the cost of which ends up in the price of its products).  But expensive logos make sense when we recognize that much of the value of a com¬pany’s logo depends on its cost. The more expensive a company’s logo, the more that company has to lose if it engages in business practices that harm its reputation with consumers, a reputation embodied in the company logo.  The company that spends a lot on its logo is effectively giving consumers a hostage that is very valuable to the company. Consumers have no interest in the logo except as an indication of the company’s commit¬ment to honest dealing, but will not hesitate to destroy the value of the logo (hostage) if the company fails to live up to that commitment. 

Expensive logos are an example of how businesses make non-salvageable investments to penalize themselves if they engage in dishonest dealing.  Such investments are particularly common when the quality of the product is difficult for consumers to determine. The products sold in jewelry stores, for example, can vary tremendously and few consumers can judge that value themselves.  Those jewelry stores that carry the more expensive products want to be convincing when they tell customers that those products are worth the prices being charged.  One way of doing this is by selling jewelry in stores with expensive fixtures that would be difficult to use in other locations: ornate chandeliers, unusually shaped display cases, expensive counter tops, and generous floor space. What could the store do with this stuff if it went out of business?  Not much, and this tells the customers that the store has a lot to lose by misrepresenting.

Another possibility is for the seller to give up his or her monopoly position by licensing another firm to sell the product.  By doing so the seller makes his or her promise to charge a reasonable price in the future credible, since if the seller breaks the promise the buyer can turn to an alternative seller.  Giving up a monopoly position is a costly move of course, but it is exactly what semiconductor firms that have developed patented chips have done. To make credible their promise of a reliable and competitively priced supply of a new proprietary chip (the use of which requires costly commitments by the user), semiconductor firms have licensed such chips to competitive firms.  Such a licensing arrangement is another example of making profits by way of a hostage intended to encourage honesty.7 

The more difficult it is for consumers to determine the quality of a product or service, the more advantage there is in committing to honesty with hostage arrangements.  Consider the case of repair work.  When someone purchases repair work on their car, for example, they can generally tell if the work eliminates the problem.  The car is running again, the rattle is gone, the front wheels now turn in the same direction as the steering wheel, etc. But few people know if the repair shop charged them for only the repairs necessary, or if it charged them for lots of parts and hours of labor when tightening a screw was all that was done. One way repair shops can reduce the payoff to dishonest repair charges is through joint ownership with the dealership selling the cars being repaired. In this way the owner of the dealership makes future car sales a hostage to honest repair work. Dealerships depend on repeat sales from satisfied customers, and an important factor in how satisfied people are with their cars is the cost of upkeep and re¬pairs. The gains a dealership could realize from overcharging for repair work would be quickly offset by reductions in both repair business and car sales.  

Automobiles are not the only products in which it is common to find repairs and sales tied together in ways that provide incentives for honest dealing.  Many products come with guarantees entitling the buyer to repairs and replacement of defective parts for a specified period of time.  These guarantees also serve as hostages against poor quality and high repair costs. Of course, guarantees not only provide assurance of quality, they provide protection against the failure of that assurance.  Sellers often offer extra assur¬ance, and the opportunity to reduce their risk, by selling a warranty with their product that extends the time, and often the coverage, of the standard guarantee. 

Knowing that a product is under guarantee or warranty can tempt buyers to use the product improperly and carelessly, and then blame the seller for the consequences. With this moral hazard in mind, sellers put restrictions on guarantees and warranties that leave buyers responsible for problems they are in the best position to prevent.  For exam¬ple, refrigerator manufacturers ensure against defects in the motor but not against damage to the shelves or finish. Similarly, automobile manufacturers ensure against problems in the engine and drive train (if the car has been properly serviced) but not against damage to the body and the seat covers. While such restrictions obviously serve the interests of sellers, they also serve the interests of buyers.  When a buyer takes advantage of a guarantee by misrepresenting the cause of a difficulty with a product, all consumers pay because of higher costs to the seller.  Buyers are in a prisoners’ dilemma in which they are better off collectively using the product with care and not exploiting a guarantee for problems they could have avoided.  But without restrictions on the guarantee each indi¬vidual is tempted to shift the cost of their careless behavior to others. 

Adverse selection is a problem associated with distortions arising from the fact that buyers and sellers often have different information that is relevant to a transaction. Most of this chapter has been concerned with the ways sellers commit themselves to honestly revealing the quality of products when they have more information about that quality than do buyers. But in the case of warranties it is the buyer who has crucial information that is difficult for the seller to obtain. Some buyers are harder on the prod¬uct than average and others are easier on the product than average.  The use of automo¬biles is the most obvious example. Some people drive in ways that greatly increase the probability that their cars will need expensive repair work, while others drive in ways that reduce that probability.  If a car manufacturer offers a warranty at a price equal to the average cost of repairs, only those who know that their driving causes greater than average repair costs will purchase the warranty, which is therefore being sold at a loss.  If the car manufacturer attempts to increase the price of the warranty to cover the higher than expected repair costs, then more people will drop out of the market leaving only the worst drivers buying the warranty.8 

Even though people would like to be able to reduce their risks by purchasing war-ranties at prices that accurately reflect their expected repair bills, the market for these 

How Honesty Pays in Business

There exist the popular perception that markets fail because business is full of dishonest scoundrels – especially high ranking executives -- who cheat, lie, steal, and worse to increase their profits.  This perception is reflected in and reinforced by the way business people are depicted in the media. According to one study, during the 1980s almost 90 percent of all business characters on television were portrayed as corrupt

The case to be made for honesty in business is not based on any claim that business people are particularly virtuous, or ethical to the core of their beings.  We can make no claim to keen insights into the virtue of business people or anyone else.  We might even be persuaded that business people have less virtue on average than do those who choose more caring occupations, such as teachers, social workers, missionaries, and nurses.  But we do claim to know one simple fact about human behavior, and that is people respond to incentives in fairly predictable ways.  In particular, the lower the personal cost of dishonesty, the greater the extent of dishonestly within most identified groups of people.  If business people act honestly to an unusual degree (or different from what other people in other situations do), it must be in part because they expect to pay a high price for be­having dishonestly. This is, in fact, the case because business people have found, some­what paradoxically, that they can increase profits by accepting institutional and contractual arrangements that impose large losses on them if they are dishonest.

Though seldom mentioned, most business activity requires a high degree of honest behavior. If business is going to be conducted at any but the simplest level, products must be represented honestly, promises must be kept, costly commitments must be made, and business people must cooperate with each other to take the interests of others, particularly consumers, into consideration.  Indeed, if the proverbial man from Mars came down and observed business activity, he might very well conclude that business people are extraordinarily honest, trusting, and cooperative.  They sell precious gems that really are precious to customers who cannot tell the difference between a dia­mond and cut glass. They promise not to raise the price of a product once customers make investments that make switching to another product costly, and they typically keep the promise. They make good faith pledges that the businesses they own, but are about to sell, will continue to give their customers good service.  They commit themselves to costly investments to serve customers knowing the investments will become worthless if customers shift their business elsewhere.

The way business people behave in the marketplace suggests a level of morality that is at variance with the self-interest that economists assume, in their theoretical models, motivates business activity. Some argue that the economist’s assumption of self interest is extreme, and we recognize that many people, including many business people, behave honestly simply because they feel it is the right thing to do. But few would recommend that we blindly trust in the honesty of others when engaged in business activity. The person who is foolish enough to assume that all business people are honest

It is easy to imagine a situation in which business people can profit at the expense of their customers, workers, and others with whom they deal if they behave deceitfully.  For example, the quality of many products (say used cars or diamonds) is difficult for consumers to easily determine.  The seller who takes advantage of this by charging a high quality price for a low quality product would capture extra profits from the sale.  A business owner who is about to retire can profit by making promises not to be fulfilled until after his retirement, and which he does not plan to keep. The monopoly producer of a superior product (but one which requires the consumer to make costly investments in order to use it) can offer the product at a low price and then, once the consumer becomes dependent on it, increase the price significantly.  Other examples of the potential profit from dishonest behavior are easily imagined.  In fact, such examples are about the only type of behavior some people ever associate with business.

A businessperson who attempts to profit from dishonest dealing faces the fact that few people are naively trusting. It may be possible to profit from dishonesty in the short run, but those who do so find it increasingly difficult to get people to deal with them in the long run. And in some businesses it is extremely difficult to profit from dishonesty even in the short run. How many people, for example, would pay full price for a “genuine” Rolex watch, or diamond necklace, from someone selling them out of a Volks­wagen van at the curb of a busy street?  Without being able to provide some assurance of honesty, the opportunities to profit in business are very limited.

So business people have a strong motivation to put themselves in situations in which dishonest behavior is penalized.  Only by doing so can they provide potential customers, workers, and investors with the assurance of honest dealing required if they are to become actual customers, workers, and investors.

The advantage of honesty in business can be illustrated by considering the problem facing Mary who has a well-maintained 1990 Honda Accord that she is willing to sell for as little as $4,000. If interested buyers know how well maintained the car is,

So the mix of 1990 Accords for sale will tilt more in the direction of poorly maintained cars, their expected value will decline, and even fewer well-maintained 1990 Accords will be sold. This situation is often described as a market for “lemons,” and illustrates the value of sellers being able to commit themselves to honesty.

Choosing the Most Efficient Remedy for Externalities

selecting the most efficient method of minimizing externalities can be a complicated process. To illustrate, we will compare the costs of two approaches to controlling pollution, government standards versus property rights

Suppose five firms are emitting sulfur dioxide, a pollutant that causes acid rain. The reduction of the unwanted emissions can be thought of as an economic good whose production involves a cost.  We can assume that the marginal cost of reducing sulfur dioxide emissions will rise as more and more units are eliminated. We can also assume that such costs will differ from firm to firm. Table 7.1 incorporates these assumptions. Firm A, for example, must pay $100 to eliminate the first unit of sulfur dioxide and $200 to eliminate the second. Firm B must pay $200 for the first unit and $600 for the second. Although the information in the table is hypothetical, it reflects the structure of real-world pollution clean-up costs.  The technological fact of increasing marginal costs faces firms when they clean up the air as well as when they produce goods and services.

Suppose the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decides that the maximum acceptable level of sulfur dioxide is ten units.  To achieve that level, the EPA prohibits firms from emitting more than two units of sulfur dioxide each. 

Remember that the EPA can control the number of tickets it sells.  To limit pollution to the maximum acceptable level of ten units, all it needs to do is sell no more than ten tickets. Either way, whether by pollution standards or rights, the level of pollution is kept down to ten units, but the pollution rights method allows firms that want to avoid the cost of a cleanup to bid for tickets.

The potential market for such rights can be illustrated by conventional supply and demand curves. The supply curve is determined by EPA policymakers, who limit the number of tickets to ten. Because in this example the supply is fixed, the supply curve must be vertical (perfectly inelastic). Whatever the price, the number of pollution rights remains the same. The demand curve is derived from the costs firms must bear to clean up their emissions. The higher the cost of the cleanup, the more

At a price of $1,500 per ticket, firm A will buy one and only one ticket. At that price, it is cheaper for the firm to clean up its first four units (the cost of the cleanup is $100 + $200 + $400 + $800). Only the fifth unit, which would cost $1,600 to clean up, makes the purchase of a $1,500 ticket worthwhile. Similarly, firm B will buy three tickets, firm C none, firm D two, and firm E four.

The cost of any cleanup must be measured by the value of the resources that go into it. The value of the resources is approximated by the firm’s expenditures on the cleanup—not by their expenditures on pollution tickets.  (The tickets do not represent real resources, but a transfer of purchasing power from the firms to the government.)  Accordingly, the economic cost of reducing pollution to ten units is $9,300; $1,500 for firm A. $800 for B, $3,000 each for C and D, and $1,000 for E

The idea of selling rights to pollute may not sound attractive, but it makes sense economically.  When the government sets standards, it is giving away rights to pollute. In our example, telling each firm that it must reduce its sulfur dioxide emissions by three units is effectively giving them each permission to dump two units into the atmosphere.  One might ask whether the government should be giving away rights to the atmosphere, which has many other uses besides the absorption of pollution. Though some pollution may be necessary to continued production, that is no argument for giving away pollution rights. Land is needed in may production processes, but the Forest Service does not give away the rights to public lands. When pollution rights are sold, on the other hand, potential users can express the relative values they place on the right to pollute.2 In that way, rights can be assigned to their most valuable and productive uses.

Market Failures External Costs and Benefits

In its broadest definitional sense, collective action is the enactment and enforcement of law. The justification for all collective action, for government, lies in its ability to make men better off.  This is where any discussion of the bases for collective action must begin.

James Buchanan

Howmuch should government involve itself in the marketplace? How much does business want government involvement.” These questions touch on one of the most important economic issues of our time: the division of responsibility between the public and private sectors. In general, economic principles would suggest that government undertake only functions that it can perform more efficiently than the market.  As we will see, businesses are not always opposed to government involvement in the economy. Indeed, many businesses have incentives to try to make sure that government is more involved in the economy than is “efficient.”

Economics provides a method for evaluating the relative efficiency of government and the marketplace. It enables the United States to identify which goods and services the market will fail to produce altogether, and which it will produce inefficiently. We saw in an earlier chapter that such market failures have three sources: monopoly power, external costs, and external benefits. Now, using the principles and graphic analyses developed in earlier chapters, we will take a closer look at external costs and benefits and at government attempts to capture them and correct market failures.  

In a competitive market, producers must minimize their production costs in order to lower their prices, increase their production levels, and improve the quality of their products. Consumers must demonstrate how much they will pay for a product, and in what amount they will buy it. In a competitive market, production will move toward the intersection of the market supply and demand These results cannot be achieved unless competition is intense, buyers receive all the product’s benefits, and producers pay all the costs of production.  If such optimum conditions are not achieved, the market fails. Part of the excess benefits shown by the shaded area in the figure will not be realized by either buyers or sellers. When exchanges between buyers and sellers affect people who are not directly involved in the trades, they are said to have external effects, or to generate externalities. Externalities are the positive or negative effects that exchanges may have on people who are not in the market. They are third-party effects.  When such effects are pleasurable they are called external benefits. When they are unpleasant, or impose a cost on people other than the buyers or sellers, they are called external costs. The effects of external costs and benefits on production and market efficiency can be seen with the aid of supply and demand curves. Producers may not bear all the costs associated with production, however.  A by-product of the production process may be solid or gaseous waste dumped into rivers or emitted into the atmosphere. The stench of production may pervde the surrounding community. Towns located downstream may have to clean up the water. People may have to paint their houses more frequently or seek medical attention for eye irritation. Homeowners may have to accept lower prices than usual for their property. All these costs are imposed on people not directly involved in the production, consumption, or exchange of the paper product. Nonetheless, these external costs are part of the total cost of production to society. In a perfectly competitive market, in which all participants act independently, survival may require that a producer impose external costs on others. An individual producer who voluntarily installs equipment to clean up pollution will incur costs higher than those of its competitors. It will not be able to match price cuts, and so in the long run may be out of business -- and some producers may not care whether they cause harm to others by polluting the environment. Even socially concerned producers cannot afford to care too much about the environment. Government dictates in educational institutions have sometimes imposed onerous costs on students. For instance, until the late 1960s, the University of Virginia had a dress code that required male students to wear coats and ties. Colleges routinely set the hours by which students should return to their dormitories and expelled those who rebelled. At the University of California, students were once forbidden to engage in on-campus political activity. Costs are imposed on those who must obey such rules. The more centralized the government that is setting the standards, the less opportunity people will have to escape the rules by moving elsewhere. In certain markets, government action may not be necessary. Over the long run, some of the external costs and benefits that cause market distortions may be internalized. That is, they may become private costs and benefits.  Suppose the development of a park would generate external benefits for all businesses in a shopping district. More customers would be attracted to the district, and more sales would be made. An alert entrepreneur could internalize those benefits by building a shopping mall with a park. Persuasion External costs arise partly because we do not consider the welfare of others in our decisions. Indeed, if we fully recognized the adverse effects of our actions on others, external cost would not exist. Our production decisions would be based as much as possible on the total costs of production to society. Thus government can alleviate market distortions by persuading citizens to consider how their behavior affects others.  Forest Service advertisements urge people not to litter or to risk forest fires when camping. Other government campaigns encourage people not to drive if they drink, to cultivate their land so as to minimize erosion, and to conserve water and gas. Although such efforts are limited in their effect, they may be more acceptable than other approaches, given political constraints. Persuasion can take the form of publicity. The government can publish studies demonstrating that particular products or activities have external costs or benefits.  The resultant publicity may in turn encourage those activities with external benefits and discourage those activities with external costs. The government has, for example, used this method in the case of cigarettes, publishing studies showing the external costs of smoking. Government production can be a mixed blessing. When other producers remain in the market, government participation may increase competition. Sometimes it means the elimination of competition. Consider the U.S. Postal Service, which has exclusive rights to the delivery of first-class mail.  As a government agency, the Post Office is not permitted to make a profit that can be turnover to shareholders. Because of its market position with little competition for home delivery of mail, however, it may tolerate higher costs and lower work standards than competitive firms. Some government production, such as the provision of public goods like national defense, is unavoidable. In most cases, however, direct ownership and production may not be necessary. Instead of producing goods with which externalities are associated, government could simply contract with private firms for the business. That is precisely how most states handle road construction, how several states handle the penal system, and how a few city governments provide ambulance, police, and firefighting services.

Cartoons teaching children?

As we are all aware that cartoons are seen by children all over the world but are our  parents aware of what is being shown in those cartoons ?

My point of writing an article on this topic is to create awareness among  parents that  simply allow their children to watch any cartoon channel and seem to be content of what is being shown on it. It was a coincidence that I was at a birthday party of my youngest  cousin he is 5 years old, there were a lot of children at his party they played games like they usually did but after the party ended  all the adults were on the table talking on different topics and the children were told to go in the TV lounge and watch cartoons.

Since being a lover of cartoons I went to watch it to pass time, as soon as I sat down I saw  all the children sitting in a group and watching  it like it was some kind of a teaching session going on in that cartoon. To tell u the truth about the channel and the cartoon it was totally something I did not expect at all.

POGO is India's cartoon channel which comes  in our country  also, but has anyone seen what is being showed on it? sometimes when we are switching channels we come across this channel showing Just For Laugh Gags or Mr. Bean it gives us the feel that this channel is totally safe for children to watch, what's going on when the children are watching it alone with no parental guidance.  Being it from  India they have developed a strategy to promote and educate the Hindu children on their religion from their cartoons  some cartoons like "Chota Beem"  are a pure example of this strategy.

How could a child say that I want to become Chota Beem when I grow older or how can he say that I want to be like that four hand guy  in the cartoon ? It's all about the awareness that is being transmitted to the child with the help of cartoons so that in India by the time he/she goes to school they should be fully aware or should have the knowledge about their religion  so that they could be thought at a higher level at school.

The point to write this article is not to blame it to the channel for showing such cartoons like this or the cable operators to  ban this channel but to create awareness among young children and parents that  they should at least  see what is being shown on TV. I hope that parents and young children read this article so that they should know the difference between right and wrong, the code of ethics plays a vital role in the personality of the child thus the parents should tell the reason so that the child stays away from it.

Anonymous .