Thoughts and Recycled Viralness

I was talking with Ashley the other day about vacationing. It seemed that everyone around us has, or is, going on vacations all the time. Take for instance my brother Nick. That kid has been everywhere. Not only that, but he travels all the time! He just got back from a trip, with some of his good buddies, to Mexico. Before that, he went on a cruise to Mexico. I am not bad-mouthing it, I am just jealous. Anyways, as Ash and I were talking about vacationing we got stuck on the principle of how to spend money.

My argument was that we spend as little as possible on the hotel, and spend that money elsewhere. Meaning that we would find a comfortable place to put our bags, and depending on the location, spend the money on activities. I think that the fun of the vacation is going places. That is why you left the house in the first place! My ideal hotel would look something like this:

Love Shack

It is not the best looking thing, but you get to spend your money on more things.

Her argument was simple. It was, if you want to have a fun vacation, you better put me in a nice hotel with an awesome pool.

Now honestly her argument is perfectly valid. When you vacation, you are trying to relax. You worked hard, now it’s time to hang out by the pool and enjoy the sun. Her idea of a hotel would be something like this:

Ash's Dream

So this got me thinking, how are Ash’s vacationing preferences, as well as my own, illustrated mathematically? Honestly, I have no idea what the answer is. I just want to jot some ideas down, and see what sort of feedback I can generate.

So to start, I will throw out some parameters that will be needed. They are:

• Probability of Winning the Lotto [L]
• Winnings From The Lotto [t]
• Savings Rate [r]
• Discount Rate [d]
• Wages Earned [w(ICON Health & Fitness)]
• Benefits (money to be spent on vacation) [b(r*w)]
• Time Frame
  • I will assume for all time before the vacation there will be 40 periods x ϵ [0,40]
  • The vacation will comprise of 5 periods x ϵ [41,45]

And from there, I have can put together (a simple) mathmatical equation.

Ashley’s Present Value of What To Save For The Hotel of Her Dreams = {e^(-dx)*(1-r)*w(ICON)+(L*t)} + {e^(-dx)*b}

You would have to integrate the first part of the binomial from 0 to 40. Likewise integrate the second part from 41 to 45.

Now, you may be asking the question, what does the expected utility for myself look like? It looks like this:

Tyler’s Expected Utility To Save For The Hotel of My Dreams = I DONT CARE, I WANT TO GO ON VACATION!

I have been assigned to plan out my next five years. To find out what I am going to do while I pay out every cent that found its way into my wife’s checking account. As a class we were told that we must know the company that we are going to work for or know the industry. It has been enjoyable to research what my options will be once I finish. It seems that there is so much out there for me to experience.

I have been looking a lot into Economics and Finance. While researching I noticed that it is a rapidly expanding occupation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics(BLS) noted that this field of work will see an expansion of nearly 33% through the year 2016. That might not mean a lot, but it means job security to me.

The assignment was not just to surf the Internet and find who is hiring. I was to find what position I would apply for, my daily schedule, pay scale expectations, and working locations. It is cool to think about where I might be in five years. I want to submit myself to my first few jobs. Learn everything that I can. Go where I have to. I really believe that if I keep a good attitude it will erase much of the competition.

OK here is the deal, I know nothing more about about the recent bailouts then the next guy. Here is my beef, why are we bailing them out? This is my view, and again it is general but hear me out.

The big three made most of their money popping out SUVs. There is of course many cars that have been huge successes (i.e. The mustang, Jeep, Corvette, and many others) but for the most part they have been impregnating us all with SUV fever. I’m not going to lie I have the fever. The problem is that we as a population are moving on. We are seeing the effects of the internal combustion engine on the world. It is taking a toll. Now I certainly do not want to sit here and blabber on about global warming, if it is real or not, whatever. We as a people are moving on to a more sustainable way of transportation. Which brings me to my point, the big three do not have the capabilities to give us as consumers what we want.

Why would it be good to see them fall? Well it is simple, when they fall there is going to be a huge demand for cars, the car makers that survive will not have the capacity to meet the demand. When it comes to that, it becomes a free for all. Now you might not know it, but there is so many small companies that are ready for this. Not just the companies, but there is new technology. See in the past we have settled for our petroleum addict cars. Since that is the most convenient, and what we as a people are used to, we settle. We should not settle. Think about the advancements in electronics. That has not come due to an accident, that is what we demand. Think if we were to demand the same progress from the automakers. Think of how much could be achieved. If a store went out of business you would not take on their bills to keep them afloat, you would take your business somewhere else.

What is my point again? It is that we need these companies to fail, or to let them fight their ways out.

Oh there we are

My Econ Professor emailed me and six other people on Friday. In the email he told me that I was within the top seven students (I looked it up and found out that I was 3rd out of 89) and that we had done so good that we were exempt from taking the final.

Basically that was the class that I was stressed about. Now I have to study for my Math final, then I am done for the semester. If everything works out on the Math final, I will get my first ever 4.0.

Now I realize to my Wife, older Brother Jake, and His Wife this is not that crazy, seeing how that is their standard, but hey I am pretty pumped.