Some links....
Justin Wolfer's "Academic Manifesto"
To understand voting, follow the sacredness.
Markets in too MANY things?
Saying and doing: GM *says* that the Volt is doing great, set a record. But what did they *do*? They closed the factory for an additional week, extending layoffs.
2 comments:
From the linked article:
"Most auto factories close for two weeks starting in early July to get updated for the new model year. GM added a third week at the Volt factory that straddles the border between Detroit and the small enclave of Hamtramck. The plant was already closed from March 19 through April 23, as the supply of Volts grew on dealer lots. About 1,300 workers at the factory have been idled."
"Until March, sales of the car were disappointing. The company sold 7,671 Volts last year, below its goal of 10,000. It sold 1,023 in February and just 603 in January. GM had 6,319 Volts in its inventory at the end of February, enough to supply dealers for 154 days, according to Ward’s AutoInfoBank. A 60-day supply is considered optimal to keep a good selection of cars on dealer lots.
...
Volt sales spiked in March as gasoline prices jumped to around $4 per gallon nationwide." [my bold]
From an article that came out today ( http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/gm-will-restart-chevy-volt-production-one-week-early-uaw-reveals.php?ref=fpblg ) :
"Buoyed by record monthly sales of its Chevy Volt hybrid electric plug-in car in March, General Motors will resume production of the Volt at the Detroit Hamtramck plant one week early, the United Auto Workers told TPM on Tuesday night.
'They’re adding a week of production back in,' said Don LaForest, the chairman of the UAW’s bargaining committee at the Detroit Hamtramck plant, where the Volt is manufactured, in a phone interview."
From the sacredness article: "Despite what you might have learned in Economics 101, people aren’t always selfish. In politics, they’re more often groupish."
I think this is an example of where people confuse utility with money. Money's often a great stand in for utility, and is directly measurable, but it's just a stand in, it's not actually utility. So you get confused when you see people behaving differently than what you would expect based on what the money says.
When I hear "Econ 101 doesn't work because of ..." most of the time it's because people are confusing money for utility.
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