3 October 2009

Economic Principles and My Holiday

This story will not tell you about how happy I was with my holiday.
It has been the worst holiday I have ever had. But, when my friend told me I had to work this paper (about relationship between my holiday and economic) I guess I get an idea. This holiday, I have changed my status as a FEB’s student. Then, I found that most events has relation to economic event and I started to think like an economist. Hehehe. After thinking thousands times, I choose this title.
Last holiday, I went to Palembang (well, not in Palembang actually, but in Pagaralam. About 6-8 hours from Palembang) and gave my tickets to Balikpapan up. I didn’t really enjoy go to Pagaralam because it will take a long time to go there. And I could not meet my friends in Balikpapan. But if I went to Pagaralam, I could meet my grandma and meet other family members. This was the first and second economic principles I faced : ‘people face tradeoffs’ and ‘the cost of something is what you give up to get it’. I could not meet my friends but I could meet my grandma. It talks about opportunity cost. Also when waiting so long at waiting room, actually I should be at Introduction to Economics at that day, but I gave it up and chose to go to airport.
That was my longest trip. It took about 15hours from Jogja to Pagaralam. Hum... Taking a car to Pagaralam made me know something about Back-to-Hometown Flow a.k.a Arus Mudik. J I had a conversation with the driver and the driver said that he must go back soon to Palembang to take other passangers. If we arrived on 1 a.m (I started trip to Pagaralam at 5p.m), he must back to Palembang at 3a.m. I asked wheter he felt tired or not, he only said, “It is rule from Big Boss, and because I try to get money for my family.” Hoho.. That was the third, ‘people respond to incentives’. He was willing to feel tired to get money as much as he can to make his family happy. He also decreased his ability to do his job because he wanted his Big Boss would decrease his incentives J
The fourth principle I found when I went to my aunt’s house. She was baking a cake when I went there. Her son was cleaning the windows and her husband is cooking ketupat (should I put ‘s’ after ketupat –so it will be ketupats-? Means lot of ketupat. :) This was the fourth, ‘trade can make everyone better off. Every family member had his-her job, so they could get many advantages, clean home, get money and get food.
There were ten principles, but I just can write four of them J

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