ECONOMICS: Introducing Hayek and Keynes – With Booty, Booze, and Raps

John Papola and Russ Roberts, creators of econstories.tv, have produced an informational (and rather entertaining) video entitled “Fear the Boom and Bust”. This video illustrates the differences between the philosophies of John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek, but they do it with a twist: econstories.tv uses entertainment as a forum to introduce the differences of two economic philosophers that greatly influence economic policy and theory.

To give an example of how these theories are used in our day and age, the popular Paul Krugman, a prolific columnist for the New York Times, often cites Keynesian theory in his columns on economic and political policy. Also, my own professors have shared their opinions on the goods and bads of Keynesian economics. However, they often neglect to discuss alternative economic theories, such as those of an opposing economic philosopher, F.A. Hayek. 

Hayek, a highly influential twentieth-century economist, proved to be a worthy adversary to the more famous Keynes.  His revolutionary ideas about the coordination of peoples actions within an economy, fearing the boom, and research on economic policy engaged Keynes’ ideas, and these disparate theories forced their way onto the worldwide stage of economic debate. Because of this lively discussion, many economists integrated Hayek’s ideas into their own theories.

John M. Keynes made the claim that “We are all dead in the end”.  Although this is irrefutably true and may seem overly simplistic, I disagree that the consequences of our economic decisions die with us.  The decisions we make today will shape the economic landscape for generations. But, whether you claim the title of Keynesian or not, one thing is clear, booty, booze, and raps make economic theory and education an enjoyable experience.

Cheers!

Alex Grimnes

READ MORE - ECONOMICS: Introducing Hayek and Keynes – With Booty, Booze, and Raps

FINANCE: Understanding Protection for the Modern Student Co-Op with Alex Grimnes and Brandon Fry (Part Two)

Protection Part 2:

Car Insurance is a necessary key to protection for everyone, even college students… especially college students.  Income restraints drive uninsured college students to justify driving without insurance.  Doing so is dangerous for you and others on the road. So, because it’s so vital, I am cutting out all of the filler.  Let’s get to the meat and potatoes of car insurance, and move to better understand this crucial aspect of protection.

The more you know about car insurance, the better off you are.

-       Insurance rates change frequently often times creating the illusion that insurance companies are just trying to rope in an extra buck. Although that may be true, rate changes occur because insurance companies are required to back up their policies with cash in their accounts. Interest rates adjust because these companies have to compensate for both the amount of cash available and their overall revenue. Why is this information useful? When shopping for car insurance, whether by yourself or with an agent, it is not always the case that an independent firm has competitive interest rates compared to others. It is limiting to work with only one insurance firm instead of diversifying with an independent agent.

-       Secure your investment in your insurance.  In most cases, people wouldn’t throw money into stocks or funds without gathering some sort of information on the company or product.  Whether it is with an online brokerage, financial advisor , or a friend, information is key, and the more information gathered, the stronger the investment choice.  Car insurance is the same way; take time to gather information in order to make a smarter investment.  Independent brokers will survey different company policies, looking for a combination of aspects that are valuable to the policy you are looking to build.

-       Brandon Fry, financial advisor at Maxim Wealth Strategies, mentions three keys to building a strong car insurance policy. They are:

1.     Have Sufficient Coverage:  Often times a mere $5 extra per month can double the amount of your policy’s coverage. The state minimum may not be sufficient in a students’ situation. For example, the Utah State Minimum for car insurance is $25,000/$65,000. To increase your coverage to $100,000/$300,000 is a matter of a few extra dollars per month. This increase could be a world of difference for you and the drivers around you.  However, price is not the only important aspect to keep in mind when searching for insurance.  Ensure that the coverage that you pay for is worth the bill.

2.     Find An Agent Who Is Willing To Back You Up:  Most independent agents are willing to do the work necessary to build a policy that fits your requirements. When working with an agent, keep in mind a Win/Win or No Deal mentality. An agent that cares and is honest will find a policy that fulfills expectations on both ends of relationship. As stated earlier, do your research to make a better-informed decision.

3.     Find a Price That Is Right For You:  Students are often covered by their parents’ car insurance and thus may have sufficient coverage. For those aren’t covered by their parents’ policy, it is not impossible to find car insurance that fits their budget.  I am not into scare tactics, but take the first step in protecting yourself - and potentially your family - by researching information about insurance, researching an experienced and hard working agent, and finding a price point that will not over-extend your financial boundaries.  Keep in mind: Win/Win or No Deal.

 Overall, take the time to investigate insurance with a reputable agent, and protect yourself from the harsh realities – loss of your license, hefty fines, or possible jail time - of driving without insurance.

Stay Smart,

Alex Grimnes

READ MORE - FINANCE: Understanding Protection for the Modern Student Co-Op with Alex Grimnes and Brandon Fry (Part Two)

True Experience - Lizz Corrigan

I was asked by a friend to write about life as a new college student and many times to write something new by avid readers.

I cannot express how many times I sat myself down, failing.

I felt all who were reading this wanted to hear the same thing; Life is great, these are going to be the best years yet, a wonderful experience.

Finally, I realized my diffuculty writing was not due to writers block, but simply because I wasn't telling the truth.

Our whole lives are built around these ideas of what high school and college will be like. We paint a picture in our minds of exactly what it will be like.

For 18 years we plan to ditch the town we grew up in and head out on our own to make a name for ourselves, because that's the mature and adventurous thing to do right?

Wrong.

I would be lying if I was to say I haven't learned anything.

I have learned just because we are out of high school, doesn't mean the high school is out of us.

Drama fueled bitches simply won't stop being drama fueled bitches when they recieve a high school diploma, or a college degree for that matter.

We are influenced heavily by those around us, more or less a domino effect, whether or not we are aware it's happening.

If you are talking behind somebody's back it's nearly guarenteed someone is talking about you behind yours.

No body is immune to karma.

When you are surrounded by negative influences, you are challenged wholly to stand up for what you believe in. Whether or not that means speaking up or merely remaining silent and walking away.

It's common to hear, "The friends you meet in college will be the people you will be friends with the rest of your life.." Well, I believe that is not true for everyone.

Meeting friends in college is easy, but what happens when you run out ofbooze, weed, condoms? Are they still your friends? It's questionable.

I came into this new stage of life completely blinded, and now I see clearer than ever. Although, I didn't realize how blind I was until I began to see.

Now, I can sit myself down and admit I was wrong. I came in with a list of expectations, none of which have been checked off.

My time here has been quite the experience, just not the one I wanted. Not even close.

This is entirely my fault, but therefore it's my responsibility to fix it.

I can beat myself up about staying in every night and being "anti-social", or I can applaud myself for steering clear of the unhealthy lifestyles that lurk around campus. I can commend myself for not compromising my ethics in order to 'fit in', which is a skewed concept anyway.

What have I learned from being here? This life just isn't for me.

I have fallen for the cliche, "Do what makes you happy", and this isn't it.

I have learned to find what makes you happy, you must learn what doesn't.

I may be called a wimp, a baby, a wuss, I may be accused of 'not giving it a chance', although, I'm not the one with my head up my ass.

I am one step closer to success because I have realized what works for me and what does not.

I have discovered little new about myself, but a lot about others. But, I came here to learn, mature and grow as a person, not degrade others around me and definitely not to degrade myself.

We do not learn without experience, and we cannot experience until wetake a chance.

Do not feel like a failure if things don't go according to plan. Nothing great was ever achieved the first time around.

Its like learning to bake cookies from scratch; They turn out bad, but you figure out what went wrong, change it, and have at it again until they turn out the way you want them.

Powell, Wyoming just happened to be the wrong ingredient in my batch of cookies.

Therefore, Salt Lake City, see you in December.

READ MORE - True Experience - Lizz Corrigan

The Phantom CEO: How to Throw and Entire Industry Under the Bus

The industry that I operate in pisses me off. On one end you have all the high-end competition who are so good at feeding you bullshit that you don’t realize that you are paying a premium for a brand name. And on the other end you have the low-cost competition, a bunch of mongrels that bank solely on the fact that the majority of the masses can’t afford the “high-quality” of the luxurious brands. One end of the spectrum makes you believe that you should aspire to the ideals they represent and the other remind you that you still haven’t gotten the promotion you were promised.

Both treat you like shit.

My industry, like many industries, has fooled you into thinking that quality and price are correlated: when one goes up, it must mean that the other is up there too. The punch line to their joke is that this is simply not true. There are very few differences in the quantum leaps between the low-end and the high-end, the difference is how they spin their respective messages to you.

Here is how you throw an industry under the bus: burn the damn house down.

What my company found out is that high-end product is not much more expensive than the “cheap” products, in terms of unit manufacturing cost. So, we decided to sell high-end products at a price that is not much higher than low-end products.

“But you’ve got to make a profit somehow, that’s why they are so expensive.”

Actually, when you are smart about which overhead costs are necessary, it becomes easy to reach solvency and still undercut the competition. The “premium” brands will now have to respond to the fact that their spin of what defines quality has been nothing but egotistical shenanigans. The “cheap” brands will now have to figure out how they can up the level of their game just to match what I offer to their customers.

Like in the Wizard of Oz, business takes an interesting twist when a company breaks rank and pulls back the curtain to reveal the fact that it’s all really just smoke and mirrors.

Now you have to be prepared for the entrenched organizations that bank on tricking their audience in order to extract cash to do everything in their power to bring you down. And in all likelihood, they may eventually bring you down (i.e.: they buy your company and disband it). But it doesn’t matter, because the market now knows the truth, they’ve seen my competition with their pants pulled down just long enough to see what’s really going on.

So what do you do if you are like me and like to see things burn but don’t know where to get started?

I’m glad you asked. Here’s my suggestion:

Pick an industry, any industry, where correlation between costs and price become disproportionately related as you move up in product quality. This means that companies are making more in unit profit for selling higher priced items because they manipulated you into thinking that there is something “extra” special. Here’s an example:

ABC Company sells widgets in 4 categories: Basic, Professional, Super Rad, and Premium. As you move up from Basic to Premium, you get more features and upgrades. Below is a list of how much it costs to make a widget, how much they charge and what their gross profit margin is:

Item	Cost to Make	Price	Gross Profit Margin
Basic	$20	$40	50%
Professional	$25	$60	54%
Super Rad	$30	$80	62%
Premium	$35	$100	65%

See how the company makes more money off of you for selling Premium compared with Basic or Professional? Want to pull back the curtain? Start offering a Premium quality product at a Professional price level. Marketing will be easy, just show on your website that everything is similar between your widgets and those of ABC Company and explain to your customers that the reason why you are doing is simply because ABC Company has been lying to them and you think that’s wrong. Say hello to the sound of stolen market share, customer loyalty and an opportunity to cash in on honesty. Is it me or is it drafty in here?

That, my friend, is how you throw an industry under the bus.

Happy burning,

The Phantom CEO

READ MORE - The Phantom CEO: How to Throw and Entire Industry Under the Bus

FINANCE: Understanding Protection for the Modern Student Co-Op with Alex Grimnes and Brandon Fry (Part One)

These days, it seems as though everyone has a different opinion on insurance.  How much to get, where to get it, and which highly paid actor to listen to on those clever but misleading low quote insurance commercials.  Unfortunately, a lot of these opinions on insurance become over-exaggerated and obscure, and cause more damage than good. Insurance is one aspect of finance that can make any individual, let alone a college student, cringe without the right information. 

Fortunately, there is a way to find clarity through all of the muck and misperception of insurance.  That clarity is through education and finding a basic understanding of what insurance is, why we pay for it, and the benefits of not only protecting yourself, but protecting others.

So, let’s break down on key aspect that most college students continue to ignore.

Renters Insurance:

It’s true that the majority of college students either lives with parents or rents out an apartment. In the case of which a student resides at home, renters insurance doesn’t necessarily apply, but for the rest of us that live in apartments, condos, rented houses, etc, renter’s insurance is a necessity that is often overlooked.  There are a few key points often misunderstood about renter’s insurance that we would like to clear up.

           

1.     Renter’s Insurance not only covers stolen items, but also provides liability insurance. Why would you need liability insurance? Well, for accidents or lawsuits that happen outside of vehicles, you need to be covered. 

2.     Renter’s Insurance is cheap.  For around $120 a year, you can protect that fancy new laptop, television, commuter bike, and much more.

3.     Your landlord DOESN’T have insurance on your possessions. Let’s imagine that your building burns down, you are not covered under the landlord’s insurance to protect your things. Now, I know that a building burning down is kind of a long shot, but think about things that happen every day.  If a pipe breaks and floods the apartment, the landlord isn’t liable. If a window is left open and the sprinklers damage all of your possessions, the landlord isn’t liable.

So, what is the alternative? For the price of one 30 Pack of Miller a month, you can protect not only your possessions, but also cover your back for the accidents that happen outside of a vehicle. No matter what your opinions on insurance, for around $100/year, you can protect yourself from losing those things that you rely on the most.

Stay Smart,

Alex Grimnes 


www.maximwealthstrategies.com

READ MORE - FINANCE: Understanding Protection for the Modern Student Co-Op with Alex Grimnes and Brandon Fry (Part One)

Welcome to {BRANDED} ONLINE MAGAZINE

Whether you’re entering college fresh out of high school, or have mastered the college scene, one thing is certain…

Managing your social and financial life can be tough.

That is where we come in.  {BRANDED} ONLINE MAGAZINE is not a collection of specialists, rather a collection of college students that suffer the same consequences of staying up too late, cramming for tests, and overall, just trying to make it through college the best we can.

But,

We think we can help with finding solutions to the crazy world deemed college life.  Outside of the crazy parties, bon fires, and countless hours tallied in libraries, you still have a life to live.  The problem is, college life has a unique way of clouding out some very important aspects that we find are crucial to not only surviving college, but leaving with a more balanced, educated perspective.

Those aspects are listed below:

1. Social Development
2. Financial Education
3. Economic Understanding

Each month, we will bring together articles aimed at providing insight and valuable information that can be utilized in everyday student life. Whether it is small business outlooks from our columnist “The Phantom CEO” or from professional economists, financial analysts, or simply other college students, our goal is to help you get by more efficiently, better educated, and with a stronger outlook on what it is you want to accomplish.

We look forward to as much feedback as possible.  As stated earlier, our staff battles the same frustrations of everyday college life as many of you.  If you see any information that is wrong or needs to be clarified, let us know.  The goal is to gather better education for all of us.

Keep an eye out for these columnists and contributors that will be contributing monthly.

The Phantom CEO – Small Business Concepts and Economics

Liz Corrigan – Social Understanding

Daniel Barbee – Social Development and Economic Philosophy

Alex Grimnes – Managing Editor – Financial Education and Social Development

READ MORE - Welcome to {BRANDED} ONLINE MAGAZINE