Our story starts with one of the transistor’s inventors. According to a Wired article, William Shockley is the reason that Silicon Valley grows chips instead of apricots. Although Shockley Semic…
Business
Formally called the theory of the firm, the business category focuses on ownership, production and competition. Our goal is to understand business behavior. For ownership, topics include the corporation and sole proprietorships. For production, the focus involves maximizing profits. With competition, topics relate to a continuum that spans the 4 basic market structures: perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly and monopoly.
Why We Buy Our iPhones
With its newest and priciest product launch, Apple has made iPhone conspicuous consumption the reason to buy their phone.…
Looking at the Southwest Effect
Sometimes invisible, the Southwest Effect has influenced air fares and air traffic since the 1970s when Southwest was a small Texas carrier.…
Where Parental Leave Leads To Gender Discrimination
Questions about how much paid parental leave new dads should receive is the reason Estée Lauder is being sued by the EEOC.…
Looking at a Global Supply Chain With a Smile (Curve)
A smile curve is a handy way to see that the global supply chain for technology is much more complicated than a Made-in-China label.…
Throwback Thursday: Remembering the Best French Fries
#TBT Throwback Thursday: Looking back at the original McDonald’s french fries that were made with beef tallow, we could say that the taste was worth the fat.…
Throwback Thursday: Remembering When We Were More Connected
With a soaring proportion of households becoming cellphone-only users, on this #TBT we can look back at the disappearing landline.…
How Our French Fries Became More Expensive
When the price of your French fries increased during the past decade, one reason was a potato cartel that was rather similar to OPEC.…
Why UPS and FedEx Have the Prisoners’ Dilemma
Planning their surcharge policy for the holiday shipping surge, UPS and FedEx each was influenced by the Prisoners’ Dilemma.…
Throwback Thursday: Remembering When Package Sizes Shrunk
When manufacturers began downsizing packages in the U.K., we got less chocolate in a bar, fewer teabags in a box and smaller Creme Eggs.…