Part 1 – Article Analysis – Read the article excerpt and answer the questions.
“Have you ever wondered where your food comes from? YouTube star Andy George did, and he took it into his own hands to find out. George’s latest endeavor was to document the entire process of making a “simple” chicken sandwich from scratch.
The entire ingredients list for the sandwich included lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, dill, peppers, garlic, sunflowers, eggs, salt, honey, wheat, milk, and of course, one live chicken. George posted his entire sandwich-making process in a YouTube video … (How to Make a $1500 Sandwich in Only 6 Months)
George produced all of the ingredients himself. This included planting seeds in a community garden to grow vegetables, extracting honey from a local bee farm, milking a cow to make butter and cheese, and processing wheat to create bread…[T]he hardest ingredient to retrieve for the sandwich was the salt. George had to travel from his hometown of Minneapolis to the
Pacific Ocean to collect salt water, which he then processed into salt.The entire project took six months and cost $1,500.
1. Assume George’s sandwich included the same ingredients as a sandwich that you can buy at your local deli. Explain why George’s sandwich cost so much more.
2. The excerpt mentions that George travelled from Minneapolis to the Pacific Ocean to collect salt water. With this in mind, explain why it is unlikely that George truly produced everything he needed to make the sandwich himself. Give an example that supports your reasoning.
Part 2 – Stretch Your Thinking – Connect the excerpts you read to the following key economic assumptions. Identify how sandwiches exemplify each of the following statements.
3. Most resources are scarce. Society has unlimited wants and limited resources.
4. Due to scarcity, choices must be made. Every choice has a cost.
5. People make choices that maximize their satisfaction. Everyone acts in their own “self-interest.”
6. We make decisions by comparing the marginal costs and marginal benefits of every choice.
Resource Allocation
Part 1 – Check Your Understanding – Reflect upon the following quotes and answer the questions.
Quote #1- “When government – in pursuit of good intentions – tries to rearrange the economy…the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.” – Milton Friedman
Quote #2- “Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.” – Vladimir Lenin
7. Each quote argues that one economic system provides more freedom than the other. How might free-markets provide more freedom than command economies?
8. How might command economies provide more freedom than free-markets?
Part 2 – Economic Ideologies – The famous economist John Maynard Keynes said that “ideas shape the course of history.” Read the following quotes and answer the questions below.
Quote A- “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”– Milton Friedman
Quote B- “I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty…That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it.” – Paul Krugman
Quote C- “The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.” – Thomas Sowell
Quote D- “ Healthcare as a human right, it means that every child, no matter where you are born, should have access to a college or trade-school education…, and I think no person should be homeless if we can have public structures and public policy to allow for people to have homes and
food and lead a dignified life in the United States.” – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Quote E- “Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” – Frederic Bastiat
Quote F- “ No universal selfishness can bring social good to all. Communism – the effort to give all men what they need and to ask of each the best they can contribute – this is the only way of human life.” – W. E. B. Du Bois
9. Which two of these quotes do you agree with most? Explain.
10. Which two of these quotes do you agree with least? Explain.
