Ex.3. Round-table discussion.

1. Find some quotes as a springboard for discussion.

2. be ready to answer the following questions:

- Do you agree that “conspicuous consumption” plays the great role in the economy of Kazakhstan?

- Do you think it is logical that “consumer responds to lower prices by buying more”? Think of an example when consumer believes that prices would go even lower and doesn’t react immediately in the expected way?

- What products could be referred to as inferior?

- Do you think that it has become traditional in Kazakhstan to have a stock of such storable commodities as salt, sugar, soap and matches?

Ex.4. Read the project and discuss it.

The supply and demand schedule for sugar doughnuts at Popular High School during a given period of time is as follows:

At $0.20, suppliers provide 100 and students demand 400.

At $ 0.30, suppliers provide 150 and students demand 350.

At $ 0.40, suppliers provide 200 and students demand 300.

At $ 0.50, suppliers provide 250 and students demand 250.

At $ 0.60, suppliers provide 300 and students demand 200.

At $ 0.70, suppliers provide 350 and students demand 150.

At $ 0.80, suppliers provide 400 and students demand 100.

Questions:

1. Prepare the supply and demand schedule for sugar doughnuts at Popular High School during this time.

2. As price decreases, what happens to the quantity demanded?

3. As price increases, what happens to the quantity demanded?

4. As price increases, what happens to the quantity supplied?

5. As price decreases, what happens to the quantity supplied?

6. At what price will the quantity of doughnuts that students are willing to buy be equal to the quantity of doughnuts that sellers are willing to supply?

Ex.5. Case-study: Electronic mail – offices on the run.

Marc Silage spends most of his time traveling from one concert to the next. His clients include such celebrities as Paul Simon and Patti Labelle.

Silage’s heavy travel schedule makes it difficult for him to work at a traditional office. But with the help of electronic mail, he can send information to people at his office and other offices by using his computer, a modem, and any telephone. E-mail is a method of electronic communications where information sent is filed on a computer until the recipient is ready to receive it. Each person who uses the system is given an electronic mailbox. Any messages received are filed in the electronic mailbox.

E-mail messages can be sent at any time – 24 hours a day. Silage can send his supervisor important information about a future concert when he ends his day at 2:00 a.m. instead of waiting until the next morning. All Silage has to do is dial the phone number of his office’s computer system and address his message to his supervisor’s mailbox. Then he can go to sleep without worrying about calling the first thing in the morning. The next morning when his supervisor goes to the office, she can read and act on Silage’s message. If there is an answer, Silage can read it when he picks up his e-mail messages.

1. If e-mail had been available in 1862, how might it have changed the lives of the farmers during the agricultural era?

2. If Mark Silage had lived in 1925 and been a production manager for celebrity Rudy Vale, how might his job have been different?

3. A new communication system that has recently been introduced will allow you to communicate through radio waves instead of telephone lines. With this system, you can send messages from a specially equipped computer without connecting it to a modem and a telephone. What changes might this new system make in Marc Silage’s daily schedule and his method of communicating with his office?