You are the type of person who knows everything that needs to be known about a product before making a purchase. Family and friends often ask you to help them with crossword puzzles and product assembly instructions. Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time at the confiscated property police auction wanting to buy either several orange mixing bowls or clothing for your pet dog. Be on the lookout for mail order catalogs with hidden messages. You should consider shopping at stores or businesses beginning with the letter L, but do not buy any products with a serial number or product code containing the number 739213. Your preferred shopping venue is the Internet. Your special symbol is the exclamation point (!).

As a Purple Smarphin, you are the brightest and most intelligent person you know. And that goes for shopping, too. You know exactly what you want. You know exactly what it costs. You know exactly when and where to buy. But, of course, shopping is only one of the many activities that attracts your intellectual attention. You shop when you need to and buy if have to, but shopping is not the end all of your life.

In terms of the microeconomic analysis of production and supply, a period of time in which at least one input under the control of a firm used in the production process is variable and at least one input is fixed. In the short run, the variable input is usually labor and the fixed input is capital. The short-run analysis of production reveals the law of diminishing marginal returns and provides an understanding of the upward-sloping supply curve and the law of supply. This is one of four production time periods used in the study of microeconomics. The other three are long run, very long run, and very short run (or market period). The short run is also a time period designation used in the macroeconomic analysis of business cycles.

Complete Entry | Visit the WEB*pedia

Our pedestrian's jaunt through the economy is not, unfortunately, an unrestrained shopping spree for confectioneries, spark plug tools, and Houston, Texas. We have other important errands to run. At the moment we need to hike over to Shady Valley's exclusive provider of cable television services, the Merciless Monolithic Media Masters Cable Television Company, Inc., to inquire about a mysterious fee that appeared last month's bill.

The good news is that the Merciless Monolithic Media Masters (the 4M people) Cable office is a mere 2 miles (3 kilometers for the metrically inclined) from the Shady Valley Central Town Sprawling Hills Shopping Mall. A hop, skip, and a moderately long jump later, our excursion through the economy takes us to the front door of the 4M Cable Television Company where I hope to discover why last month's cable bill included a $3,569 charge for something called "The Vacation Channel." I didn't even know I had a vacation channel. (But, I'm sure it's a great channel, and if I don't have it, then I will certainly subscribe. Please don't disconnect me.)

Of course, because this an afternoon workday, the doors of the 4M office are locked. I can almost make out, through the expensive stained glass windows, what appears to be several Merciless Monolithic Media Masters Cable Television employees, with champaign bottles in hand, dancing on expensive mahogany desks. Let's not disturb them. As they say in the cable business, an upset worker is a disconnected customer.
Tell me more...

Visit the PEDestrian's Guide

-- Nelson Mandela

User Feedback