There's No Such Thing As Narwhals: Glorious Economics

As an Economics major, I would like to believe that my life, my actions, and my decision making are all governed by a rational mode of thought involving complex, yet naturally occurring processes of cost benefit analysis and an intrinsic motivation to efficiently maximize my utility.

Ideally, these attempts to achieve with efficiency are carried out on both a large scale and a small scale. So earlier this afternoon when I wanted to have a bowl of chocolate ice cream to combat the heat of the summer another principal concern of mine was how to acquire and prepare this ice cream efficiently, saving both time and resources. In a stroke of economic brilliance I endeavored to let the ice cream thaw for a short time and then simply tilt the carton and slide some into the bowl.

While you may think that allowing the ice cream time to thaw would actually make this process take longer, the time it takes ice cream to thaw is in fact shorter than the duration of time it would have taken me to scoop or spoon frozen, hardened ice cream from the carton with the use of my schoolgirl forearms.

Another key concept one learns to appreciate from the study of Economics is the relationship between Supply and Demand as stated in terms of chocolate ice cream consumption in the following graph:

This shows an efficient relationship between the two curves where they meet at an equilibrium point, but in situations NOT such as this in which the quantity of ice cream supplied exceeds the quantity of ice cream which is demanded, there is a "surplus."

Surplus: Surprise! It's two scoops plus everything else!

However, there are many variables in economic situations such as this... and where many would see a surplus, I see an external benefit "a good which I consume but do not pay any price (any extra labor and time scooping) for." I can not wait to internalize this benefit...