sunk costs.

james is having a good time teasing me about econ. he says i might be enjoying it too much. tonight i told him about the following...

"sunk costs are sunk and should not be considered in decision making."
ok. at first, when my professor said this i started laughing because i hate when people use a word in its definition. but then she told us that once people have a good understanding of sunk costs, it can be really freeing. so i started to pay attention again. :]
she explained that if you wait in line at the store for 10 minutes then a new line opens up and you have the opportunity to move and get checked out immediately, you move. you don't think about how you should stick it out in your original line because you already spent 10 minutes there. the time you spent in line is a sunk cost. it doesn't come into consideration when deciding to switch lines. pretty simple. pretty agreeable.
but when money is involved, it's harder to see it that way. if you pay $100 for a concert ticket that is nonrefundable and nontransferable, but then get terribly sick on the day of the concert, do you go to the concert? well. the $100 is a sunk cost. so you should only consider whether you will get any amount of enjoyment out of the concert or if you will be miserable during the concert and are better off at home. you shouldn't think about the $100 when making your decision. you should probably stay home and get better.
so seriously, how much easier would life be if i had the ability to think that way? i'm going to really try to consider sunk costs in the future.

so yes.
i am a nerd.
and i am enjoying econ.

i have to give my first speech tomorrow for public speaking. we have to talk about a current event and explain our personal connection to it. is it completely ridiculous that i'm going to talk about bark beetles? ha. they are pretty much always in the news because they are killing millions of acres of our forests, so finding an article shouldn't be too hard. and my personal connection? well. i wrote my thesis on the little pests. :]