Wonderful Week of Economics

When I first heard the word "monopoly" this week, I thought that we were just gonna play the game! I mean, I had heard about those back-in-the-day people who ran huge oil or steamboat industries who were considered "monopolies," but I never knew it was considered an economic term! This week it was very interesting to learn that monopolies and types of economies can differ. I mean I knew they could, but I had no clue that there was a perfect economy, which is used to model an economy. There can never be a perfect economy, but we can get close! Like beef and agriculture and stuff! Competition allows the best possible product for the best possible price. People won't go to a product that sucks or is too high in price. Monopolistic competition is what I think is the ideal competition because it allows people to choose and change their products. There are not many restrictions to enter or exit the market. Oligopoly is strange to me.. the only way I can think of it is thinking of the cereal company idea. There are only 4 major and some small companies trying, but they will probably not succeed or get bought out by the bigger companies. I don't like how limited this is to other businesses to enter this market. Finally, the big kahoona, the monopoly! (DUH DUH DUUUUH). This is a crazy idea where there is only ONE seller with a product that is differentiated, but there are no similar substitutes. This is terrible in my mind. In addition, we learned about natural monopolies, government monopolies, technological monopolies, and geographical monopolies where they all have aspects that makes them the only ones to provide a good or service in the form of a monopoly. The world of economics can get a little crazy, but hey! That's what I'm here for: to clear it up a little more. I hope it got a little clearer!