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Topic: The Power of Tourism (Read 2539 times) |
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StallionMang
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The Power of Tourism
« on: Jan 21st, 2008, 12:11pm » |
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Due to the presence of tourism in a particular place, the residents have to pay higher electricity bills than they would otherwise. Explain.
Note: this is a true "lateral thinking" problem, which means you are unlikely to get it by taking blind stabs. You definitely want to ask yes/no questions on this one.
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Three Hands
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #1 on: Jan 21st, 2008, 1:02pm » |
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Probably completely off-track, but I can't help but think Viva Las Vegas!
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alien2
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #2 on: Jan 21st, 2008, 1:28pm » |
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........because tourists are swimming in the sea that has electric eels?
Or the mayor of the city has invited Electric Banana Band to entertain tourists?
Or tourists are suffering from schizophrenia, so instead of taking electric shocks the old way, now they swim in modern electric swimming pools?
Or 'Houston, we have a problem!'
Or these tourists are aliens from Alpha Centauri, which eat electricity.
Or these tourists are soccer fans from England, drunkards and hooligans, breaking windows and pinball machines. And since there are a lot of pinball machines in this place, mostly to entertain the tourists, of course, someone has to pay for the damage. It is rude to ask tourists to pay for all the pinball machines they've broken. Btw, if tourists do pay for pinball machines, they will never come back, and most of this little town's income comes from tourism.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 21st, 2008, 1:30pm by alien2 » |
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StallionMang
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #3 on: Jan 21st, 2008, 3:13pm » |
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Three Hands, it's not Vegas, sorry.... 
Iceman, unfortunately, none of your colorful guesses are correct, although I was entertained by them.
Keep in mind, guys, this riddle is non-fiction, so the answer is not going to be anything ridiculous.
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alien2
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #4 on: Jan 21st, 2008, 4:03pm » |
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It is Christmas, and tourists are drawn to this place because of thousands of light bulbs all over the city?   
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StallionMang
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #5 on: Jan 21st, 2008, 4:23pm » |
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Nope.
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thecow135
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #6 on: Jan 21st, 2008, 5:47pm » |
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they don't normally use electricity?
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cuz everybody noe that the game dont stop try to make it to the top fo ur ass get popped
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StallionMang
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #7 on: Jan 21st, 2008, 5:55pm » |
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The residents of the area use electricity; they just pay more for it.
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SMQ
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #8 on: Jan 21st, 2008, 6:18pm » |
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Do they use more electricity due to the tourism? Or do they pay more for the electricity they would use anyway?
--SMQ
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--SMQ
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StallionMang
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #9 on: Jan 21st, 2008, 6:53pm » |
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They pay more for the electricity they would use anyway.
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thecow135
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #10 on: Jan 21st, 2008, 8:00pm » |
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are we guessing the city? or are we just explaining it?... because usually this happens as there are more tourists, the need for electricity goes up and the city is unable to produce it so must buy it from other cities..
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cuz everybody noe that the game dont stop try to make it to the top fo ur ass get popped
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shasta
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #11 on: Jan 21st, 2008, 8:59pm » |
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When there's a lot of tourism, there's a lot more people there who want electricity. Thus, the demand for electricity increases. And the price of any product whose demand goes up goes up as well, (except in certain rare cases).
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Grimbal
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #12 on: Jan 22nd, 2008, 2:31am » |
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Not necessarily. If the demand goes up, the prices go up as well.
But then the production increases. Producing on a larger scale can be cheaper than on a small scale. So the price can well go down below what it was before.
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shasta
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #13 on: Jan 22nd, 2008, 5:42am » |
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"Producing on a larger scale can be cheaper than on a small scale. So the price can well go down below what it was before."
Let's say you've got someone who is willing to buy a widget from you every month for $1000. This widget costs you $200 to make. Then thanks to an innovation, you find a way to make this widget for only $100. This guy is still willing to buy the widget from you for $1000 each month. Why would you lower the price of the widget by $100 instead of pocketing the difference? The answer is you wouldn't, especially considering it's illegal to deliberately fail to fulfill your fiduciary duty to your stockholders to make as much money as possible.
The costs of creating a product almost never have anything to do with it's price. The exceptions are
1. If the cost of manufacture are higher than people are willing to pay for the finished product, the product simply doesn't get made.
2. If you get a couple companies that actually do compete with each other instead of using price fixing to act like different divisions of one bigger company then they sometimes lower prices closer to costs trying to capture the part of the market currently buying their competitors' products. This is very rare nowadays, as it tends to be costly to all companies involved and a risky strategy. The super-companies that have emerged from the last century have far cheaper and more effective means of dealing with any real competition that might come along, which means would-be investors are now avoiding investing in them in the first place.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 22nd, 2008, 5:44am by shasta » |
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pex
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #14 on: Jan 22nd, 2008, 5:57am » |
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on Jan 22nd, 2008, 5:42am, shasta wrote:| Let's say you've got someone who is willing to buy a widget from you every month for $1000. This widget costs you $200 to make. Then thanks to an innovation, you find a way to make this widget for only $100. This guy is still willing to buy the widget from you for $1000 each month. Why would you lower the price of the widget by $100 instead of pocketing the difference? |
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Because more people would be willing to buy it at $900, while your profit per unit is unaffected?
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towr
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #15 on: Jan 22nd, 2008, 6:11am » |
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on Jan 22nd, 2008, 5:42am, shasta wrote:| The answer is you wouldn't, especially considering it's illegal to deliberately fail to fulfill your fiduciary duty to your stockholders to make as much money as possible. |
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Really?
Wouldn't it first of all depend on what the stockholders want, and whether at that time squeezing the last drop of blood from the stone is the best business tactic?
Selling two widgets at a profit of 800 (or even 500) is better than selling one at a profit of 900. You always compete against the option of not-buying.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 22nd, 2008, 6:12am by towr » |
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Wikipedia, Google, Mathworld, Integer sequence DB
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Grimbal
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #16 on: Jan 22nd, 2008, 6:20am » |
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(reply to shasta)
You are right, competition is necessary to make the prices go down when production scales up. But even between the mega-corporations it is not rare that they fight for a market and end up lowering their prices. If a company makes juicy profits in a market others will rush in. Sooner or later prices will drop.
In the electricity market, it really depends on where you live. In many places it is a monopoly and it better not be a private company running it. That is a problem. But in other places the market is open to the competition.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 22nd, 2008, 6:21am by Grimbal » |
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StallionMang
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #17 on: Jan 22nd, 2008, 6:27am » |
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Well, I'll give you this clue, guys.
In this riddle, the reason why the residents pay more has absolutely nothing to do with increased usage due to tourists.
thecow,
Yes, it is a specific place that you are trying to guess, but you will not get it unless you figure out the explanation.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 22nd, 2008, 6:28am by StallionMang » |
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pex
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #18 on: Jan 22nd, 2008, 7:29am » |
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Maybe this specific place uses old-fashioned, inefficient, expensive, but tourist-attracting ways of producing electricity?
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StallionMang
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #19 on: Jan 22nd, 2008, 8:17am » |
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on Jan 22nd, 2008, 7:29am, pex wrote:| Maybe this specific place uses old-fashioned, inefficient, expensive, but tourist-attracting ways of producing electricity? |
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I like your thinking......I will give it a partial 'yes': the thing that draws the tourists to the area requires that there be less efficiency in power generation.
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SMQ
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #20 on: Jan 22nd, 2008, 8:26am » |
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Are they unable to construct a hydroelectric dam because of the popularity of their river?
--SMQ
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--SMQ
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alien2
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #21 on: Jan 22nd, 2008, 8:30am » |
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...........I knew this riddle is about ice!  They are Eskimos who insist to sleep in igloos. Still, there are no igloos in this place, but Eskimos agreed to sleep in refrigerators. 
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StallionMang
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #22 on: Jan 22nd, 2008, 9:11am » |
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on Jan 22nd, 2008, 8:26am, SMQ wrote:Are they unable to construct a hydroelectric dam because of the popularity of their river?
--SMQ |
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SMQ, you're very very close....very close, but not quite.
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Grimbal
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #23 on: Jan 22nd, 2008, 9:53am » |
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A dam cannot be built because it would put under water a tourist's attraction. If they build the dam, they loose the tourist's revenue.
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Ghost Sniper
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Re: The Power of Tourism
« Reply #24 on: Jan 22nd, 2008, 10:11am » |
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Or...
The river itself feeds another dam downstream, a much bigger, federal-funded dam. If they build a local dam to fuel to local electricity, the dam downstream would not have water to run with, and therefore, interfere with government activity.
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*sob* I miss my mommy... *blows nose* huh, I'm on? oh right.
(thinks to self) Time for my speech to these college kids.
"Reason is more important than all emotions..."
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