1. Consumers: The Driving force of the Market Economy

2. Consumers have the most important role in a Market Economy…Why?

3. Consumer Sovereignty
Consumers are in control because of their power to buy goods and services
If a producer is producing goods that are not being bought the producer goes out of business
Supply and Demand..YOU are the demand

4. Do consumers really have a choice in the economy?

5. Advertising
Is a way for the producers to try to generate a market for their product
Remember the idea of unlimited human wants and limited resources?
Advertising works to create more wants

6. Some Examples:

7. Some Examples:

8. Positives of Advertising
Ads give us information
Allow us to comparison shop
Lower prices by uniting producers with consumers

9. Critics say:
Advertising is a way of manipulating consumers into buying something that you did not need
The purpose of advertising is to sell not to educate, we never see in an ad the bad side
Critics often point out that advertisements have created a culture of dissatisfied people
Help to spread fads

10. Consumer issues: Who REALLY runs the economy?

11. Consumer Power
What do you do if you find out that your favourite company:
Employs slave or child labour?
Doesn’t use recycled products?
Tests its products on animals?
Uses/produces materials harmful to the environment?
Ralph Nader: Unsafe at any speed (1966)
Looked at the Automotive industry and the unsafe products that they were producing
Is an example of someone looking for Government intervention in the economy

12. Consumer Power: Boycotts
A boycott is a decision by a group of consumers not to buy certain products
Environmental organizations use boycotts as one way to take action. In 2007, Greenpeace called for a boycott on oil and gas products
Animal rights groups boycotted the products of cosmetic companies because companies used animals to test product

13. Modern Boycotting Examples
Canadian Seafood Boycott by U.S Chefs 2013
In an attempt to stop Canadian annual seal hunt, many Celebrity chefs are calling for a boycott of all Canadian seafood products
Sochi Olympics 2014
People around the world calling for Countries to boycott attendance at the Sochi 2014 Olympics in order to protest Putin’s “Anti-Gay Propaganda Laws”

14. Environmental Concerns
Limited Resources, why?

15. Earth from space

16. Adam Smith thought that the economy needed constant growth, which means more resources

17. Environmental problems:
Pollution is one of the major problems that industrialized nations face
Not only from removal of resources, but of where to put our waste

18. Problems:
Major cities in our world are becoming unsafe to live in due to the air pollution
Acid rain destroys crops and trees

19. Greenhouse effect

20. Environmental problems…:
Global warming could potentially cause super storms
CFCs have deteriorated the ozone layer over both poles
Renewable natural resources have been over exploited (forests, fisheries)

21. Environmental Problems
At some point we have to say STOP and start protecting the environment
Where do industry and consumers factor into this?