After reading the Chapter 15 content, taking good notes, please select one and only one of the following three prompts to discuss. Be thorough and really help others master this material with your "teachings". Also, challenge yourself by taking on a prompt that seems difficult at first.
(1) You are encouraged to continue your development of the four column by five row study "grid" to capture key elements of the four market types we are studying in this last unit (chapters 14, 15, 16, & 17). Please share with your classmates the five characteristics from your reading that help us identify when we are seeing a Monopoly in action. Then, discuss a real-world monopoly that you have encountered and tell us how it is that the monopoly persists.
(2) For a Monopoly the MR "curve" is not a horizontal line. Explain what is meant by that and how it is that you know this to be true. What does this have to do with the term "Price Maker"? Finally, what is the Profit Maximizing Rule for a monopoly?
(3) When a monopoly is in long-run equilibrium, at least two "bad" societal outcomes can occur. The have to do with ATC and D.W.L. Explain what these "bad" outcomes are (by the way this is not a guaranteed outcome for every monopoly) and what society may choose to do to correct for these outcomes.
(4) In a monopolistic sense, what is meant by Discriminatory Pricing? Is it illegal? Also, what is meant by a "Natural" monopoly? Is it illegal to own one of these? When faced with a monopoly situation, what options do consumers have? Are they really stuck? If so, why and for how long?