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Before I start writing about economic data and some bull**it analyses, I'm going to write first about one of the fundamental concepts in economics: Opportunity cost. Hence, the title. (I'm a genius!)

Picture this scenario: You have 20 gold. You can spend it to upgrade your training facility. Or to obtain a new market license. Or upgrade your Q1 company to Q2. Or buy 2 Q1 companies. It's one or the other though.

"Duh! That's common sense! So what, dumbass?"

But what if everyone had as much gold as they want to spend?

"Of course, I'd get everything!"

Right on, and that's exactly why opportunity cost is such an important concept.

The cost in opportunity is about the choices that you did not pick in exchange for what you picked. It's essentially what you missed out on.

Opportunity cost happens when a scarce resource (e.g. gold) meets an array of mutually exclusive choices (e.g. upgrade Q1->Q2, upgrade training facility, etc.) wherein choosing one over the other would forfeit all the other options.

Ideally, you should always choose the choice that is more valuable than its opportunity cost. As you know, this is far easier said than done.

Opportunity cost is fundamental in how markets work. Scarcity influences price and value.

"So, how do I use this?"

In eRep? That will be the subject of the rest of the paper. We'll make some assumptions, gather data, make pretty graphs from glorious spreadsheets that would rival those of accounting firms and then we'll analyze. We pick which option is the best given our constraints.

This is how you use it in your life: Spend your time consciously*.

In fact, time itself is a scarce resource. If you really understand what that statement means, then you'd say that the guy who said "time is gold" is a f***in' genius.

Spending time consciously is when you decide that you're going to read my article because you believe that I'm saying something that is worth more than this youtube video that you could've watched instead. Spending time consciously is when you have a reason to why you're doing what you're doing. Spending time consciously is when you know exactly what you're missing out on and you know that you're spending your time on things that matter. The things that matter are things that you decide matter. Not your boss, not your parents, not your spouse. You.

Opportunity cost, at its core is about choice. Choice is the core of this newspaper: to help everyone make informed choices.

o7

PS. Economics is a side hobby. :3
PPS. Thanks to rosmant-0 for proofreading. 😃