Ocean's Storm

Chapter Eight

               "The person supplies what I demand?" he asks with an unsure look on his face.

              "Oh, please," Maryland rolls her eyes at the guy's answer. "You have clearly been spending way too much time messaging your boyfriend and not enough time going shopping."

              "How do you know I have a boyfriend?" knitting his eyebrows together in confusion, the guy asks.

              "We know more than you think, Blaze," Nessa answers with a creepy grin on her lips. "Mary and I know that you just moved here from boring old Nebraska last year. We also know that your boyfriend is secretly cheating on you with another guy, but, shhh, it's a secret. Oh, and, your family-"

              "That will be enough, Miss. Townsend," Mr. Santiago cuts her off and flips the paper in his hand to the blank back. "Mr. Benoist, please put your phone away for the remainder of the class. Next time I catch you on your phone, you will be losing your phone privileges for the remainder of the semester."

              "The price of gas is inverse to the quantity. If the quantity of gas is low, then the price of gas will increase. If the price of gas increases, then the demand will be less since no one wants to spend a high amount per gallon," I say and then decide to finish my sentence from earlier. "If you were to sell us all ice cream at $5 per individual ice cream, then the demand for the ice cream you are selling to us won't be that great. Chances are, we would all find another ice cream seller who charges less for the item."

              "Did I walk into the wrong room?" Reggie walks into the room only to pause at my words and turns to walk back out into the hallway.

              "Mr. Day, please come take a seat," leaning back a little to look out in the hallway, Mr. Santiago says.

              When it becomes clear to Mr. Santiago that Reggie has no intention of walking back into the classroom, he sits up straight and shakes his head.

              "You are correct, Miss. Hilton. Supply and demand are inverse in the sense of price and quantity. However, quantity is completely dependent on the price. As you said, no one wants to pay a high amount for an item," getting back on what we were originally talking about, Mr. Santiago says. "Now, we have different factors that go into supply and demand. Does anyone know what factors can change the demand or the supply of whatever is being sold?"

            "Demand can be changed by income, tastes and preferences, expectations, substitutes, number of consumers, and the price of complements," Jake answers automatically and goes into further explanation. "Let's pretend like you just got laid off from a job that made you fall into the middle-class group and have trouble finding employment right away. Well, you would start having to spend your money wisely since you aren't currently working. Some of the top name-brand items you could afford to spend your money on- when you were working- may no longer be in your spending range. This would result in you finding a substitute item which would be a lot cheaper and save money.

            "Actually, all of those reasons for the change in demand tie into one another if you were to really think about it. When people are buying products, they usually expect the item to be functional. I'm fairly certain no one wants to buy a new refrigerator that looks nice only to find that the door falls off every time they open the fridge. People who save money will likely want to opt for a product that is off-brand but still meets their expectations. Complements are obviously products that go together. For example, a tennis player couldn't play tennis if they forgot their tennis racket at home."

            "Very good, Mr. Morrison!" Mr. Santiago nods approvingly with a smile on his face. "Can anyone tell me about what causes a change in supply?"