Journaling of Chapter 4: The Market Forces of Supply and Demand

     The entirety of Chapter 4 was spent on explaining the concepts of supply and demand. Throughout the whole chapter, supply and demand was explained through ice cream as the prime example. When the chapter was first introducing these concepts, it was relatively easy to me. This is probably because supply and demand are such popular terms when it comes to economics. I can now tie in supply and demand in market to firms and households which readers were introduced to earlier on in the book. Since supply is the quantity of the good produced, it is handled by firms and since demand is determined by what buyers want, this deals with households. I think this connection I was able to make helped me understand the rest of the chapter though it increasingly got harder to comprehend. I understand how supply and demand work individually and how they have their own curves and factors that either shifts or moves the curves but I had a hard time grasping supply and demand together. Mostly what I got from the section based on the two working together is that there will be equilibrium.  If the supply and demand does not reach the equilibrium, it can lead to either a shortage or a surplus. Each will lead to a decreased profit. I give this chapter a difficulty rating of 2. Though supply and demand are widely popular economic terms, I had not known that there were so many layers to it. Regardless, I am glad to see how some markets work.