Voting

This week, we've discussed some fairness criteria and started looking at weighted voting systems.

Recall that the state of Maine voted in November to switch to plurality with elimination (called ranked choice voting) for many of their elections.  Here are some interesting articles about this switch and about plurality vs plurality with elimination

Maine's Ranked Choice Voting: It's not Plurality (has a couple interesting videos)

Top 5 Ways Plurality Voting Fails

Maine Ranked Choice Voting Initiative, Question 5(2016) - Ballotpedia

Portland Press Herald

Podcast Meeting with Supporters on Both sides of Question 5 (scroll down to find this)

The Reasons for Maine to Adopt Ranked Choice Voting are Unconvincing

Yes on '5': No More Lesser of Two Evils in Maine

Maine became the first state in the country . . . to pass ranked choice voting

Can you find any interesting articles about Question 5 on Maine's ballot?  How would you have voted on Question 5?

Voting Theory

We will be finishing off the semester with a discussion of voting theory.  The notes and worksheets for this unit can be found on the right side of the blog.  There will only be paper homework for this last unit.  I will collect the first worksheet in class on Tuesday, April 17.

Exam 3

Your third exam for MAT110(E) is scheduled for Tuesday, April 10.  An exam review is located in the Handouts folder linked on the right side of the blog.  Please print this out and bring it with you to class on Thursday.  You should attempt the problems before coming to class so that we can focus our discussion on the problems that students most struggled with.

I have posted a couple videos below reviewing annuities and amortized loans.

After the exam, we will begin a small unit on Voting Theory.  Thank you to everyone who filled out the mid-semester survey to select our last topic.

Refinancing and Paying Ahead

Last week, we saw two ways to save money in an amortized loan.  The first option was to refinance. This means to transfer the outstanding balance of your loan to a newer loan with a lower interest rate (and perhaps a different term).  To do this, you must find the unpaid balance of your loan.  The formula for this looks just like the formula we use for an amortized loan with P replaced by U and the mt in the exponent replaced with N, where N is the number of payments remaining on the loan:
 \[ U = R\left[\dfrac{1-\left(1+\frac{r}{m}\right)^{-N}}{\frac{r}{m}}\right] \]

The second way to save we looked at was to pay extra towards reducing your principal each month.  We called this "paying ahead".  In this situation, we want to use the formula for the amortized loan to solve for t to determine how soon we would pay off the loan.  You should also be able to determine how much money you save by paying a fixed amount extra each month.
 \[ P = R\left[\dfrac{1-\left(1+\frac{r}{m}\right)^{-mt}}{\frac{r}{m}}\right] \]

There are many calculators online to help answer these questions and more about taking out a loan. Below are links to some calculators that you may find useful when you want to consider taking out a loan in the future.

Bankrate.com

Amortization Schedule Calculator

Mortgage Payoff Calculator

Cost of Living Calculator

Is it Better to Rent or Buy?

We will only be considering fixed rate loans in all of our examples.  But lenders may also offer you an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM).  As the name suggests, with an adjustable rate mortgage, your rate can change, depending on market rates.  These loans can be risky - if rates go up, so does your monthly payment.

Challenge Problem: (Due Tuesday, April 10) Determine what kind of job you want to have after you graduate.  Research salaries for this job in your dream town.  Using a home affordability calculator, determine how expensive a house you could afford based on this salary.  Then, go to zillow.com, and choose a home to purchase (in your budget) in your dream town.  Looking at current interest rates, choose a loan.  Given this loan, calculate the following by hand.  (You may use the online calculator to check your answers, but you must also work out the answers by hand.)
1. Your monthly payments.
2. The amount of interest you would pay by just making the minimal monthly payments.
3. The amount of interest you would pay by paying an extra $100 each month and how soon you would be able to pay off the loan.
4. The amount of interest you would pay by paying an extra $250 each month and how soon you would be able to pay off the loan.
Include the resources you used to determine your future salary, home affordability, loan terms, and the Zillow page for the home you chose.

Mid-Semester Survey

Please fill out the Mid-Semester Survey linked below.  You will be asked to log in with your Missouri Western account so that every student is limited to 1 response; however, your email will not be recorded with your responses.  That is, your responses are anonymous.  Please answer honestly.  Note that you are also asked to vote on the next topic we will cover after finance.

Mid-Semester Survey

Finance

This week, we will begin a new unit on Financial Math. Please make sure you print out the notes and bring them with you to class.  We will start this week with a discussion of interest - simple interest and compound interest.  There will be a lot of formulas in this unit, and you will need to practice with them to get comfortable using them.  I will provide you with the formulas (unlabeled) for the exam, so you need to focus on identifying what formulas apply to what problems.  In addition, it will be very important to remember your calculator for class every day in this unit - you don't want to have to do these calculations by hand! Those of you in lab should have been reviewing logarithms and exponentials in that class recently.  We will be using logarithms to help solve problems in this unit; if you need additional review of logarithms, please see me.  The webpage below is also a good source of review for problems involving logs and exponents.

Exponential and Logarithmic Equations

We will be starting with simple and compound interest on Tuesday.   I recorded a video lecture over simple and compound interest last time I taught this class (linked below).  

Mid-term grades will be submitted on Wednesday.  For those of you looking to improve your grade, remember that this unit doesn't build on the content from the previous two units, so you have a fresh start with Finance.  The homework (both online and the paper homework) is an important component of your grade.  Doing the homework is what prepares you to do well on the exam.  If you haven't been keeping up with the homework, now is a good time to start.  Come see me in office hours if you find you are struggling on the homework.  Finally, remember that you get points for participating with the blog.  Click on some links and comment about what you read.  These are easy points and you shouldn't miss out on getting them!  (In the comments on this post, tell me what you hope to learn in this unit and why.)

Extra Lecture Video

I made a video last semester over the most recent material covered in MAT110(E).  I have linked the video below if you would like to use this to review this material.

Remember that our Probability and Statistics exam will be in class on Thursday, March 8.  An exam review is posted in the Handouts folder linked on the right side of the blog.  You should try the review problems before class on Tuesday and be prepared with questions you have during class.