Final answer:
To maximize free time, you should do dishes since you are significantly faster at them, and assign vacuuming to your roommates. Efficiency mismatch may lead to perceived unfairness and tension, akin to trade imbalances in international economics.
Step-by-step explanation:
Given the scenario where you have just moved to Washington, D.C. for a job and are living with roommates who do not clean up after themselves, you should aim to assign tasks to your roommates that will maximize your free time. Since you are 70% faster at doing dishes and only 10% faster at vacuuming, the optimal strategy would be for you to take on the dishwashing duty and assign the vacuuming to your roommates. This aligns with the comparative advantage principle in economics—each party should engage in the activity where they hold the greatest relative efficiency.
However, being significantly faster in cleaning could lead to potential complications. For instance, if you consistently finish your task much earlier, there could be a perception of unfairness or an expectation for you to do more, creating tension in your living situation. A trade-related analogy might be a country that is significantly more efficient in the production of a certain goods than its trading partners, which could potentially lead to trade imbalances and the need for negotiations to ensure equitable trade relations.