Social Media

This article is very interesting it talks about how social media can help us get out of this economy down turn. Social media allows people to communicate faster and easier. This allows the news of new jobs opening circulate a lot faster. Before social media, and the internet people mainly found jobs in the news paper and looking in to their local business. Now people can set up accounts online to find jobs within fifty miles, they can also talk to people online to help them with their resumes. Jobs are also looking at your social media pages looking for characteristics your don't show in your interview. The question I have is how is the social media really impacting our economy? I know jobs are being circulated better but is that a good thing? With technological advances how is that impacting our economy? We often look at our economy with services that make money but what about a service free to consumers, like social media.  

CEOs asking for Tax Cuts

President Obama and 100 CEOs of top companies in the nation recently had a meeting to discuss methods they could use to create more jobs and get the economy going. In this article, some of the potential ideas brought up in the meeting are shared and analyzed.

The current corporate income tax is at 35%, and the CEOs said that they wish for it to be dropped down to 25%. They also wish for health care taxes and wall street regulations to be completely cut out. They claim that if these demands are made that they will be able to create a large amount of jobs and help out the economy quite a bit. As we discussed is class, there are generally only two things one can do to improve the economy. One is to cut the amount of taxes people must pay and the other to cut government spending. CEOs of the business seem to have already decided which method they wish to use, which is cut there taxes (leakage) and they'll get more work done with the money they get to keep in their pockets/companies. Another tax the CEOs wished to remove was the tax on overseas earnings. As of right now, as long as the earnings are kept overseas the government wont touch it, but as soon as they enter the country they are taxed. The CEOs claimed that if this tax and a few others were excused, that they could get a lot more done, and ultimately bring in more and create many more jobs.

Mortgages

Mortgages in America are costing people more money than their houses are worth. Part of the reason is because of the housing booms in some states. People also took out mortgages when the price of housing was at it's highest. Now since the housing market has almost hit rock bottom the value of their houses has decreased. People are now paying mortgages on their house that was originally worth more than it is now. Some of these states are just now paying the price for the crash of the housing market. People are also now loosing money on their homes because if they are trying to sell their house they will not receive back the amount of money they paid for it. This is why it is the best time to buy a house because when the economy does recover the house would be worth more than when it was bought. So what do you think about the housing market? And do you think it is right for the people to be paying more for their house than it is worth?

Gas Prices

With the economy so delicate, any type of stimulant or leakage could have drastic effects as we continue to try and recover from the recession we have undergone. This weekend I was filling up my gas tank and since I drive a Suburban, the gas station is never a fun place to go. As summer quickly approaches, along with college and other expenses I will be hurting the more gas prices rise. Although raised gas prices bring more money into the economy, this may not be helpful to society as a whole. Since Arlington is so large, a car is definitely a necessity just for me to get to work and make money. However, if I put all my money that I make towards my gas, I will not be in a better economic situation. Why do gas prices have to increase by so much? It's actually doing greater harm than good. Also, if I go away to college, I will lose my job and money will dwindle quickly especially if I'm paying 100+ dollars for a full tank of gas. This is probably the number one issue on people's mind and it really needs to be resolved. I really think the economy is getting better but gas prices scare me. High gas prices equals less money to consumers therefore making consumers more restrictive when they do choose to spend money.

The MLB has decided to extend their playoffs. So what would this do for both the teams and their economies? When teams make the playoffs their revenue goes up because the games will tend to have sold more tickets and in most cases they are complete sellouts. This will also improve Major league baseball as a whole. More games will require more television time and which will attract more viewers. Now with both the organizations and the MLB as a whole will benefit from each other because the amount of merchandise sold will increase. Now with the two new teams added to the playoff system there will be more rewards to be a divsion winner because the three division winners will recieve a first round by. This will also allow the teams from more competitive divisons get more teams into to the playoffs. Those teams such as the Boston redsox last year have major followings which also brings more money into the system.

Invest in Girls

I came across this article, or more an ad to help encourage Americans and politicians to invest in girls. This idea seems very mediocre, but it makes a lot of sense. This idea will never work to help our economy alone but with other plans it will definitely push our country into full recovery. The whole plan to 'Invest in Girls' is exactly what it sounds likes. Lets invest in girls to prevent, teenage mothers, and promote educating girls who will eventually turn into women. Women that will stimulate the economy with their salary, instead of becoming a teenage mother and needing government assistance. The article talks about how much money teenage mothers cost other countries, but economics is worldwide. Like I stated this plan does sound mediocre but with other positive plans this might push our economy in the right direction.

Student Loans

In this article from 2009, the author suggests that the methods being used at the time to stimulate the economy would only be effective in one small section of the class system. The author talks about how the rich generally get richer, and when they get poorer, they get bailed out. This partially makes sense, because with the rich richer, they will have more money to spend to stimulate the economy. But, the problem with this is there are many more of the working class in America than there are rich, and the only way to affectively stimulate the economy is to get them to spend money. The author suggests a way to get the working class spending again is to get ride of their Student Loan debt. He suggests that if that is forgiven, then a huge portion of the population will have more money in their pocket and will have a drastic effect on the economy.

In this article some years later, President Obama has passed a bill that is supposed to help people with student loan debt either get them completely forgiven or lower the payments per month from 15% of the house hold income to 10%. None of the programs will forgive students loans immediately but a majority will forgive after either 20 years or 10 years for a public service worker. The forgiveness plans work differently for different types of jobs and loans, and doesn't apply to everyone with student loan debt. But based on the state of our economy, getting any portion of the population to spend more than usual will have an obvious positive effect on the economy, and hopefully give us that push we need to get into recovery (if we aren't already there).

Prom dresses in relation to the economy

It's prom dress season and for all the girls, it is one of the most exciting times of the year for shopping! There is a variety of options, colors, designers and many more to choose from. Many girls have already bought or ordered dresses and prom isn't even until April or May. So why all the hype for these designer dresses that range from hundreds to thousands of dollars? After all, it is just one night to dress up and show off a beautiful but expensive purchase. Plus, every year prom dresses seem to get more expensive. However, women seem to run the economy. At least the shopping aspect of things. I've heard a saying once that said, "Without women in the world, money would be useless." Since all these girls are planning to spend millions of dollars overall on dresses, it is a stimulant for the economy and allows us as a society to continue our recovery from the recession. I believe since people are planning on or have already spent several hundreds of dollars on dresses, this shows how our economy is improving and into a recovery phase.

Stopping the drug war or producing more addicts?

Milton Friedman talks about legalizing drugs. He makes so very interesting points. He explains that legalizing drugs is a moral issue not a economic issue. He post the question why is the government wanting to make criminals out of people "who may be doing something you and I don't agree with but is causing harm to no one else?." The initial reaction I had was well when you are under the influence you have a lack of making smart judgments and you may harm other people. But after looking at it through a different perspective I saw that hypothetically if I was walking down the street smoking a drug that is illegal I would get arrested and put in jail causing one more person in the already over crowded jails, making me a criminal and making it less likely for me to get a job. Going to jail even though I am not causing harm to anyone but myself seems petty and a waste of time. At the end of the day Milton poses the question that how far should we let government in our personal decisions? Over eating causes negative effects as well as illegal drugs but the government doesn't tell you ho much you can eat. Exactly where do you draw the line?

In this article the author, David Francis, expresses a concern that even though we are likely headed into a recovery, it will likely be what is considered a "jobless recovery". Jobless Recovery basically means that the economy is improving, but there aren't many jobs created/available in the process.

As the economy improves some new jobs will become available but some of the old ones, such as manufacturing jobs, will no longer be available in such large numbers as before. These manufacturing jobs for the most part have been shipped over seas or their pay has been dropped so much that no "American" would be willing to take the pay cut. Francis explains that since many old jobs are disappearing and different ones are being created, the only way to keep up with the growth of the country is education. He explains that people must go back and "retrain" (go to college) so they will have marketable skills that can get them a decent job. The people currently preparing to go into the workforce also need to make sure they equipped them selves with skills that are necessary to get a job in the near future, and hopefully get them by the rest of their lives. Francis also points out that as college become more important, the cost has gone up significantly. So, for those who can't afford the big universities, community college is a decent plan B that can still help these unemployed get back on their feet. Other wise, people will remain unemployed and keep this cycle of recovery from reaching it's full potential.

Yes, I know we have talked about welfare a lot in class. I have already done a post about welfare.This video looks at a different side of welfare. In my last post about welfare I discussed how welfare effects the economy viewing the world as a economist. But have you ever thought about a person on welfare feels? And how that will effect the economy? I do not agree with what Milton's approach, that we should cut welfare and maybe that will force people to get a job. Milton and the people in this video do bring up an interesting perspective on welfare. We often look at welfare as a hard working taxpayer, but have you ever seen welfare  through a different pair of glasses? The first family in the video cannot receive government assistance because they earn only a few dollars too much, but they are not making enough money to pay for their child's medical experiences. The family has tried  to receive medicare care but they can only qualify for five dollars a month. Milton goes on to talk about how many families that receive welfare often create a cycle of government hand out among the generation. Milton also goes on to explain that being on welfare takes away their "human independence". Once interviewing another family, Milton concludes by saying that welfare doesn't only effect the economic stand point but also the "moral fibers" of Americans.The people giving out the welfare feel a "God like power" and the people receiving it feeling a "child like dependence".

This video explains supply and demand, and why the two rely on each other, but in this post i'd like to focus first on "supply".

Supply, in simple terms, is the amount of a product that will be available at a particular price, and the law of supply states that more will be made available when the price is higher. For example, if the iPhone costs $90 to make and apple is allowed to charge customers $400-$500 to buy the phone, more will be made. But if the phone cost $300 and Apple can still only charge $400-$500, less iPhones would be made because they wouldn't bring in much of a profit.

When bringing supply and demand together, like on the video, both the supplier and consumers point of views are brought into the picture and things get a bit more complicated. When quantity of whats demanded meets the quantity of what is supplied a market equilibrium is met, which looks like this. But when one changes, supply for example, everything changes over time. If the price of drilling and refining oil goes up, the supply line on the graph will change. In this example, the supply line would move to the right, thus causing the quantity of supply at the original price to decrease. Meaning before $2.15 would have gotten you a gallon of gas, but now it only gets you half. This also causes the original equilibrium to move up.

There are several factors that could cause the supply line to shift in a market, such as change in cost of inputs, taxes and subsidies, change in the amount of sellers, future expectations, etc.

According this article, the super bowl was bigger than ever. Generally, the Super bowl brings in the most money in a calendar year, but this year it brought in more than money than ever in history. But why?...During Super Bowl the food, beer, and tv sales tend to go up since so many people raid the stores at that time. This year, the same thing happened, but even more people did it!

During black friday and the holiday sales, it was expected that tons of TVS would be sold, so the supply went up. But, the normal demand for TVS just didn't happen, leaving the companies with a surplus of TVS. Because of that, the were forced to drop their prices a big more to get rid of the left overs. When Super Bowl came around, people took notice in TVS again, and a record amount went out and bought new TVS. This is one factor that led to making this Super Bowl the biggest in history.

Nothing Bundt Cakes in relation to supply & demand

Nothing Bundt Cakes is becoming a popular cake chain throughout various parts of the United States. With its moist cake and unique concept, it is no surprise consumers enjoy walking into a store and quickly become returning customers.

Supply and demand is an important thing in any business if they want to continue being successful. However, supply and demand is a delicate balance and many factors can affect it. Consumer demand is important because if demand changes it may affect the supply and overall sales negatively. Nothing Bundt Cakes strives to continually develop strong, friendly customer relationships that allows the customer to enjoy walking into any store and enjoying their product, bundt cake. If the economy continues to worsen, Nothing Bundt Cakes could face a loss in consumers and therefore causing a chain of struggling Americans starting with the consumer up through the employees and operators of the corporate offices. Another factor that affects supply and demand greatly is future expectations. Since Nothing Bundt Cakes is a cake shop, they mainly focus around holidays so they can market appropriately and gain spikes in profit around those times. Without demand for these holidays and special occasions, Nothing Bundt Cakes may not survive.

These are only two of the concepts we covered in relation to how supply and demand could be affected. Obviously they are two important factors in any business but these two especially to Nothing Bundt Cakes.

This article/video talks about American Airlines cutting jobs nationally. American Airlines has a maintenance base here in Fort Worth. The base is expected to close, leaving a lot of people out of work. The company is said to out source some of these jobs in order to save money and emerge a stronger and better company at a later time. What caught my eye was that, American Airlines is outsourcing some of these jobs. By the company out sourcing raised some moral questions. Saving money is what every business man wants to do, but at what cost? A lot of people will be out of a job because of this outsourcing. Many people knew American was going to cut jobs in order to save money, but these cuts are far among peoples beliefs. American Airlines should keep the creditably to it's name and keep the jobs in American even though it would cost more money

Oil Demand

In this article, the rapid rise in gas prices is explained. It is believed that sometime during this year, the price of gas will reach atleast $100 a barrel, and $5 a gallon. Main factors that have led to the rising prices include growing/improving economies around the world, and Americas lack of being able to drill.

In Asian countries such as China, major economic growth is taking place, thus causing a substantial increase in the demand for oil. With more people wanting more oil, the price is forced to shoot up because the supply is rapidly decreasing. It is unfortunate, but it seems that as more countries thrive, the worse off the countries that are already established are. If everyone starts demanding as much oil as the US, the world as a whole will be in a VERY bad position. Environmentally and Economically.

Generally, to off set this huge inflation of oil prices, America would just drill for it's own oil. But, because of the disaster in the Gulf, a majority of drill has ceased. Even though companies have been given the ok to start drilling again, because of regulations, the main oil wells of the Gulf are inaccessible, this making drilling in the Gulf nearly pointless at this point. The amount of oil that would come from the Gulf wouldn't even come close to lower our demand for foreign oil.

College, College, College

As a senior in high school, college is very important to me and many of my classmates. We seemingly feel as if college is controlling our lives because when we look at the statistics, it really is. Since the economy is so tough right now, it's hard to find a job especially without a college degree. However, college can be a troublesome time for families who cannot afford pricey colleges. Recently, Obama has decided to introduce a plan that helps make college more affordable to students. Now, after discussing equality in class this past week, is it fair that college will become more affordable to other students? After all, America is all about freedom and competition. Why should others have the ability to competitively compete for limited spots in colleges now that they have more funds to do so? There is two ways to look at this. One, coming from the side that supports the funding and then the opposing side that has the ability and means to afford the college without the additional help. What do you believe is fair?

In class we have been talking about welfare, the purpose of welfare is to help those who cannot financially take care of themselves, due to different reasons. As unemployment grows, the amount of people on government aid grows. This video talks about America's unemployment rate. In the video they show the ruin of an old manufacturing town. Many people in this town are out of work and looking for the government to help. Once upon a time however people in this town use to be employed and very efficient people. This town, use to be named "silk city", because of the mass amount of silk the city produced. A lot of people in the country don't agree with welfare but can not come up with a solution to solve all the problem with welfare. I don't believe welfare problems will ever be solved, but one thing we can do is create jobs for people so they will no longer have to need government based aid. I know this isn't a fast or easy process but this man seems to have a way we can start to bring jobs to Americans. America use to produce a lot of things, now it seems every time you look on the bottom of an item is says "Made In (another countries name)". The man in the video suggest if we bring manufacturing back to American a lot more people will have jobs. Bringing manufacturing back we might just be able to revive the booming production towns such as "silk city".

Welfare

While there a lot of things I don't agree with in this video, there are still a few that do. The video explains that there are people who have learned to milk the welfare system, while they sit at home on their butts doing nothing to change their financial position. Yes, I do agree that reasons like that are why welfare comes off as a complete failure, and the working tax paying Americans feel it should be disposed of completely. But, we must all keep in mind that it's not only the lazy people of our society that are on welfare. There are people who once worked their tails off to make ends meet every month, and could not help losing their jobs, and once the unemployment checks run out they have no other option to take than welfare. So before we sit back and say welfare needs to be disposed of, we need to keep in mind that there are people who honestly need it and aren't sitting around having more and more kids just to collect a check. I feel that we need to find a way to fix the system where it's not as easy for those non deserving people to steal from the rest of the tax paying citizens. How? I don't know, but there has to be a way, and we need to find it soon. Or else our country will continue to be in a bad place, financial wise.

ESPN has reported and confirmed that the Detroit Tigers have signed Prince Fielder to come play. This was a great opportunity cost for the Tigers because of the competition they have at first base. Cabrera is the other premier first baseman that the tigers have. Both have similar numbers and build. These types of first baseman are rare but why would you need to on the same team? Also fielders contract is huge. Fielders is the fourth 200 million dollar contract in baseball history. But why would you pay someone 200 million dollars to sit on the bench half of the time? Fielder and Cabrera most likely can not play another position because of their size and weight. On the other hand the attendance for each game would go up which would help the club raise money for other free agents. Fielder would also help create run support for the weaker end of there pitching staff. So I'm asking you was it worth it for Detroit to sign prince Fielder.

Market Systems In Relation to Children

Recently in school, a teacher told me about an article that he had read about how children wanted discipline and rules. As we talked about market systems in economics this week, I thought that article would be an interesting article to analyze in relation to a market system. Now why in the world would kids want rules? No rules means absolute freedom to do whatever they want much like the market system that Adam Smith heavily supported. But just like the Lord of the Flies example in class, with absolute freedom comes complications and problems that can turn bad very quickly. If kids were given a world without rules, they would have to fend for themselves, make decisions and essentially survive solely by themselves. If the world was a market system, I believe chaos would break lose. We need some type of governmental structure to maintain order or else everyone would be competing with each other without rules or regulations. Life could become dangerously challenging if nobody was required to run businesses, pay employees properly, organize taxes or regulate the economy. The world is a very fragile place and without order, we would simply fall into a cycle of trouble and recklessness just like kids would do without rules.

This article deals with the ‘Big Chop’. The act of a girl cutting all her hair off for the sake of growing a new, natural,healthier head of hair may be taboo for some people. This change for healthier hair is called ‘The Big Chop’. Although the act my be unheard of for a lot of people it has created a buzz within the African- American community for some time now. Some might ask why exactly would you do this to yourself? Doing the big chop will free some women from the harsh expensive chemical, better known as a relaxer,  used to straighten their hair. Women who do the big chop will learn to embrace their hair naturally, which gives them a new look but also a new attitude on life. This idea of embracing your natural self sounds great but the struggle it takes to achieve this new natural lifestyle is quite a journey. Others most likely will have an opinion about doing the big chop. Mainly because our society via media isn’t glorying the idea of a African American wearing her hair has it naturally grows from her head. Dealing with negativity is also a con of doing the big chop. Once a woman has cut her hair off to such a short length she can feel very self conscious. Many woman who have been receiving a relaxer for most of their life, manging their own natural hair can be quite the task. Some women have long relaxed hair but to become fully natural will cut most of it off and have to maintain a curly, kinky look. Many people desire to go natural but will have to give up their long, easier to manage hair. In other, more economic, terms the opportunity cost of some one going natural will be the parting of long, straight hair.

In this video, Homer has one peanut that he considers of great value because it's the last one that remains. But once he drops it and finds the $20 he is faced with a choice. He can get the peanut that he was longing for off of the floor and eat it, or he can use the $20 and go buy a few bags of peanuts. Homer chooses to take the $20 instead, but the opportunity cost is that even though he will get more than one peanut, he will have to wait a few minutes because he has to go all the way to the store, and there is always a chance that the store won't have any.

In this video the theory that "There is no such thing as a free lunch" is proven. Jerry's friend "gives" him a brand new suit and says he wants nothing for it, but then suggests that he is taken out to dinner at a nice restaurant. As a result Jerry has to take the man out to eat twice, and has likely spent a large portion of the cost of the "free" suit, on the man's food. When companies have sales like "buy one get one free" or "buy one get one half off" the consumer is never really getting that great of a deal. Yes, they are paying a few less dollars, but since the prices are already higher than production costs, the companies still receive a profit, and the consumer is still paying more. Thus proving, "There is no such thing as a free lunch".

This article is about the Rangers trying to sign Yu Darvish. The Rangers had to pay 53 million in order to negotiate with him. This was an opportunity cost that the Rangers had to take in order to get the team ready to make another run at the World Series. Even though the Rangers are hopeful to sign him and they are missing out on other free agents at this time. If the rangers are unable to sign him they possible could miss out on Prince Fielder or extending Josh Hamilton's contract. Yu Darvish is a special pitcher though. He is 6'6" and can throw 9 pitches. It is scarce to find a pitcher like Yu because of the kind of pitches he throws and the velocity with those pitches. Nolan Ryan believes that his fastball and curveball are good enough to compete in the MLB. Now in order to sign Darvish comes down the the contract and money. The Rangers should be able to meet Darvish's standards so he can sign. The Rangers want a long term contract while Yu wants a shorter contract. The price doesn't seem to be the issue but it will come down to the wire on Wednesday.

Opportunity Cost And Paradox Value of Phobias

Phobias are known worldwide as severe fears. Phobias range from more common fears such as fear of death or heights while also focusing on eccentric fears such as fear of clocks or laughter. But really, what could people be sacrificing when living with these absurd fears? When a person develops a phobia, for example telephonophobia which is fear of telephones, he or she is making a choice to give up a normally common aspect of life. This relates to economics because the person factors in an opportunity cost into his or her life. Should I use the telephone or email the person I want to communicate with? Telephones are the opportunity cost because they are the next best thing to the person with the fear of telephones. Also, this person places a paradox value on certain objects. Most people would love if I came up to them and give them a brand new phone of their choosing. However, since this person has a fear of telephones they would place a different value on them than everyone else. Do you have any phobias? What exactly are you giving up and placing value on while living with these fears?