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).