The Government and Inflation

Keenan E., Danny V., Joe I.

Summary:   That the government doesn't put billions of money at once  into the economy because it could cause inflation with the economy. They  report data on the nation’s money supply monthly in the form of M1 and M2.  M1 is the measure of the physical money and M2 consist of everything from M1 plus savings accounts.  M1 put in $1.7 trillion  and M2 put in $7.7 trillion.  Before they start putting in  money from the economy, they have to take out some money to balance out the money in and out so it doesn't cause inflation with the country.  

Outside of physically distributing money, the other main way the government puts money into the economy is by first taking out of the economy.  This is done primarily via income taxation, which represented 44% of all collected taxes in 2006, but also through a number of other taxes including: corporate income tax, gift taxes, employment taxes, excise taxes, and estate taxes. Capital gains (investment income) are taxed as well. In total, it is estimated that the IRS took in $2,518,680,000,000 in taxes during fiscal 2006 according to the Heritage Foundation

.  And deals with economics because its saying how they put money in and out of the economic banks.

Ritchie, Joshua. "How Money Finds Its Way Into the Economy." MintLife Blog. Joshua Ritchie, 27 Aug. 2009. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.

Blogbuster

By: Eli Suchowacky, Sean McEachran, Adam Halter

You may have heard that Blockbuster, a giant in the movie rental industry since its beginnings in the 1980s, recently decided to shut down its remaining retail stores and its DVD-by-mail enterprise. The Huffington Post published this article, which explained in further detail the reasons behind this announcement on November 6 from DISH Network, which has owned Blockbuster since 2011. The company decided that digital distribution of videos, most famously practiced by Netflix, is the way of the future in terms of home video viewing. As such, they are not closing operations on their on-demand video streaming service “Blockbuster @Home”. Ironically, Blockbuster had the chance to buy Netflix in the year 2000 for only $50 million (a small price given their net worth at their peak in the early 2000s was about $5 billion), but declined.

And so, what was once a major competitor in the monopolistic competitive market of movie rentals has been reduced to almost nothing. New technology has rendered its once lucrative service obsolete, and the consumers in its industry have decided that other forms of watching home videos are a better value and more convenient.

A Blockbuster Video store; don’t tell me you don’t remember walking into one of these as a child.

Do you think the physical movie rental industry has become obsolete? If so, what benefits do consumers see in on-demand movie rentals as compared to renting a physical copy?

Strachan, Maxwell. "Blockbuster Closing All Of Its Remaining Retail Stores." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 06 Nov. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.

Poverty
Nate Unzen and Sammie Peterson

Children:

There are 2.2 billion children in the world and 1 billion (every second child) lives in poverty.  For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are 640 million without water, 400 million with no access to safe water, and 270 million with no access to health services.  So many children have died due to poverty, and not being taken care of.  Worldwide, 1.4 million children die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.  2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized, and due to HIV/AIDS.

Poverty in Economics:

Countries with poverty don’t live as healthy as countries that don’t have poverty do.  Like Sudan, and Haiti for example, live in poverty.  Their lifespan is dramatically shorter, because of the diseases, lack of nutrition, and lack of medical care.  Countries that live in poverty, have bad economies.  The better your economy in your country, the less poverty you see.  Almost half the world, over three billion people live on less than $2.50 a day, and at least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.  Poverty has been rapidly increasing since the 1800’s.

Poverty to wealth ratio statistics:
-1820: 3 to 1

-1913: 11 to 1

-1950: 35 to 1

-1973: 44 to 1

-1992: 72 to 1
*Has increased rapidly*

What do you feel the US and other industrialized countries could do better to help the poverty in other countries?

"Poverty Facts and Stats." - Global Issues. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.

"World Poverty Statistics." Statistic Brain RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.

The Giving Pledge

Sydney Blair, Ashley Westcott, Karly Neuberger

If you gained millions of dollars would you become a philanthropist? If so what cause would you give to and how much of your money would you give? If not then why are you keep your money?

Philanthropy. It’s an altruistic concern for human welfare and advancement. It is usually shown by giving of your time, effort, or money. But when you think of philanthropists, most people's first thought goes to people like Mother Theresa. What many people don’t know is that many of the worlds richest people are beginning to take part in giving. There is a new club started by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett simply called The Giving Pledge. When you join this “club” you agree to give away a large majority of your wealth, generally over 50 percent. The leaders of this group, Buffett and Gates, are giving away almost all of their wealth. Buffett has announced that he will be giving 99% of his life time earnings away to various charities. Considering that Buffett is worth $58 billion, that is a lot of money going to charities. Also, the Gates family is helping many world wide issues such as polio, poverty, world population, and many  more. As the idea of philanthropy keeps growing, our country’s distribution of wealth is changing, and the world is becoming a better place everyday.

Philanthropists giving their money to charities is a lot more relevant to economics than you would think. First of all, it puts more money into the circulation. Second of all, it is the distribution of wealth by them giving half or more than half of their money to charities.

"The Giving Pledge :: Pledger Profiles." The Giving Pledge :: Pledger Profiles. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.

http://givingpledge.org/index.html

Revolutionary Legalization

Levi McKercher Alex Darrington Pd 6

Uruguay was in the process of a world first.  In August, the South American country legalized the drug, Marijuana (cannabis), for recreational use.  They were the first country in the world to date that legalized this drug completely, up to 40g (1.4oz) per month.  They based this law off of the allowance of Marijuana use in US states Colorado and Washington.  The United States still has federal laws against marijuana use/possession, and the Netherlands has allowed approved businesses to sell the plant in low quantities, but the growth and supply is still illegal.  

The lower house of Congress in Uruguay passed the bill with a vote of 50 to 46 in favor.  Uruguay’s government wanted “to encourage the consideration of new approaches” in reference to so many drug convictions in their country.  There was heavy opposition before the law was passed, but advocates argued that organized crime and secret usage related to the drugs were more harmful than the drugs themselves.  The UN drug conventions have been heavily opposed to legalization of all prohibited drugs of today, but Uruguay took other actions to lessen the problems that corrupted their country.

The legalization of cannabis in Uruguay will greatly affect the countries’ economy. The Uruguay government has argued  they will spend less money on the conviction and prevention of marijuana consumption by legalizing it. Also, the government can now focus more on violent crime and hard drug smuggling. The legalization will open up more markets related to the production and consumption of cannabis. Possibly, drug awareness programs would be made to spread information about safe usage. Finally, the government will make revenue on a previously underground and not taxable industry.

1. Do you feel Uruguay legalizing cannabis will help it’s economy or harm it?

2. Do you feel this will help or harm Uruguay’s drug related crime problems?

Author Unknown "The Experiment; Drug Legalisation in Uruguay." The Economist (US) 3 Aug. 2013: 31. Print.

http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21582579-another-blow-against-prohibition-experiment

Mexican Drug Cartel

Lilli, Alex, Savannah

Summary:

A 600 yard tunnel for smuggling drugs was recently discovered under the mexico border into San Diego. The tunnel was shut down on Wednesday after several weeks of surveillance. Authorities found 8 tons of marijuana and 325 of cocaine in the 4 foot tall, 3 foot wide tunnel. This was the fifth large scale drug smuggling tunnel discovered in San Diego since 2010.  These drug cartels have spent years and millions of dollars to create underground passages. Authorities have insisted that no drug smuggling tunnels are currently in operation.

This has to do with economics because it is a Black Market. A Black Market is an illegal transport of goods and services. They are an illegal market, so, there are no taxes and you do not know what you are you getting because it is not government regulated.

Question: The drug cartel has been around for many of years. Do you think in the future we could possibly stop the drug cartel? 

LIAM DILLON and IAN LOVETT . "Tunnel for Smuggling Found Under U.S.-Mexico Border; Tons of Drugs Seized." New York Times. (2013): n. page. Web. 21 Nov. 2013. <Tunnel for Smuggling Found Under U.S.-Mexico Border; Tons of Drugs Seized>.

Oil Spill in the Gulf

Oil Spill in the Gulf

Amanda Berberich, Leandra Marais, and Emali McGee

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was the worst known spill in the history of the U.S. Therefore causing the death of many species, animals, and humans. The leaky pipe was 42 miles off the Louisiana shore and emptied 4.9 million barrels of oil into the gulf within a span of 87 days. The tear, being five thousand feet down, made it extremely hard for scientist to fix. As a result, the ecosystem and the natural wild life will always be impacted by the oil spill. The oil will remain years later buried under layers of sand that washed up on the beach, and the animals who happen to dig in the sand will become sick all over again from the oil.

The oil spill in the gulf of Mexico raised the price of oil dramatically. BP had to pay $40 billion dollars in fines, cleanup costs, and settlements, and an extra $16 billion due to the Clean Water Act.  Oil prices went up to $85.82 a barrel. Gas prices rose from about $2.70 to $3.83 per gallon. Gas prices have never gone down since the oil spill. If anything gas prices have increased.

"Gulf Oil Spill." Smithsonian Ocean Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. <http://ocean.si.edu/gulf-oil-spill>.

Question:

Why do you think the oil spill is still affecting gas prices today?

A series of mergers occurred this past week as the city of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development company’s aerospace branch agreed to become a risk-sharing partner to Airbus SAS and Boeing Co. in order to help fund advancements in aviation. The primary goal of these three companies is to further develop engineering-design capability. The Mubadala Aerospace program is planning to differentiate tactics from build-to-print to design-to-build; because of this Mubadala will be responsible for 10 to 20 percent of each aircraft. During the Dubai airshow last week 5 billion dollars worth of contracts to supply parts to both Airbus and Boeing as well as General Electric and Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC. This partnership will allow Mubadala to continue expanding in the fields of engineering and research and development within the next three to five years.

How will this merger affect the U.S. economy

Coleton Ginger, Auston Weatherford

WORKS CITED

Yousef, Deena Kamel. "Abu Dhabi Seeks 'Big Chunk' of Work on Next Boeing, Airbus Jets."Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 20 Nov. 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-20/abu-dhabi-seeks-big-chunk-of-work-on-next-boeing-airbus-jets.html

Kaila K, Emily O, Kelsey N - Period 6

Stocks Pull Back After Fed Minutes

The central bank has been funding a stimulus program, buying bonds to help the recovery of the economy and the stock market.  With this program, the stock market has reached record highs.  The current plan is to continue into 2014.  The central bank’s chairman, Ben Bernanke, is at the end of his term early in 2014 so the decision depends on others.  With the stock market at record highs, it is likely to fall when the stimulus program stops.

This article is relevant to Economics because the stock market is a major part of the economy.  How the stock market is doing is an indicator as to how the overall economy is at a time.  It helps show how high consumer confidence is.

Question

Should the feds continue the stimulus program in 2014?  Why or why not?

Dow, The. "Fed Minutes Slightly Rattle Markets." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 20 Nov. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013. <http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/20/investing/stocks-markets/index.html?iid=SF_BN_River>.

Walmart broke labor laws and punished workers

Eric Flanigan, Josh Andrews and Riley Peterson
   A federal agency that controls labor laws last Monday said that they are going to press charges against Walmart for threatening and punishing workers who planned to go on strike last year. They claim that Walmart "unlawfully threatened" employees.  The federal agency said that Walmart intimidated, stalked or punished employees in 14 different states which broke U.S labor laws.  The reason why Walmart did this was because of how early Walmart was opening for Black Friday sales last year.  As well as forcing the workers to work all night hours when they wanted to spend time with their family. The Walmart union called OUR Walmart say that they plan even more protests at more stores in more states this year.



  Question?  Does Walmart have the right to punish there workers for going on strike?

Jamieson, Dave. "Walmart Broke Labor Law And Retaliated Against Workers, NLRB Charges." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 Nov. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/18/walmart-nlrb_n_4298387.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

Robert Haggar and Reid Grode

The North Dakota Oil Spill and it’s Economic Significance

On October 17th Tesoro announced that it had found “anomalies” along it’s High Plains Pipeline in Western North Dakota.  This was preceded by reports from a local farmer discovered a oil leak in his fields on September 29th.  On October 10th and 11th, Tesoro used a robot to discover that there was a leak in the 20 year old pipeline running in part from Tioga to Black Slough in North Dakota.  Experts have reported that corrosion on the pipe may have caused the spill.  The pipeline, part of the "High Plains" pipeline system, gathers oil from the Bakken shale and delivers it to another pipeline and to Tesoro's 68,000 barrels-per-day Mandan refinery.  All in all, a total of 20,000 barrels of oil were spilled.

When it comes to economic significance, the results are clear.  Due to the fact that most of the oil harvested from North Dakota is utilized using fracking, people are going to be wary of future oil drilling, especially for the more difficult to obtain oil.  In addition to oil spills, fracking has also been attributed to natural gas in tap water and increased health risks for people living near the fracking.  Because of these factors and the fact that oil is becoming more scarce, we can expect gas prices to rise steadily and quickly.

Question:

Why would an event like this have an impact on the economic market?

Visser, Nick. "North Dakota Oil Spill: Tesoro Detected Anomalies Before 20,000 Barrels Burst From Pipeline." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 Oct. 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/18/tesoro-detected-anomalies_n_4117259.html

Mollie Drexler and Stephanie Podhradsky

Our article is about how people are going to soon have to deal with retiring later and an universal pension age. The age will soon be going to 67 instead of 65. Rich people are living longer and don’t have to work so much and this is going to cause lower income people to have to work longer. People in a higher class have an age gap of 5 more years than people in lower classes. This will be causing most people to not be able to enjoy their retirement for as long. Some reasons people believe that rich people live longer is because less stress, less bad habits, and better health care. People that have money are working less time and this causes less stress. Along with that, they don’t have to the stressful jobs that run down the body. They normally work inside and within companies. Poorer people are forced to find jobs such as working in mines and in dirtier places. This definitely has more of an effect on their health. Bad habits such as smoking a lot, drinking a lot, and not eating well are other causes for an earlier mortality rate in the poor people. After a stressful or long day it is easy to want to go smoke and to drink. And health doesn't seem like a big deal and easily gets ignored. Health care is getting better but rich people don’t have to worry about the price of health care ,whereas, it does matter to people with less money.

Making an universal pension age will affect the economy because people are seeing that it is getting harder and harder to move up the scale and if they are born poor they are starting to get stuck as a poor person. The rich can still buy but the poor people can’t. They have to try to save money and get by. And in a world of scarcity the poor people save their money for bad habits and barely get by. In the United States we use to make it available to move up the classes but now it is getting more difficult.

Question:

Overall, how do you feel about them wanting to increase the age of retirement and what do you see as a  negative result of this choice? Will a universal pension age affect everybody in all social classes and how would it affect each class?

Works Cited:

"The Rich Are Different." The Economist 22 Dec. 2012: 116. Web.

Online access:

www.economist.com/longevity12

Colton Wehking & Logan Hawkins ☺

According to American official figures, 15 percent of Americans live in poverty. Others say that the actual percentage is over double that. They say this because in the 1960’s the government created a way to measure poverty by taking the number of people on a very low-cost food plan and multiplying it by three, that was what would account for what a family would need just to be at a poverty-level standard of living. This measure has been used for about 50 years now. But now, in 2011 the U.S. Census Bureau came up with a new measure called the supplemental poverty measure. This new measure only measures about 16% of Americans in poverty, which isn’t much different from the previous measure. They described poverty as not being able to meet the costs of a person’s basic needs, such as food, shelter, and medical care. If you actually tally these costs up and see what the person’s income is, it says about one in three Americans are in poverty, according to Jeannette Wicks-Lim, Assistant Research Professor.

Question: Do you believe that these numbers are actually accurate?

Relevance to economics: Involves money

Wicks-Lim, Jeannette. "Actual US Poverty Twice Official Figure." The Real News. N.p., 31 May 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013. <http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10244>.

Can Employee-Owned Companies Reboot the Economy?

We need employee owned companies to fix our broken economy. Employee owned companies typically pay better, have better benefits, and treat their employees better in general. It also tends to improve interaction between the employees, as they are working together rather than doing what their boss tells them to without having any say. The companies then reflect the viewpoint of the company as a whole, not a multimillionaire owner. Scheels and Hy-Vee are both examples of employee owned companies.

This ties into how the economy is deeply rooted in everyday life. The effects of having a employee owned companies will drive the economy up. Without greedy owners, there will be cheaper prices and/or higher pay rates for the employees. This in turn will cause more money flowing in the general public rather than select individuals.

Question: What are some other advantages of employee owned companies?


By: Dylan Kipp, Mark Magelky, Kenny Cooperrider

Works Cited

Matthews, Christopher. "Business & Money." Business Money Can Employee Owned Companies Reboot the Economy. Time, 19 Nov. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
http://business.time.com/2013/11/19/can-employee-owned-companies-reboot-the-economy/

     Two thirds of all Americans in the United States are Overweight or Obese. These overweight Americans take in more calories than they burn during exercise if they even exercise. The majority of food the overweight people eat include salted, sweetened, or fatty items. Now a days, the jobs that people take part in involve less physical activity.Cars reduce the need to walk or bike to or from place to place. As more people in the world continue to be obese, the possibility of heart disease, diabetes, liver disease, joint troubles, and cancers increases. There are a couple responses that can be taken: You can do nothing at all. Another response is to punish fat people. In Japan they have started the process of setting a specific limit of waist line size in Japan; if workers don't slim down they will have to pay fines. A third response is to make it easier to choose healthier food over junk food. They can help this by making healthier food like gluten free food cheaper. They can insure that in schools students are eating healthy foods and are taking part in recess. Clear standards can be set on nutrition labels, so it will help people make a clear choice. They could start taxing soda, which would raise the cost, and cause less people to buy it. The relevance to economics is the fact that when people are fat, they cost a lot of money to themselves and others.Due to people being obese, they can experience many problems which could potentially be paid for with American taxpayers if the obese person is under federal health care. Fat people could make our economy different because if the government decides to raise taxes on soda because of the fat people, normal sized people will have to pay more for soda, even though they only drink it in a moderate amount.

www.whealthysolutions.com

Question for Classmates:

How would you fix the world’s obesity problem?

Source:

Howard, Charlotte. "The World Is Fat." The Economist: The World in 2013 31 Mar. 2013: 32. Web.

By Maddy Klamm and Emily Anderson

Ashley Schobert, Becca Goth, Cassidy Wethor

The article we chose talked about how president Obama tried to make amends with Iran. His first attempts however, were met with hostility from iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. His second attempt, on September 24th was taken differently however, he wasn’t showing that he wanted friendship, but he was accusing them of producing nuclear weapons, which they promised not to do.’ This article is relevant to economics because it is dealing with the president and the other countries.  You could say this would fall into a globalization category.  Iran has oil  which is a big part of our economy.  

1) Do you believe we should be trying to intervene with Iran?

2) What could happen is we upset the Iranian leaders?

“Jaw-jaw for now.”  The Economist.  28 Sept. 2013: 44-45.  Print.

U.S. to become world's top oil producer in 2015 - IEA

Katie Erickson, Bethany Headrick, Peter Choudek

United States is expected to pass Saudi Arabia and Russia for the top oil producing country by 2015.  Our oil reserves in North Dakota and Texas will propel us to the top;  we are expecting.  With the increase in oil production, the IEA predicts that we will produce around 101 million barrels a day.  This is expected to go down by 2020.  By 2020 the middle eastern countries will once again be at the top of the oil producing world. The oil prices will rise with the developments of different resources like a light, tight oil that has fueled the oil boom in the U.S. This is relevant to economics because oil prices fluctuate with supply and demand.  Oil prices also determine what airline companies charge for tickets and service.  If the United States becomes self sufficient with oil, our economy will improve greatly if even for a few years.

Do you think that it is probable for the U.S. to become the top oil producer?  What kind of effect will it have on our economy?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-become-worlds-top-oil-134055417.html

Hudson, Dale. "U.S. to Become World's Top Oil Producer in 2015 - IEA." Yahoo Finance. Reuters.com, 12 Nov. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013. <http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-become-worlds-top-oil-134055417.html>.