Is Europe becoming more economically secure than the US?

http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/15/news/economy/europe-gdp/index.html?iid=SF_E_LN
The article, "Pinch me! Europe grew faster than the US" was written on May 15, 2014 by Mark Thompson.

For the first time in years, European economic growth has become greater than the United States'. It looks as if they have been steadily improving over the past few years, as the US has been fluctuating greatly.



The United States blames its bad weather conditions for the downfall this year, but personally, I believe that the economy has just gone south. Meanwhile, Europe prospered from the snowy weather the Us has. They are rising out of a recession at a slow and steady rate. But then again, slow and steady wins the race in the long run.

What does this mean? This means that the economy is doing very poorly if Europe is ahead of us. We have a lot of work to do if we wish to push ahead and improve ourselves. Also, Europe is doing very well for itself. From viewing the graph above, it looks as if European nations have a good thing going for them and they should keep on doing what they are doing. The US, on the other hand, needs to change its plan of attack and think of more ways for us to economically secure. We need to allow the country to pay off our debts before we can finally truly begin to rise again.

Workers Demand More Everywhere

http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/07/news/companies/fast-food-worker-strikes-150-cities/index.html?iid=s_mpm
On May 7, 2014, the article "Fast food worker strikes planned in 150 cities" was written by Patrick M. Sheridan.

More and more fast-food workers are planning to strike on May 15, 2014 all across America and this movement is starting to spread over seas to other countries as well. These strikes are due to workers wanting higher wages and for their rights to be respected. The strike started on Wednesday in NYC at a McDonald's where workers tried to deliver a letter asking for these demands. When security would not take the letter, the strikers posted it on McDonald's front door where it was removed soon afterwards.

This movement has been going on for 2 years and has spread to more than 100 cities, such as Chicago, Boston, Memphis, etc. Currently, some of these strikes are working and made workers are getting exactly what they have demanded. Workers from all over are demanding to be payed a minimum wage of $15 an hour and be allowed to form unions without retaliation. Currently, the minimum wage for the country is $9 an hour. This is about $18,500 a year. This is less than Census Bureau's poverty income level of a family of four.

Raising minimum wage and keeping it the safe can both good and bad for the economy in my perspective. By paying more, owners are less likely to have as many employees as they won't be able to afford all of them. This will result in more people losing their jobs and not being able to afford their necessities. This lowers the standard of living and increases the overall poverty rate. On the other hand, people are already suffering from the previously stated reasons due to not being payed enough, even though they are working long hours. Overall, I believe that it is better for more to succeed and be paid more, than allow the whole economy to suffer in the long run. I believe that this article truly shows what the economy is going through right now and it shows how big of a problem our low minimum wage is now.

Are you spending too much in Rent????

http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/01/real_estate/rent-spending/index.html?iid=A_E_News
The article, One in three Americans are spending too much much on rent, by Les Christie was posted on May 1, 2014

The article is about how about 1/3 of our population in the United States is now becoming very poor because of their rent. People pay more than 30% of their monthly median income on their households. In some areas, it can be as high as up to 66% of their income. This allows America to be the home to some of the poorest communities in the world. Many are afraid of being foreclosed and have gone into renting houses, this has made a huge demand for rental housing. Causing homeowners to flourish and renters to lose their money.
This is very bad for the economy as it is making many go bankrupt and also, some are having to leave their homes because of this. Also, many are having to not buy their necessities as they have no more money after their rents. This is making the economy go down very very rapidly, leaving homeowners and renters in two very different positions. Homeowners are exploiting the renters daily and soon the only people with money are going to be the homeowners. This needs to be stopped immediately before this effects the US even more than it has. If we don't stop it soon, many are going to be finding themselves homeless and without money to provide them shelter.

Business Structures and Economic Indicators

This week in personal finance, we learned about business structures and economic indicators. To measure economic activity, one must measure the country's GDP. It is the market value of all final goods and services produced within a given period. To be included within a good or service, it must be a final good, be PRODUCED during the time period, and be produced within a NATION’s borders. We calculate GDP by the formula, C + I + G + X = GDP. C stands for consumption by consumers. I stands for investment by businesses. G stands for government spending. Lastly, X stands for net exports. GDP shows us how well a country's economy is doing. Other things that we must take into consideration are standard of living, the unemployment rate, the rate of inflation, the consumer price index, and the national debt. Another thing we learned this week was the business cycle. It consists of prosperity, recession, depression, and recovery. It is about how businesses thrive, slow down, have a downfall, and start to go back up again. We also learned about business structures. There are sole proprietorships, corporations, and partnerships. These different structures act in different ways and effect the way that businesses run all around the world. Overall, this week was very busy and we learned so many different things. We mostly got to understand how the economy runs and how we can calculate it. Overall, it was a very fun experience, especially, when we played the studying game.

iPhone becoming cheaper by the minute!

http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/05/technology/mobile/walmart-iphone-price-cut/index.html?iid=obinsite
Written by James O'Toole on March 5, 2014

Wall-Mart started slashing prices on smart-phones last month. They cutting the prices on Samsung Galaxy S4 and for Apple's 16-gig iPhone 5s and 5c, for costumers signing two-year contracts with AT&T and Verizon. Almost all contracts are down in their prices and new phone devices are also being released soon!!! These sales show that the smartphone market is reaching saturation. It is becoming harder and harder for new products to create the success they had previously. According to Asymco Industry analyst Horace Dediu, the adoption of smart phones will taper off in late 2015.

The article is very relevant to what we have been learning in class and to the economy at its current point. It shows how more people are starting to veer off from the cell-phone track and that they are becoming more cheap. Sales are increasing consumer buying and it's very productive for the consumers and producers. However, it has become harder and harder for them to enter into market as products are not having the same about as success as before. Overall, this post shows how the economy is improving things mostly for the consumers as they are shorting prices and making things cheaper; however, companies are finding it harder and harder to make a better success.

Supply and Stuff

                      This week in Economics, we learned about Supply. It is the willingness and ability of producers to offer goods and services for sale. We were taught about the law of supply as well, along with supply schedules and graphs. Making a supply schedule is a lot of hard work!! You have to calculate marginal cost, marginal revenue, total cost, total revenue, and so much more! It can be very tricky if you aren't paying attention! I got lost once or twice. Supply is very much like demand, so it was pretty easy to understand the concept. There was even 6 factors that change supply, like demand did. They are: technology, producer expectations, number of producers, input costs, labor productivity, and government actions. Also, our awesome teacher allowed for us to be producers of scooters in order for us to learn about supply!! That was the best part of this week's class. My group made "The Rock." It is an awesome vehicle that can do pretty much anything. I want it so badly!!!! You should get it ;) Then we learned about supply by making graphs and schedules for this. It was very helpful! I hope we do something this simple and interesting again! Overall, this is really helpful and has given me insight to the complexity of businesses and how they work.

The Demand for Demand this week

This week in class we learned about the elasticity of demand. It can be very challenging to understand and learn about if you cannot comprehend the basic principles of math. Elasticity of demand describes how responsive consumers are to price changes in the marketplace. There are two types of elasticity. There is elastic and inelastic. Elastic is a change in price with a relatively large change in quantity demanded, like TVs. Inelastic is a small change and a smaller quantity demanded, like Insulin. Sometimes even if the price is lower, the demand for it does not change. It is a relatively simple principle if you remember the names. Now here comes the hard part, MATH!!!! To calculate elasticity of demand, you will always work in percentages and use absolute value. If your result is greater than one, demand is elastic. If it is less than 1, it is inelastic. Pretty simple, right? Now the formula you use is the change in quantity over the change in price. By using this, you will be able to tell whether something changed over time due to price or not. It can be very helpful and is used to help businesses all over the world!!!