Sally+B.


 * Unit 5**

About a week ago, I wouldn't have understood this comic at all. Now it makes me laugh. The artist very well depicted the way huge, greedy credit card companies (or the devil, Money Tree!) pull as much money out of consumers as possible. By raising interest rates on loans (or credit), the money we dish out to these companies increases. Today, we learned that companies base their rates on 3 factors: Money Tree's website advertises that "Qualifying for a payday loan is easy!" and you can "Get your cash fast!" Though this offer may seem enticing to some uninformed people, we macro students know that people with high risk (who will be able to qualify for a loan due to the ease of payday loans) will likely have a high interest rate on their money. They might just end up more in debt than before! So how can Money Tree get away with up to a 500% interest rate?! Desperate, uninformed people.I knew that caterpillar was evil from the start... Your intelligence and learning here just warms your econ teacher's heart! I'm glad you see it this way. The picture below represents pure evil. Nice job. 10/10 -SW **Unit 4: Fiscal Donuts!**
 * risk
 * length of time
 * policies of the Fed

EXPANSIONARY FISCAL POLICY: > A form of fiscal policy in which an increase in government purchases, a decrease in taxes, and/or an increase in transfer payments are used to correct the problems of a business-cycle contraction. The goal of expansionary fiscal policy is to close a recessionary gap, stimulate the economy, and decrease the unemployment rate. Expansionary fiscal policy is often supported by expansionary monetary policy. An alternative is contractionary fiscal policy. Expansionary fiscal policy is designed to stimulate the economy during or anticipation of a business-cycle [|contraction]. This is accomplished by increasing [|aggregate expenditures] and [|aggregate demand] through an increase in government spending (both [|government purchases] and [|transfer payments] ) or a decrease in [|taxes]. Expansionary fiscal policy leads to a larger government [|budget deficit] or a smaller [|budget surplus]. In general, expansionary fiscal policy works through the two sides of the government's fiscal budget -- spending and taxes. However, it's often useful to separate these two sides into three specific tools -- government purchases, taxes, and transfer payments.

I got this helpful definition from this website. This helped me to further understand the goals of an expansionary fiscal policy and when the government would use this. It seems like more of a conservative policy, since it includes reducing taxes, and increasing spending. The opposite of this would be a contractionary fiscal policy, which would involve increasing taxes and decreasing spending, a more liberal way to run the economy. This is important in the real world because the two policies are very different and one's political views affect how one controls the economy. Love the fiscal donuts! Yes, politics does fit in. How? How about your views? 9/10 **Unit 3 (#2)** media type="youtube" key="GAhrqkLnKYI" height="315" width="560" align="center"

So this is a really, really bad rap about the Phillips curve. It's not worth spending 2.5 minutes watching, trust me. Read the lyrics though, they explain the graph and inflation fairly well at first.Anyways, even if you have to make a terrible rap about the curve, it's a pretty useful concept to understand. The basic point of the Phillips curve is that inflation and unemployment move together along the business cycle. As inflation increases, unemployment decreases, and vice versa. As the rappers of this video put it, "The curve moves to the left and inflation gets high, then the price of all merchandise flies high in the sky."The Phillips curve can move left and right, somewhat like the PPF graph can. If it shifts left, both unemployment and inflation rates will decrease, creating a better economy. If it shifts right, they both will increase in relationship with one another, which is what occurs during stagflation (booooooo!)As this graph below shows, the long run Phillips curve (aka NAIRU) is much like the SRAS curve; it's a vertical line. This means that, in the long run, the unemployment rate will remain constant, even as inflation increases/decreases. Interesting... 10/10 Thanks for the warning about the rap. You were right. Can't believe someone took the time. Anyways, if you can't have fun with the Phillips Curve, what do you have in life? .

**Unit 3** Read this article! Everyone knows that unemployment rates have been decreasing lately. But still, about 8.3% of our country's population is out of work (this doesn't even include those who aren't in the labor market/not searching for a job currently!). Have you ever thought about who makes up this percentage? Well, the article that is linked here says that even those people who have nice, fresh college diplomas can't find jobs if they've become unemployed recently. According to the article, "Thirty five percent of unemployed college graduates and those with advanced degrees have been without a job for more than a year, the same rate as unemployed high school dropouts." So what's the big deal? Well, we're all heading off to college next year, and if obtain our diplomas in 4 years as planned, we might be facing the same problems. We may become frictionally unemployed, adding to the unemployment rate. Hopefully the business cycle will continue to rise at that time so that we will not be stuck in the same dismal situation as college grads are now. Who knows when we will reach the peak of the cycle and start to fall back down into a recession again. Only time will tell! 10/10 Nice application here. Econ should help you with your future and knowing about how to get a job will be crucial in a few years!

**Unit 2** Read this article about Obama's Cap and Trade plan

This article is very interesting. It explains Obama's solution for climate change. He prefers the Cap and Trade system, rather than the Emissions Tax, but some people don't agree with every part of it.According to the article, "He proposes reducing U.S. emissions 14% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% below by 2050. And he'd raise $646 billion from 2012 to 2019 by auctioning the rights to emit such gases—in effect putting a price on carbon emissions." This is a hopeful outlook on the system. Can it really reduce emissions that much in less than 50 years? And is $646 billion enough money to cover the costs of the system?Our negative externality/tax graphs on Thursday showed us that the Cap & Trade system was more complicated than the Emissions tax system, but we still aren't sure which would make the most difference on the world. Good points. What would you propose? I agree that it will cost a lot of money. That's why other nations can't be "freeriders" on this one. 9/10 -SW

**Unit 1**

So I found this graph that someone made on Google Images. As you can see, it shows a PPF graph of someone's studying time for Econ and History. If the person studied for a total of 5 hours, they could choose to read either 100 pages of Econ or 250 pages of history. The person who made this graph didn't mark any other points, but they could also choose to read less of one subject and more of another. This is the basic concept of a Production Possibilities Frontier, which we've learned about in the last few days. It's all about making trade-offs. The main thing I learned from this graph and explanation is that if you add improved technology (tutoring in this case), the graph will be pushed outwards, allowing you to increase the number of pages (or resources) in the same amount of time. Improving technology or gaining resources are the only ways to reach a point further out than the original curve. So the lesson is, if you want to increase efficiency, get a tutor (or improve your resources). Great example! This is a good application of this concept. We wouldn't think of a tutor as in increase in "technology" but it would shift this PPF out. 10/10