...The U.S. Economy Today Content Introduction…………………………………………………………………………Page 2 Data Trends………………………………………………………………………….Page 2 Fiscal & Monetary Policies….…..…………………………………….…………………………………Page 2 &3 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………..Page 3 References…………………………………………………………………………..Page 3 Introduction We will take a look at today’s economy in the 2014. Discuss current trends such unemployment, inflation and the GDP. How do fluctuations in these trends affect the U.S. economy? What fiscal & monetary policies should be used to assist or improve our current economic situation? Lastly, what phase is our economy in today a depression, recession or expansion phase? Data Trends According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) our current unemployment rate as of September 2014 is 5.9%, which is showing a slow steady decrease over this last year. The current GDP is 4.6%, which is showing a increase from the first quarter that was at -2.1%. The current inflation rate is at 1.7%, which has fluctuated from 1.6% in January, then had an increase in June up to 2.1%. All these factors play a role in the economical well being. For Example if the unemployment rate continues to decline and the economy reaches full employment. This will promote consumers to purchase more goods and services, because their disposable income will increase. The aggregate supply and demand will both increase, which in turn will increase the GDP. Unemployment or employment...
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...California’s People, Economy, and Politics: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow California has been known as “the Golden State” for many decades thanks to the Gold Rush, the birth of the Golden Gate Bridge, and more than a hundred years of continuously blooming growth. Even so, some say that the state has lost its shine over the years, and to many others the state’s politics seem unpredictable and turbulent. California’s economy has been plugged in recession since 2007 and the state has suffered severe budget deficits for over a decade. Meanwhile political leaders rise and fall unexpectedly, and special interest groups and wealthy leaders are constantly accused of buying the elections on their behalf. However, issues are more likely to be referred to the voters which are often confused among complex and (sometimes) obscure ballot measures. Moreover, some people say democracy has gone mad, and others agree that California is simply ungovernable. As tense and dysfunctional as California politics may appear, it seriously affects us all and it has to be understood by examining the past and present characteristics of the state starting with its constantly changing population and economy. The persistent implementation of new technologies and the never-ending arrival of immigrants, have transformed California’s economy and have made its society more diverse and multicultural. To understand the process of California today, we also have to comprehend the past about the evolution of the...
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...* ------------------------------------------------- Text analysis provides some insight into media messages but only a critical political economy approach can adequately explain how the media work today * * Whoever Controls the media, controls the mind. This is an interesting quote by Jim Morrison that shows the power of the media and its messages at the present day. Media has played a huge role in the cultures it inhabited. Starting from the Printing Press, and then evolving into the radio, the television till the World Wide Web. The evolution of the mass media took many different shapes and with this evolution, it shaped our cultures and understandings differently, which caused its effects to be more influential. Throughout the history the mass media molded our ideologies by its messages and changed the way we look at things around us. “When we consume mass media, there are a lot of physical and mental activities going on” (Fourie, 2001, p.283). At the present time when we decide to sit and watch a movie, there are millions of messages being interpreted to us as audiences that shape how we speak, dress, and behave. It is believed that the media determines what we should know and how we should think. But the vital question is who controls the media and controls its messages, and how does the media work today. This essay will therefore attempt to discuss the different approaches that are used to analyze and evaluate media messages, and how these various approaches operate...
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...| Assignment 2 | The Fiscal and Monetary Policy and Economic Fluctuations | | | 12/1/2013 | | An economy is the wealth and resources of a country or a region. Economy mainly refers to the consumption of goods and services in a specific country or region. The United States of America is known across the entire world as having the largest economy. The economy in the United States today is now where near what it was many years ago. The current economic situation has the country trying to regain its high economic status. The United States economy is really not good in its current state, but somewhat better than it was five years ago. Many people are not aware of the problem that we have in this country. I think that the biggest question in this country in reference to the economy is how we got to this place, with this economy. There is so much blame and finger pointing as to how the United States economy ended up this way. My opinion is that part of the problem in this country is that we depend on other countries to produce things for us that we could or should produce ourselves. The United States economy has changed and somewhat stayed the same as compared to five years ago. Points in this paper that will be discussed will be exports, imports, interest rates, inflation and unemployment. Exports are defined as goods or services produced in the United States and sold in another country. (O'sullivan) Imports are goods and services produced in a foreign...
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...Alexander Roberts Macroeconomics Dr.Suhler 2-26-15 The economy is getting better in America right now, and with that comes the book called Economix: How the Economy Works(and Doesn't work) that really helped me understand more about our own economy and where it is heading. I feel that America takes a page out of this book because we are what this book describes, which is that of a capitalist country that relies on investment and then regain said investment to help grow the economy. In the book that we read for class, I feel that I have learned more about the history of economics more then anything. America is a country founded on the hard work of people who felt that England was not the right place to be at the current time period. Bring with them though was one of the most important aspects of our country that we still have today, and this is a capitalist economy. Another thing that I learned from the reading was that France and England both based their economies around the same aspect, which is that of a capitalist economy, and that having the most money was the only measuring tool of how your economy is doing. And this is reaffirmed by Jean-Baptiste Colbert who states “Everyone… Agrees that the might and greatness of a state is measured entirely by the quantity of silver it possesses” meaning that Jean had the right idea of economics he just need to fine tune his idea. To fine tune this idea of “the most money is the winner” Jean Colbert had to look across the...
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...Role Unions Play in a Global Economy In the present day, a lot of people converse about how much the economy has changed and the new economy. For instance, in the United States buyers want more high-quality services and merchandise, more than ever before and they want it custom-made to their specific needs. Technology is continually and rapidly changing, which generates innovative, high-quality goods; therefore customer’s needs are altering too. These changes put new stresses on companies and they have to be very flexible and have the ability to change their products to meet customer’s demands. The incredible variety of selections mean consumers will not be dedicated to any one business that doesn’t give immediate satisfaction. The economy today is a global economy. Capital travels around the world seeking profits more quickly than in the past. Information technology permits companies to transfer from high to low-cost locations and to incorporate manufacturing into a wide-reaching output-input chain. Globalization also means just as soon as one country tries to regulate capital, it exits that country and this forces it back down and removes the controls. Some believe with the economy now, technology is creating and increase in output of goods and services, therefore leading to a prosperous economy and low inflation. Production that uses cutting-edge electronic technology calls for exceedingly skilled workers who are flexible. In the past industries where the products were...
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...world we live in today is very complex in regards to the different types of jobs and services available. In general, there are endless options for people looking to get into the workplace, consisting of various job titles from health care, transportation to real-estate. However, this array of options was not always the case. The world we know of today has transitioned into a market economy. Polayni’s definition of market economy is “a self-regulating system of markets. It is an economy directed by market prices” (Polayni, 43). To elaborate, this means every product is controlled by supply and demand, and the price is not determined by the government. Differing from today, in the past the world was based on reciprocity and redistribution, which in retrospect is gift giving, either to a one person or a larger group. Everyone relied on reciprocity in order to live. The transition to market economy was a drastic one, which furthermore changed the world today. In this essay, I will go into the work of Karl Polayni, James Rinehart and Richard Bendix, who summarized the works of Max Weber, who all discussed the transformation to market economy and how it affected our society. Karl Polanyi describes the market society as “the great transformation” in today’s economy. He believes it was significant because it changed the way the economy would work and provided maximum profit and stability for families and different societies. Before market economy, societies relied...
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...Erik Casimir Lindholm Professor: Will English 1 Essay #4 May 13 2012 Unemployment today The unemployment rate today is less than it has been before, but it is still more than a year ago. This is a problem that always is an issue, and wherever you go in the world, there are almost always some people without a job. Today’s unemployment rate is a problem not just for the people without a job, but for the government and the state’s economic status. But how does unemployment affect our economy? Because with a lot of jobs, there is a good quality of life, and the money in the society is divided into all families instead as it is today, when some have too much and others have nothing. With a job to earn money from, a parent can take care of its family by providing with food and shelter, and this is one of the basic ideas of survival today. ------------------------------------------------- Unemployment rates by age today in the United States of America* ------------------------------------------------- Teenagers – 24.9% Whites – 7.4% ------------------------------------------------- Adult Women – 7.5% Hispanics – 10.3% ------------------------------------------------- Adult Men – 7.4% Blacks - 13.05 ------------------------------------------------- *Statistics taken from The Bureau of labor statistics; http://bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm There are many factors contributing to the difference between African Americans and Whites. Fewer black people...
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...till today, QE 4 is still taking place, also called QE infinity, it will take place until unemployment rate falls below 6.5% or until core inflation rose above 2.5%. Hence, when evaluating the success of something that lasts so many years, what constitutes a success? Are we referring to whether QE can prevent an economy from falling into a deep recession? Or do we define success by bringing an economy in a recession state back to full employment? Slide 2: Let me now bring you back to the year 2008 when QE was first introduced. The economy was in a constant downhill slide. It can be said that the first round of QE was effective in preventing the economy from sinking further into the great recession, where in late November 2008, the Federal Reserve started buying $600 billion in mortgage-backed securities, helping to stabilize the economy. Government purchase was halted when economy had an improvement. However, after a while, they realise that the economy is not growing as robustly as they expect it to be. This led to the second round of quantitative easing in November 2010. Slide 3: The Fed commenced QE2 and started buying another $600 billion of treasury. Once again, the market responded positively as seen from the increase in US share prices. Slide 4: This cycle repeats itself multiple times till today. We are in the midst of QE4 where the Fed continued buying financial assets at $85billion a month. So by using the stock market as a representation of the economy, we see...
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...over the years these factors have been changing due to the economy. According to Sweet and Meiksins in Changing Contours of Work, the old economy represents the various ways of assigning and structuring work that developed in the wake of the Industrial Revolution through the mid-20th century. Systems that were built around mass production, gender divisions of labor, unionized labor, and a variety of other enduring workplace practices were included in that economy. The United States was a major, and dominating force in the old economy. On the other hand, the idea of the new economy is questioning the nature of work whether it has changed, or not, and to what degree these changes are affecting lives on and off the job. There have been new jobs, new workers, and new work designs that are changing some of the ways of performing work, by whom, and the returns received. However, there are still some features of the old economy that tend to be permanent and dominated in the new economy from the old one. An example of that as mentioned in the book “Changing Contours of Work” would be old business that moved from the developed world to emerging economies; the job type did not change, but the people performing these jobs have changed. However, the workplace of today has been different than what it used to be 50 years ago. When analyzing the type of products, services, and jobs that used to be in the old economy to the new economy, there are some changes that took place. As discussed in...
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...China Globalization has reached to practically every corner of the globe. It brings to the world an exchange of information, goods, services, economy, and awareness of other cultures. Two cultures that have benefited from globalization economically are China and India. China is an excellent example of how globalization has transformed a once stagnant economy into an economic super power. Change occurred as a result of international influence from the United States. The United States had hopes in the Chinese economy and realized the capabilities China possessed in the export of goods to the United States and other countries. The United States helped China become aware of how shut off it had become from a growing global economy and helped to make them aware of the positive impact an open economic system could have on its nation. In 1986, China began to work towards joining the World Trade Organization. In 2001, China finally joined (China and the, 2014). The United States had a major role in China’s decision to open their economy, and they supported the effort fully. The influence on China from globalized nations was both direct and indirect. It was direct because countries such as the United States, worked closely with China during their admission to the World Trade Organization even requiring changes to the Chinese economy before they would be allowed to proceed. The influence was also indirect as the Chinese government had initiated globalization themselves in hopes...
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...At present, global exchanges and interactions continue to be the order of the day. All areas of society, including the economic aspects, are constantly being reshaped by the process of globalization as forces that outweigh and transcend national borders exert their influence. The rate of global change is quite rapid today; consequently, the emergence of global economies makes national economies, as well as strategies geared towards national economic management, irrelevant or entirely obsolete. Economic globalization has resulted in the proliferation of global economies, which surmount the powers held by national economies to influence economic occurrences within their national borders. Fundamentally, national economies are interdependent as they depend on the cross-border movement of capital, technology, and goods and services to facilitate growth and intensification (Giddens 2000, p. 157). In essence, the establishment of global economies is geared towards obliteration of deterrents to global trade, for instance, tariffs, taxes, and international trade regulations. This results in the occurrence of a single, global world market. In truly economic economies,...
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...Fundamentals of Macroeconomics By Stephanie Casillas ECO/372 June 12, 2015 Macroeconomics is the study of the economy as a whole. In this summary we will discuss how a few economic activities, such as purchasing groceries, massive layoffs, and decreases in taxes affects each activity and how it relates to each other, and the economy as a whole. The food industry is one of the largest industries that are involved in our economy today. When consumers buy groceries, it helps with maintaining jobs in the economy, as well as tax revenue for some states, and the government. The better the prices that are on food, the better off the households can afford to buy more, which in turn provides more money for labor, and taxation. Massive layoffs can affect many people in many different areas. If a household experiences a layoff, than they will have a decrease in wages, and thus in turn has less money to buy groceries. This means that a family might have to purchase fewer items, than before when they had a higher wage. If food prices are high this will make it even harder for the household to purchase food, and they might end up, not buying as much. This is an issue that I know all too well about. Most families today are not living on a wage that is livable. Food prices have sky rocketed, due to the cost of fuel, and corporation greed. We have families making $40.00 a day to pick the produce, in markets such as Publix Grocery Stores, yet cannot even afford to buy groceries themselves...
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...depression had brought. But instead, the post-war allowed economical, political, emotional growth and changes to the United States and its citizens. It affected the American way of life back then and still affecting us today. Following the WWII the economy boomed in several ways. Due to the high demand of supplies for the military it created jobs and decreased the number of unemployed citizens. The production and expansion of military products did not seize even after the war was over. It opened up factories to create more powerful and sophisticated weapons to defeat our enemies. As we see today we are still seeing changes in our military and defense system. Another aspect about the post war that changed the way the U.S. functions today was the changes in the American workforce. The amount of jobs during WWII was scarce especially following the great depression. The government wanted to make sure this would not be a continuing dilemma post-war to ensure that the economy would not be stuck at a stand still. The unemployment percentage decreased dramatically during those years. It also led to the start of the income tax due to the increase of minimum wage. Also large businesses and firms merged to become large sectors in the economy. As well, farming became a popular trade so much that smaller farms had a difficult time competing. Allowing employment to grow aided as a beneficial aspect to America’s prosperity, but incidentally allowed for smaller...
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...current status. What we earn, what we save, what we spend, how deligently we work and retain our jobs is all part of the microeconomic system that controls our daiy lives. Another large factor hindering the success or downfall of the current economy is the effect of monopolies. By defintion a monopoly is a large company that has exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market giving them the power to manipulate prices. In a sense a monopoly is the logical result of competition. The roles of a monopoly in microeconomics severly affect the manner in which individual businesses can effectivly conduct their business in more than one way. Monopolies have forever affected our economy but these following pages are more of a generalized overview of the affects they have had strictly in the 21st century. One role of a monopoly in microeconomics is the effect it has on the pricing of goods and services. Monopolies can impact consumer prices in two obviously different ways, they can cause prices to drop so low that it forces companies out of business, or it can cause prices to skyrocket making it difficult for consumers to purchase a product. Neither of these options are necessarily good for the consumers in the economy. Another role of a monopoly in mocroeconomics is the fact that a monopoly serves as a barrier to the entrant of new business into a market sector. This is due to the fact that the monopolists have a goal of protecting their interests in the...
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