Journal Topic 14: My Future as an Economist

Throughout the course of economics, I have come to find it interesting and I have also decided to continue learning economics. I find economics interesting simply because it is more interesting than any other subject courses I have taken at this school. Science and math bores the hell out of me, the teachers also take part in my boredom for these classes. As for English, I just cannot picture myself becoming a writer, journalist, author, and so on. I seem to find economics to be extremely useful for my future as this is the major I have decided to take. The economic branch of macroeconomics seems much more appealing than microeconomics simply because I feel it’s easier to study a wider scope of economics rather than just a tiny part of an individual part of the economy. As I have stated before learning economics is much more beneficial to me and society. Learning how to write extravagant essays or stories will not help the economy or society. Science will indeed help develop a brighter environment, but when it comes to money they have little or no knowledge in handling it. I believe majoring in art is pretty lame, and definitely will not benefit the world and society whatsoever.

Journal Topic 13: Supply or Demand?

The demand side policy and the supply side policy are based off of the basics of supply and demand. The demand side policy aims to deal solely with the demand. Take for example, if the interest rates were to be decreased, then the demand in the economy will be increased as people have more money to spend on or invest with. In general, the demand side policy aims to change the aggregate demand in the existing economy. On the other hand, the supply side policy aims to change the aggregate supply in the economy. The policy is all about increasing the productivity in our workforce. This usually means lowering the barriers for people to produce goods and services, such as lowering taxes. This course of action will reduce regulations and allow greater flexibility in our productions. In my perspective, the demand side policy seems to me a much better type of policy over the supply side. Advantages of the demand side policy includes being able to stimulate the economy and increase aggregate demand as well as being able to control inflation with the opposite actions. Disadvantages may include budget deficits with increased debts and policy lags where there is reduced spending in a healthy economy and more spending during a weak one.

Journal Topic 12: Role of the Government

The much heated debate of how much or how little the government should interfere with the economy has been going on since the creation of America. Some say that the government shouldn’t do as much as possible to control the economy while some others say that the government should keep its hands off and let the economy run by it self. I believe that the government should have even more power in their control of the economy. For example in the Great Depression of the 1930s was the most devastating depression of the 20^th century and the cause of this was the government having no control over the economy and the stock market with the Hands Off Policy resulting in the unemployment rates rising significantly high, sharp decrease in the value of money, rises in prices of foods and services, as well as a high death rate. In modern society of the United States, the government tax collected should be spent to stimulate the country and its economy as the United States has a current debt of $16.8 trillion. Yes, the Federal Reserve Bank should also try to manipulate interest rates in order to achieve the same goal of stimulating the economy.

Topic 11: Unemployment

The unemployment rate has been ever-changing sometimes decreasing and sometimes drastically increasing. Nowadays, the unemployment rate is still on the rise. Unemployment is then the main contributing factor to the shrink in the economy. There are occupations in society that tend to be more resistant than others to the forces that cause unemployment and those that are less resistant as well. Some examples of jobs that are more resistant than others to the chance of unemployment include: jobs that involves technology or science. Technology is used everyday and so people with new inventions or scientific theories will never be unwanted. Some jobs that are less resistant may include: jobs that involve forms of labor as well as forms of management. There are millions of applicants for jobs that are based on labor, yet there are not enough open spaces for all these applicants. Therefore not everyone gets hired. Jobs that are based on management such as the manager of a business or even a CEO of it are also vulnerable to becoming vacant. For example whenever a big business were to suddenly have a huge drop in profits the CEO would most likely be replaced in an instant. I would like to major in economics and financing. I feel like this is the best job for me because math and science just isn’t my thing. I cannot yet determine whether or not my type of job is more or less resistant to unemployment. And yes, this does have some influence on why I choose what I major in.

Topic 10: How to Boost My "GDP"

Increasing one’s productivity would usually result in better grades and more free time. However this may not apply so to everyone. Some people may gain more knowledge through more studying, but still don’t know how to apply the concepts. Then there are people who can only increase productivity in a specific field of skill. The main factors that contribute to economic productivity include: the quality of the labor, technological innovations, energy costs, and financial markets. Only two from the list are mainly being applied to a human and how one is able to increase their productivity. The first one, quality of labor, this factor is how educated and healthy the workers are; the better educated and healthier the labor force is, the more productivity there will be. This is exactly how the productivity works for students as well, the more education one receives and the healthier mind and body of a student is, the overall productivity will be higher. The second one being energy costs. Energy costs is how much fuel and power are put into the labor force or technology to achieve higher productivity. The more energy a student puts into his/her work, the general thoughts would be that that student will become successful and productivity will end up higher. 

Topic 9: Financial Markets

The most attractive kind of financial assets to me are bonds and mutual funds. If I were to have the available money to invest with, I would invest it into bonds and mutual funds. Simply because bonds are the safest investment that will ever come around as it will never crash unlike the stock markets. The interest rates are average but it is always consistent and will never decline drastically. A person will always receive his or her money regardless of the economy. Moving on to mutual funds, although it may seem exactly the same as investing into stocks, it is not. Investing into stocks is doing it personally with no one else along with you. If you invest into stocks and you lose and you lose, only you lose and no one else will. The difference with investing in mutual funds is that the money invested goes to companies which also gather many other people’s money to be invested in stocks, bonds, short-term money-market instruments, other securities or assets, or some combination of these investments. Advantages of mutual funds include: having your investments handled by professionals and will be a lot safer than investing in socks by your self. Diversification is another benefit as this will really lower the risk of the investors because the company will spread the investments in a wide range of companies and industry sectors. 

Topic 8: Money

Money is a medium of exchange in the form of coins or issued banknotes that are able to buy the things needed in our lives. As of now the only source of income one can get is the money from birthday gifts or a few widely celebrated holidays such as Chinese New Year, the most popular week of giving out as well as receiving red envelopes of money from close friends and relatives. One can also receive money from monthly allowances, small part-time jobs, and the tiny interest rates banks give out for storing money in their bank. Money probably means everything to me excluding close family members or relatives. I believe by having money, one is able to buy oneself whatever the thing one needs. For example our everyday household furniture, kitchen utensils, transportations, foods, and so on are all able to be bought by money and are usually only done so. Having the amount for now is livable as a high school student doesn’t need millions of dollars to survive through life, students can even go on even with a lesser amount of money. I would be willing to do anything legal to receive money and nothing shady.