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Here are two articles that are not about current events per se, but can help to improve your human capital. Also, FINS is a great website that could possibly serve as a resource for you in the future.
Top Eight Rules of Networking - Won't be on a current events quiz, provided to help those of you who are about to be on the job market or are already planning ahead "Lehman Sisters" Wouldn't Have Failed - Fair game for the current events quiz Here's a good video from the Wall Street Journal on the role that firms have in job creation. This is especially relevant to where we are in class, and with the Occupy Wall Street campaign. How does this video relate to the circular flow model from the start of the semester? If a company maximizes its profit this implies that it minimize costs (which includes money spent on hiring people). Do companies do what is best (from society's point of view) by maximizing profits? Maybe a few of you have read this article in the Daily Toreador already. It seems like Tech made a bad deal in leasing spots at the new Raider Park parking garage. We'll go over this in class tomorrow, but I wanted to provide a link to the story here. Before we discuss it though, what could Tech have done to increase revenue in parking sales? What does it depend on?
I would like you to listen to the Tuesday podcast (11/25) "Will Economic Growth Destroy the Planet?" This is a great podcast that offers two very different views on economic growth as well as a few bits of what else is studied in this certain subfield of microeconomics, environmental economics. Just to be clear, this will not be covered on this Friday's quiz, only on our current events quiz.
So here's another article on the Occupy Wall Street protests. For this current events post I only expect you to watch the video that is embedded, however the rest of the article is great. I only have one question for you; do you think this is an outcry against capitalism, or is it rather capitalism at its finest?
I'll admit that the Occupy Wall Street campaign has lasted a lot longer then I expected it would. This article gives a little bit of a background on the "conflict", but is also cool because of the what percent are you tool. So, let's assume you have a monthly budget of $1,500 dollars that comes from either working, your parents, loans/scholarships, or a combination of all three. Work that out to cover a year and it looks like you make $18,000 a year. Plug that into the calculator (along with your actual "income") and see where that puts you. Are you suprised by this? Do you feel ashamed that about a fifth of America makes less than you (in this scenario)? If you could, would you go join the movement? As a sidenote, Steve Jobs was comfortably in the top 1%. Are you happier that he created the iPhone, iPad, iEtc. or can you not "tolerate the greed and corruption" of this top percenter.  This one comes from the WSJ's Real Time Economics. A staggering 2.2 million people will lose their unemployment benefits if an extension is not passed. That means 2.2 million people who've received federal aid for the past 99 weeks (almost 2 years!) will be without a paycheck of any kind. We know as economists though that people respond to incentives. In your opinion do unemployment benefits keep people from working, or is this a necessary safety net? If you were the policymaker would you allow people to receive benefits for longer?
This seems like it will be an easy way to get updates anytime I've updated the blog.
Workers at Ford may soon be going on strike according to this Economix blog post. It seems this year has been the year for labor disputes NFL, NBA, and now Ford. The amazing thing to me is how Facebook is playing a role in almost everything that happens now. Before, workers in Detroit would have no way of contacting workers outside of their state, let alone their city. It seems like the Facebook revolution is far from complete. Back to the matter at hand, what could a labor dispute like this do to the cost of Ford cars? How could this effect demand for other cars?
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July 2017
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