alexis sahagun

Thank you James Somers, the creator of Draftback.

                           Skill #4: Making Connections

Karen Clayton, a manager at a hospital in Chicago, decided to try IUD because passed contraceptives did not work for her. An IUD is an intrauterine mechanical device made of plastic or copper that is inserted into the uterus cavity for the purpose of contraception. She was under the impression that her insurance would cover Paragard, a copper IUD, but it turned out that the device was too expensive and could not afford it at the time. Later, she became pregnant and paid for an abortion. If Clayton was able to afford the IUD, she say she would not have to have had her pregnancy terminated. Years later she found out that IUD was fully covered by her insurance and got one immediately.

Past birth controls have been out of financial reach due to the exorbitant out-of-pocket costs. Before IUDs were covered by insurances, it could cost up to a woman's one month salary working fulltime at minimum wage. Now that this affordable type of contraceptive is now available, the demand for IUDs has increased significantly. In the past, IUDs had a bad reputation, they had caused 18 deaths in the 70’s. This was one of many reasons that the demand or IUDs was low.

                            Skill #3: Behavioral Economics

Traditional economic theories assumes that everyone is “perfectly rational.” Behavioral economics, on the other hand is defined as a method of economic analysis that applies psychological insights into human behavior to explain economic decision making. I would say Behavior economist are the rationals ones here. These behavioral economists account for the fact that people are not perfect, they procrastinate, are very impatient, and do not alway make the best decisions, or any decisions at all (I myself, am very indecisive). Behavioral economics can be used to show “irrational decisions,” like someone making an economic decision to make them happy rather than rationally thinking it through first.

Who would have known that the way a professor grades exams can affect the way a student reacts and accept the grade with no rational logic behind it. Richard H. Thaler, a professor of economics and behavioral sciences at the University of Chicago was tired of his students complaining and being upset at how hard his exams were and the grade they would receive. Their complaint was that the average score was 72 points out of 100 (a 72%). They were told by Thaler that their average numerical score on the exam had absolutely no effect on how their letter grade was calculated. The idea occurred to him that his next test would be out of 137 points as the max. This exam being harder, students received an average of 96 points on this test (a 70%). Since the average was close to 100 points (out of 137 points), students were ecstatic about their grade! And had absolutely no complains… Both exams had an average of 70-72%...Thaler explains his students as “misbehaving,” meaning their behavior made no logical sense, there was no reason for them to be happier with an exam grade that actually averaged slightly lower. 

                                     Skill #2: What is Money?

                                              Skill #1: Inflation

After taking this course I have realized how many people do not really have an understanding or know how the economy works. I would not say I know everything, but I feel like I have a greater level of understanding that if I came across a meme like this I would understand what it is suggesting and why the creator of this meme chose Willy Wonka’s sarcastically amused face. “Minimum wage should be at $15,” I understand receiving fifteen dollars in minimum wage would seem nice and look like a good amount to be paid per hour. But raising the minimum wage from $7.25 (average in the United States) to $15.00 per hour would cause inflation. The Federal Reserve would have to print more money, but by doing so would decrease the worth of the dollar. The excess amount of money drives up prices and makes most things more expensive.

Inflation can be a good thing, people get paid more so in return they tend to spend more, therefore boosting economic growth. Although if minimum wage doubled, the price of most essential things people buy and need to survive on daily basis like food, water, gas, etc., would cause their prices to increases. This would be unfortunate for families who are living on a salary based income or who are retired and on a fixed pension. This meme is basically suggesting that raising minimum wage would have a negative effect on inflation.

U1: Kip is a 55 year old farmer from Nebraska who works and own his own little farm. He sells his old-fashioned grown corn at a local farmers market for a fair price. With industrialized sized farms taking over who use machinery and chemicals to make the corn grow in bulk and faster. Kip has to now compete to sell his corn in the farmers markets where these new farmers are selling it ridiculously cheap. 

U2: With the holiday season approaching in November, businesses hire an overwhelming amount of employees. Jenny works at the Macy’s in New York City as a full-time gift wrapper in the gift wrapping department. With the holidays coming to a close after New Years, Jenny is out of a job after January. 

U3: This passed summer Jessa was a full time child care provider, with school going back into session and the students going back to school, Jessa is out of a job and now needs to search for a new job.

U4: Chris is from California and he enlisted into the United States Army straight out of high school. Deciding after his four years of service that the Army was no longer a life style he wanted to continue, he decided to not re-enlist. Having no college education or any other work experience, no one hired him. He has become discouraged to keep applying after several months of job searching.

U5: My husband was offered a job across the country, since I am a kindergarten teacher reaching the end of the school year, I will not be able to apply for any teaching positions for this up coming school year. Because all teaching jobs for the upcoming school year are filled, and now I will have to look for another entry level job until the teaching hiring season starts again next year.

Hayek and Keynes were two very influential economist who had very different philosophies on how they thought the economy should be treated during times of busts and booms.Keynes wanted to steer markets and boost aggregate demand as much as possible, while Hayek wanted to free markets and to have a speed limit on aggregate demand. Keynes philosophy was focused top down, where there would be a quick relief during economic downfalls, where as Hayek’s philosophy was focused bottom up, where he pushed that the economy could fix itself over a long period of time to have stability. Hayek wanted to prevent bubbles from happening. Unlike Keynes, where he wants people to spend and invest more to keep the economy constantly flowing. Both economist had very different views, only you can decided where you stand and who you agree with. 

But the real question is, when is the rap battle part 3?

Raul Castro lived has an extraordinary past, he was born in Mexico and moved to Douglass, Arizona. Little did he know he would be the first Hispanic governor in Arizona, a historically conservative Republican state. Being told again and again he would never succeed in time where segregation was a controversial topic, he went on to learn English in school and was encouraged by his fifth grade teacher. After only attending an event because of the free hot dogs they were offering, during Governor Hunt’s speech, he said, “Even one of these barefoot Mexican boys could be governor one day.” This became a milestone for Castro, he would go on to start to slowly make a difference. After many struggles, he finally was able to attend the Law School at the University of Arizona, later becoming a U.S Ambassador. He was a driven and confident man who would not let anything hold him back. His bold moves and eventually high votes would make him the first Mexican governor.

According to GPD, the United States is doing well because it is above the international average, based off all of the resources offered. But GDP is not the only way to calculate how a country is doing, like Social Index and Happy Planet Index for instance. The United States is “overall happy” according to the Happy Planet Index, based on how much we consume and have. But the amount of resources we are using and taking from other countries, creates a huge problem for other countries in the future. The US, is “one hump” scenario, because the amount of happiness and poverty are related.

(Buy and Hold Net Worth vs. Beat the Market Net Worth)

Buy and Hold: Net Worth $9,729.32 Overall returns -2.71% (-$270.68) Rank #21 Beat the Market: Net Worth $9,838.44 Overall returns -1.62% (-$161.56) Rank #13

I agreed with more than a majority of Robert Reich’s claims in his documentary. The one that stood out to me the most, and I believe many of us can agree with is, “the middle class keeps the economy going.” The middle class are hard working citizens who are not adequately compensated for they're laborious work, yet consume enough to keep the economy running. Which brings up another claim I agree with Reich on, “the one percent do not spend enough to support the economy, because there are so little of them,” which is a completely logical legitimate claim. Since there is a obvious imbalance in wages between the middle class and the richest one percent, each class should be taxed appropriately based on their salaries. This could result in the middle class contributing more as consumers, since they would pay reasonable taxes based on their pay; and the effectiveness of the middle class can continue to keep the economy going.

While watching “Inequality for All,” I found myself agreeing with Reich on many of the claims he made, and even claims of other economist interviewed, but I did not agree with his statement that “everyone is capable of building wealth.” To a certain extent, yes individuals can be capable of building their own “wealth,” wealth that they would see comfortable in their eyes. But the claim that universal idea of building wealth is possible by everyone is false. Many factors come into play, for example, the highest level of education reached, or level of experience in the job they are trying to build their wealth in. Because of human nature, we are competitive, in a way “survival of the fittest” (of coarse, talking in economics). Someone will always be doing more, building more wealth than the person next to them, never ending the competitive cycle.