Need or Want?

If people opened their eyes they could understand this. It makes sense.

Wow..really made me think (A Video not a link!!!)

Another thing Labour unions can help is people just getting in to the work force because they can know that they will be treated fairly.

Really powerful, it's true ask someone the price of an Xbox they'll know but ask someone about what they value...they have to think.

This image is something I think about a lot. We need to stop consumerism, but if we can't do that we need to start small and raise awareness for thinking when consuming. Be a mindful consumer. Stop and think "Do I really NEED this?" 

These people could be spending time with their family or friends but instead they are lined up for a sale. Its because of the way society raises us, it makes us value sales. These people are there because of society telling them that sales are more important values than other things...

This post will be about how I think that its crazy that fro a young age we are brought up with the idea of Equality but more and more Im finding through this Economics study that not everyone in the world is equal and it has a lot to do with money. Also to do with my GINS Equality based on where you live. 

I hope this day comes because people think stuff is all we need, it is life. Getting stuff is life. But is that really what life is meant to be? Practice mindful consumerism

I think this really shows how a lot of people feel, trapped in our material world. Economy is part of our world but does it have to control our lives?

I think this connects to our Economics study because the world is now based around this and you really don't own your stuff anymore, it owns you. It was even more powerful for me because this book was written in 1996 and the movie in 1999, it shows that the world was like this then, it probably has been since economic systems were created.

During the Swap in our class I started out with 4 Rice Krispies, 1 grape juice box and 1 pack of green tea. I left the swap with a bat that I am owe to Maxwell in a week, my grape drink, my green tea pack and a can of beans. I owe Maxwell the bat but he has to buy me McDonalds 3 times by New Years. I think it is good to do a swap like this because shows our values and how someone will give anything away just for something they feel they ”Need” which reflects a person's values. If there was a country that ran off of the system we used of switching it would have a Market Economy because people are relying on each other instead of the Government. My consumer choices in this exercise reflected my values because I had snack foods and I traded for an item I can use for sports which is something I value greatly.

We debated Canada vs. USA and I was on Canada’s side, I tried to talk about how Canada’s Mixed economy could help solve the problem of Scarcity which was one of my main points. I think we Won, the other side also admitted that we won. I think that Arya and my points complimented each others which was good. I talked about my values and how I believe Moral Rights should be. I believe Arya and I also both brought up Obamacare which was a big thing the USA is trying to do.

My theme statement is that no matter what happens in life if you push through you can succeed and that success isn’t always going to come easy. It is called Pursuit of Happyness because you have to pursue happiness and it’s something you can only achieve by reaching your full potential and realizing who you are. You have to achieve the “I” in happiness that’s why I believe it is spelt as “Happyness” in the movie. The pyramid in our classroom says how you can’t have things at the top if you don’t have the things at the bottom the entire movie I was thinking about this because when Will didn’t have food and sleep so he couldn’t feel sheltered from harm and couldn’t feel accepted by others like when he was at the internship. I was thinking about how based on how well off Chris and his son are compared to other families they have different values and expect different things. Christopher (Chris’s Son) is happy even though he probably doesn’t have all the things other kids do. And when Chris just has some money he was happy. But when he lost his money he got on edge. When Chris and his son for the homeless shelter. I noticed there were many people that were homeless and received low income and I did some research about the time frame of the movie (1981) and that was the time of the early 1980s recession. During this time in the USA there was a very high unemployment rate which is probably the reason why there was lots of homeless people as well as only 1 person out of 20 got the stock broker job. That is how tight things were in the economy back then. The movie made me feel happy and to never lose sight of my dreams no matter what happens.

My book is “Red Midnight” By Ben Mikaelsen. Our job for this post is to connect the book to what we have been learning in class, I have connected it to consumerism and economics because in Guatemala Santiago and his family didn’t have much money they sold tortillas in their village. I can connect it to a guiding question that my consumer identity would be different if I was in a different country. I think about Santiago and how he knows his economy is bad and how here I know my economy is ok. If I was from Guatemala then my worldview, identity and Consumer Identity would be way different because of how my economy wouldn’t be good, I wouldn’t expect all the things I expect in our economy and how my consumer identity is shaped by our mixed economy compared to Guatemala who wouldn’t have a economy where we can have a do the things we want, not just the things we need. In the book the government was taking land away from the poor people to give to rich people which proves that their economy is bad. The reason Guatemala has a bad economy because they have too much Chaos to even have a stable economy. I think because the Government has control over Guatemala they can do whatever they want with the citizens money, even though it’s violent and kind of in disarray I still think because of the amount of control the Government has over the Country it is a Planned Economy. Tax Evasion is basically just the citizens running away from the soldiers, proving how messed up the country and economy is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_sweatshops

I think that consumer choices my family makes affects my families quality of life like having enough food and food that is good for us.The consumer choices we make also affect others as well because when we buy products money goes back to the people who are growing or getting the food and they use the money that affects their quality of life. Economic systems are related to consumer choices because if no one bought groceries from big companies and everyone just farmed or got their own food then companies like Superstore would shut down. If that happened then all the people who had stocks or money invested in those companies that would go bankrupt or lose a lot of money causing an economic collapse.

I think people need to stop being controlled by big corporations and need to know what they're buying and for what purpose they are buying it for. People should stop buying things because they're tricked into thinking something is a "good deal". There are people in those big corporations who are paid to make you think that!