Puerto Rico

On November 20th, 2013 the United States decided to go to Puerto Rico to help them in their economic crisis.  They are bracing for their 8th year of recession.  They will be sending people from the departments of education, health, human services, housing, urban development, and the environmental protection agency.  In December they will travel their to find a way to maximize their federal funds.  Bill Clinton created the force in 2000 but Barack Obama expanded the scope to make recommendations on areas that needed specific help.  The force includes people form every cabinet.  The formation follows that Washington might begin to help the Caribbean territory, right now they struggle under a $69 billion debt and a 13.9 percent unemployment rate.  And their obligation bonds have been hovering over near junk status.  Puerto Rico's banks said they would cut bond sales after investors pushed a yield on the bonds above 10 percent.  The US will work with them to get joint economic goals.

Economy Perked up this Summer

In the article "Economy Perked up this Summer" written by Annalyn Kurtz on November 7th, 2013 obviously talks about the economy doing better.  The economic activity rose 2.8% in the third quarter., the strongest growth in a year.  Business built up their inventories while the consumers spending increased along with the real estate.  The federal budget held back the growth for fourth quarter.  State and local governments ramped up their spending enough to compensate for federal cuts.  They say it does not reflect the government shut down from what they have seen.  The economy is trying to run more fast paced but things keep coming up.  The 2.8% is still not enough to bring down the unemployment number enough.  They hope for about a 3% rate each year to somewhat bring down the unemployment rate.  At the end of September 11.3 million people said they could not find work, a 7.2% unemployment rate.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/07/news/economy/gdp-summer/index.html?iid=SF_E_Lead

This past week we have taken a lot of notes and learned a lot about supply but we have taken no test on it just a few quizzes.  We have also had to draw I do not even know how many graphs.  An update in Weserville is we had a holiday on Wednesday, the day we took our PSATs and the others either went on a field trip or a retreat.  But the day after there was a huge flood in Weserville that had a  huge affect on the supply in the town.

Debt of the United States

On October 10th, 2013 QUOCTRUNG BUI wrote about the debt of the United STates.  They say that if they do not raise the debt ceiling soon then the US will not be ale to pay the debt at all.  There is a chart of who the US owes money too.  The US owes money to other countries ($2.6 trillion), individuals and COOPERATIONs ($1 trillion), federal reserve ($2.1 trillion), SOCIAL SECURITY ($2.6 trillion), federal retirement and disabilty ($1 trillion), and China ($1.3 trillion).  These are just to name a few there are quite more that are not named.  But to pay this off will take so long and who knows if we will even be able to do it because as we are trying to pay the debt we put ourselves in more debt.  For example the shutting down of the government will put us billions more in debt.  Like in the shutdown in 1996, that lasted 26 days it costed the government $1.4 billion and roughly $2.1 billion in today's money.  As time goes on the US will continue going in debt even as when we try to get out of it, it seems like a CONTINUOUS cycle.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/10/10/230944425/everyone-the-u-s-government-owes-money-to-in-one-graph

This week in class we have been learning about demand and being making a lot of demand graphs.  Earlier this week as we all know our government has shut down so we have had a lot of talk about that.  Yesterday we watched Shark Tank and that was my first time ever seeing it and I actually thought it was pretty interesting.  While we were watching it Mrs. Weser brought it one of the products the people proposed which was a mango jelly that you can put in others things to make other foods. She put it in cream cheese and we had it with crackers. Then Patrick brought in cheese dip and chips and was nice enough to share.  The food made it great because we all like to eat especially in class.  It was a pretty relaxed week and hopefully will be followed by another.

This was a very busy week for the school, especially Mrs. Weser, the juniors, and seniors.  This whole week we were preparing for Junior/ Senior Showdown.  Along with our case study being due on Wednesday added to the stress but we all pushed through and got everything done.  We took a few notes this week and watched the debt chart website.  I thought that was the coolest thing we did this week in class, it showed us how much debt each category was in an it was increasing every second.  We also watched quite a few videos and played a game in which I did not achieve my badges, but I was close.  Overall, I think this was the most fun week we have had in school, outside of Econ class and inside of Econ.

The past week we have done a lot and learned a lot.  Well first off we took quite a lot of notes this week, which I personally do not mind.  We had a stock game going on one day in class after we decided what we were going to open in Weserville, there were many different ideas such as an ice cream shop, restaurant, apartments and many more.  Then for homework one night we started a stock market game, and we all seem to be enjoying it.  We will be doing this for a whole month and whoever  is top ranked will get a prize.  Then at the end of the class we found out we have to write a 3-5 page essay on the laws about healthcare that is going to be passed on January 1st, which should not be fun.