RS: Regulators Mount Up

This blog post is my response to “Commanding Heights, The Battle for the World Economy”, released by PBS.

This documentary was really interesting, especially when it came up how after World War II, the government tried to control the prices of all goods, causing huge amounts of inflation in Germany. When the government ruled price control was taken away, the economy flourished. According to the video, “overnight the black market disappeared. People stopped hoarding, and goods not seen for 10 years went on sale”. How great is that? What a huge turnaround from where goods were being traded for cigarettes and booze to the economy actually making its way back up.

Still, even after seeing Germany’s success, most countries wanted to have the government set up their economy. And while some flourished, others didn’t. The situation with Germany after the war is not the only occurrence where the lack of government involvement helped a diminishing economy. During the 1920’s in the United States, there was a recession, but the government wasn’t involved and the problem rectified itself within the year.

Yet, the government still wants to involve itself in the economy even after seeing how it is unecessary. In the past few years, there has been the issue with the government "bailing out" banks which needed assistance. Who knows what would have happened if the banks just went thru the normal life cycle. If they had gone down, who knows where the economy would have been if there wasn't an intervention. Where would we be now? We'll never know.

RS: Not Everything Sucks

This blog post is my response to “Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats” released by BBC and “Peter Diamandis: Abundance is our future” released by TED in February 2012

Turn on the news and 98% of what you see will be negative; tornados, tsunami's, earthquakes, war, murder, you name it, it will be mentioned. Why has our society become so negative and cynical? Yes, things are not doing too great right now, but compare it to what it could be? Compare today to this day 50 years ago and appreciate how far not only the United States, but every other country, has progressed.  

According to Hans Rosling’s video, “200 countries, 200 years, 4 minutes”, two hundred years ago we were all in the same range of poor and low life expectancy. Slowly but surely, all countries came up and now we all are within the middle to high range. Instead of focusing on the negatives, why can’t we think of how far we’ve come?

 As stated by Peter Diamandis, “Over the last hundred years, the average human lifespan has more than doubled; average per capita income adjusted for inflation around the world has tripled. Childhood mortality has come down a factor of 10. Add to that the cost of food, electricity, transportation, communication have dropped 10 to 1,000-fold. Steve Pinker has showed us that, in fact, we're living during the most peaceful time ever in human history. And Charles Kenny that global literacy has gone from 25 percent to over 80 percent in the last 130 years. We truly are living in an extraordinary time. And many people forget this”

He’s totally right. We have made so many progressions, and if you look at statistics, we've got a lot more growing that is happening right as we speak.


 So why is it that we are just so focused on what’s NOT going right? Is it just wide spread worldwide cynicism? How did we become so ungrateful for what we have? Lets not forget that we are raising children in these “horrible times”. Why don’t we teach the future leaders of our countries to be thankful, and to see a bigger picture than our narrow, privileged minds can.

Peter Diamandis: Abundace is our future

RS SPRING BREAK: A Time for Reflection

Have you ever had a professor who uses drugs, as in illegal illicit drugs, cocaine, mary jane, prescription pills, etc, when giving examples or teaching a new topic? No? Well neither did I, until I took Russ Engel’s Microeconomics class during the Fall 2011 semester at Sacred Heart University. The first time I heard him use examples like that, I almost thought I was hearing him wrong. But nope! Drugs, how he’s a super jets fan even though he knows they suck, student’s preferences and current events were his specialty.

 My strongest memory from my second class with Engel, Macroeconomics (Yes, second. Who wouldn’t want to take a class with a professor who teaches and keeps you entertained at the same time?!) is when I walked into class the very first day and was completely comfortable. I’m a pretty high strung person, always needing to be on top of things, and when I’m put into a situation that I have no control over, I tend to be very nervous.  Usually, I’m anxious because I don’t know what the professor is going to be like or how hard the subject will be, but actually feeling comfortable and not stressed out before anything even started is my first real memory of the class. I can safely say that I’ve never felt like that before.

 

My strongest memory of an economic concept is from my first semester with Professor Engel. The concept of opportunity cost is so ingrained in my mind that no matter where I go it always comes up. Opportunity cost is what you’re giving up, or the next best alternative, when you make a choice.  Also, I remember how to calculate opportunity cost, and using that information to define absolute or comparative advantage.

When Professor Engel first said we would be required to do weekly blog posts based on podcast’s, I did an internal groan. I thought to myself, “really Russ? You’re going to make us listen to boring podcasts every week and then we have to force ourselves to write about them? Your ‘cool factor’ just plummeted.” But then I actually listened to the first podcast and it really wasn’t that bad at all. My favorite blog post would definitely be the first one we were assigned, the one which involved Katy Perry. Not that the whole podcast that we had to listen to was directly about her, rather it was more so about how record label companies aren’t making much money anymore, but the fact that she was involved got my attention quick. I’m a HUGE Katy Perry fan, and was immediately interested in hearing more of this podcast and going on to write about it. I would say that I did the best on this blog post too. I was just really into it and almost wanted the podcast to go on longer because it was really interesting, I had never thought about how the record labels must be affected by the new surge in online music downloading/buying. I would also say this was my best because it was in the beginning of the semester before everything else started. Now, between reading a million pages for six classes, homework, exams and papers, my part time job and my internship, I’m spread pretty thin and can’t really focus on one thing for too long because there is always something else that needs to be done!

The Engel Indoctrination Program has definitely made me a better person. I learned not to judge a class by the professor teaching it. When I first met Professor Engel, I thought, woah he’s cool, this is going to be an easy A, no doubt. But as time progressed, I realized that there was actually a significant amount of work to be put in. There was no “easy A”, rather if you worked for your grade, just like in every other class, you will get exactly what you deserve.

All in all, it’s been a great semester and a half. I’m hoping there will be more chances to take another class with Russ because I actually learn things and remember them after exams, instead of cramming two nights before and forgetting everything 10 minutes before the exam starts.