Military spill over

In regard to Economics, my knowledge came from the things I hear from the news, from my conversations with people, from my family, from the TV, social media, and so forth. The book taught me a lot of different thing about the economy, how things works and how things flows, as well as it how the government is very powerful and has huge control of the economy.

In the Economix book, on page 152, Goodwin discussed about “spillover,” specifically military spillover. I thought it was very interesting how he basically said that most of the technology advances produced things that are supposed to be just for military used but “spilled over” to the rest of the economy.  Advances in military technology will just lead to even more disaster and trouble, which we already saw with the arms race. The amount of money the government invest on military technology is so much that they could have potentially use that money to investing on  health care, wages, educational programs, and such; investing in these will  benefit more live of people in need. In addition, these “spilled over” products are “accessible” to most people that they are making even more money and using that money to invest on the military. I see it a little bit hypocritical when the government keeps advertising about making people's lives better  by doing this and that but in the end they just hurt the people by making them pay more but wages are low. As a student and working part time, it is very hard to balance my things out. Especially because of tuition is pretty high, which makes us student take loan making us go in dept. If only the government spent more money on educational programs and helping college student, I think it will benefit the economy better than investing on nuclear bomb, but this is just my opinion.

What Do Babies, Corn, and Taxes Have in Common..?

Economics has never interested me, unfortunately. But this book was so easy to read and present the information in such an exciting way that I was actually kind of excited to see what I could learn from it.

There were a lot of interesting things discussed in the book but one thing that stood to me out was the discussion of overpopulation. I was aware of the potential problem of overpopulation in humans but I had never really thought of an overpopulation in resources or either of them contributing to as many problems as they have. I didn't realize that the wealthy eat more and waste far more than the poor do. It makes sense though, since they have more resources and more things to waste. It also makes sense because people with more money can also drive cars, leading to more air pollution, creating a larger ecological footprint for those individuals. Since there are more poor than rich, you'd think that it would even out the waste but it doesn't. The rich end up having a larger impact on the earth with their wasteful habits. Those less fortunate with money tend to have more kids than those who can afford schooling and get better jobs, leading to the overpopulation in humans. But the wastefulness of the other side lead to over using resources and expecting depending on nature to provide resources and turn the waste into more resources can cause problems. These resources are good but it is possible to have too much a good thing. At one point, we had so much corn we didn't have anywhere to put it so we started feeding it to cows and pigs. The corn was not good for the cows, making them sick, so they needed drugs to feel better. Those drugs got into our water and food supply and you can figure out the rest... We also made other things that are bad for us for from the corn we overproduced, like high fructose corn syrup and ethanol, which we use to produce more corn that we didn't need. This is all in the book, but I wanted to reiterate the cycle of overpopulation in people as well as a simple crop.

I don't think we really think deeply enough about the production of certain things and what it does to us or the rest of the world. We need food to survive obviously but too much of a good thing becomes a terrible thing and lead to an increase in taxes.

Et Tu, Walmart?

The question of how unregulated capitalism is treating me reminded me of Alexander the Great. Most people I’ve talked to learn that Alexander was a charismatic and brave young man who created an empire by virtue of his planning and command. This sparkly narrative would be received quite differently by people in Egypt and other areas he conquered. This example is to illustrate that the answer to the question is a matter of perspective.

What follows is a leading question, but it gets at some of the perspective in capitalism. Is a business offering sale prices because they would like to lower their profit margin, or is due to pressure in their niche or the goal of providing pressure? How do I fit into this? Well, I’ve noticed that I’m quick to enjoy a sale or discount that benefits me out, and even quicker to complain about high prices that benefit someone else. Rarely do I stop to think about the implications of being a price taker when the price is a sale. Why would something be on sale?

Economix brings to mind the fascinating piece of market research that states when people see two items, priced at $300 and $400, a bulk of people will purchase the $300 item. If only the $300 item is offered the bulk of people that previously purchased it will now refrain from purchasing it. Their perspective was one of choice and one of finding a deal.

Global markets. Good or bad? The same factory that harms the environment employs people locally before goods are exported. When I order a pack of V-neck shirts on amazon for a price lower than what’s offered in stores what have I done? Well, to start, if my purchase at Amazon is bad Target or Marshalls (large stores, not family owned) I feel no remorse. Yet, I’ve assisted with Amazon’s slow market domination, which could come back to bite me in the ass one day if enough competitors are lost. The next question I think of the courier that brought these shirts to my door in just a few business days. Good for the employed UPS driver, bad for the fossil fuel using UPS truck. From here, I don’t enough about cotton sourcing and ethical-sustainable labor practices to make many remarks, but you could apply this to the rest of the supply chain. The portrayal of large business in Economix troubled me, it seemed to portray size as a good indicator of poor practice.

Praxair is a company I both love and depend on. Praxair, or Prax as I learned to call it growing up, provides high quality specialty gas mixtures, offering medical quality products in addition to ultra high purity products for industrial application. Praxair is why I have any money to give to Erik Kahler. Professionally, I see Prax trucks delivering to labs here and bulk tanks labeled as Prax at the hospital. Now, in terms of size. The market cap of Prax is 41.43 billion dollars. The market cap of Walmart is 253.56 billion. I find this fascinating. Praxair provides oxygen to patients, mixtures to labs for their instruments, and acetylene to welders. Walmart, on the other hand, provides low quality shit made in other countries (I would suggest with questionable labor ethics). Even if Prax grew six-fold to approach the market cap of Walmart, I don’t believe that it would embrace the business practices and poor conduct of Walmart. Unregulated capitalism is leaving me feeling confused. The things I think I’d find to be monsters are better than those I thought to be good (read as Tom’s shoes). Another component I find interesting is the that the businesses purchasing from Prax don’t seem to care much about the concept of voting with your dollar (at least to my estimation, please correct me if I’m wrong). Whether it be a hospital administrator or factory foreman, cost savings are important. So, there is little ethical pressure on Prax and it still behaves ethically. Walmart, is largely ignored by people concerned with ethical purchasing, and it only grows annually. (Yes, at the expense of the government, so this isn’t a precise comparison). If seems that Walmart should eventually kill off the small businesses that practice ethically. Yet, Prax suggests that good things may still happen in our economy.

Finally, it isn’t lost on me that Alexander was Greek (Macedonian really) and Julius was Roman. The most popular Freek phrase in the US is “pita” so I elected to use what we all know.

Dependent to Independent

To start, I didn’t know much about economics to begin with. This comic book was a great way for me to be interested in learning more about economics. The comic format of the book made it easy for me to get through the reading. Economix taught me about the history of economics (this is considered new to me because I have a difficult time retaining information on anything related to history, especially when it comes to politics and economy.) My mom gave me a short lecture the other day about how I should consider learning more about insurance and mortgage and that learning about finances is important for life. It is obvious that I need to know this stuff when I’m on my own because my parents have been cool enough to let me mooch on all of their stuff still (my deadline is age 25… So I must learn NOW). Although I haven’t read the whole book, I doubt that it teaches me about finances. However, I think understanding how the economy works is a good start to learning about my own financial needs after learning about how the government is screwing me over.  

Adam Smith and Wages

I am choosing to focus on a simple page from the very beginning of "Economix" , page 27 features Adam Smith speaking about wages and how high wages are a benefit to all of society.

This discussion about wages is still very relevant today and probably will be for the duration of civilization. It was not long ago when many low wage workers across the country were pushing for a minimum wage increase to $15/hour. This was seen as a mostly left sided movement and was met by the right with responses such as "McDonald's workers don't deserve $15/ hour", "Learn a skill", "Our troops only get paid so and so and they fight for this country". Is Adam Smith wrong that high wages benefit society or can we just not see how they do so?

Now I am by know means an economist and I have taken no economics courses since AP econ is high school (so anyone with more knowledge feel free to correct me if my intuitions are off base), but the argument for high wages appears to focus on that it raises worker motivation and puts more money in workers' pockets that they can then put back into the economy. Now I have held many jobs through my 3.5 years of college many which have been focused around the medical field as that is where my aspirations lie. All of these jobs have paid fairly low hourly wages either at the minimum wage at that time or just above. This was a problem for me as it meant I had to put it more hours to pay for food, rent, tuition etc and had little to no money left for anything else. This left me stressed out a lot and I can say when I went into work with these stresses it felt more like just punching a clock versus what it should feel like, me gaining knowledge and experience to pursue my future goals. Up until very recently I was getting paid the minimum at my job as a scribe at a hospital up in Coon Rapids then one day out of the blue I received a company wide email that basically said he you guys are very beneficial to the hospital and we are going to bump your pay up $2/ hour. Now to some people this may not seem like a lot, but $2/hour increase is very noticeable paycheck to paycheck and after receiving  these higher paychecks I can say I started stressing out less and was able to enjoy my job more. This in turn increased my motivation and (although I can't quantify this) improved my job performance. Personally these positives of increased wages seemed to hold up for me.

So why are some people so against higher wages, because it seems like Adam Smith has a point. Many people state that raising wages makes businesses compensate by doing two things: cutting hours and raising prices in order to maintain their profits. I intuitively have a problem with this as it applies to large companies (I am making this distinction because minimum wage laws also distinguish between large and small businesses). Anyone can seen that prices of common goods have risen greatly over the past decades. If you look at data it appears that the wages have not kept up with this despite productivity increasing greatly. So wages lag behind price increases yet the worker of today is more productive. Is this as Smith says a result of capitalists following their own self interest or something else?

Throughout this book Goodwin has painted corporations as the bad guys over and over again so I take his presentation of pure self interest with a grain of salt, but I do have cynically low faith in people when there is great psychological distance between them as there is in larger companies. Due to this I believe that a mentality of profits > people can take affect leading to events such as wage stagnation despite the financial ability to increase them. Yes a company needs to make money, but the ability of a company to run efficiently should not come at great expense to its employees. On page 27 this battle between wages and profit is depicted as a tug of war and I have a hard time believing that corporations will crumble to the ground if they let the workers take a little bit more of that rope.

The towering corporation monster

A section of the book that really stood out to me was part of the “Big and Bland: The Postwar Media” that had to do with how the change in media and technology and the growth of big business around the 1950s affected advertising. On the top of page 153 a family is sitting in their living room with baggy eyes as if they are being brainwashed from watching the TV. At the bottom of the page, the same family is sitting in the living room watching the TV with the big business monster behind it. This shows that TV broadcasting was serving companies that paid them for advertising and not the public. As we go into our digital unit, this section made me realize that the ways in which TV broadcasting changed the audience of advertising in the 1940s and 50s is comparable to the ways in which advertising through social media and other websites has changed in the more recent past.

Even if we are aware of some of the sneaky ways advertising targets us, the consumers, I doubt very many of us feel as though we are being brainwashed every time we turn on the TV, use social media, or read stuff online. I think we even sometimes feel that once we start learning about the ways in which companies use subtle advertising techniques we feel a little immune or above this because we are aware of more modes of advertising as compared to others.

Even though we can become more aware of direct, indirect, and very subtle advertising done by companies are we still subject to brainwashing?

I think it has become be easier to recognize subtle advertising on the radio, TV, and print newspapers than online. When you hear someone’s voice interrupting music or a news broadcast on the radio you are more aware that someone is trying to sell you something. As compared to the ads you might subconsciously see on the side of your screen on Facebook or skip through on Snapchat. Online advertisements can more accurately target who you are and what you buy based on your gender, things you search, and information you share online without completely being aware of it.

When I went home for Christmas, my brother told me he bought ads on Facebook for affiliate marketing where other companies whose products he was promoting would pay him to market their stuff on Facebook. For all the things that people purchased through the links of his ads, he was paid. This example of a sort of third party marketing, he explained, that occurs online all the time and is easy enough that my 17 year old brother made a couple hundred dollars in a weekend. He said he was buying ads for vegan smoothie powder and some fitness program.  This makes me wonder about how many types of subtle advertising I am not aware of or not aware of who/where they are coming from.

I liked how different “characters”- corporations, capitalists, certain economists, etc. had their own representative image in this book. I think a lot of the images were reflective of Goodwin’s own political views but informative and entertaining all the same. I think that if people start to view big business or corporations as giant towering monsters they may make more of an effort to get informed on who is trying to target them as consumers.

Refreshing Reminder

Pages 284 to 291 in the Economix really caught my attention and personally spoke to me, and the concerns I have about the world. This specific section is the concluding portion of the book where he attempts to connect all of the past problems, triumphs, and future outlooks into a couple of pages. I am pleased to say that from my standpoint he does a damn good job. Hitting on many of the still relevant concerns of today and how they intersect with the problems of the past in terms of the economy, helped remind me of the complexity of situations such as the environment, education, and employment among other things that do not begin with the letter "e". A specific favorite of mine is of an image on page 286 in which he cautions the reader about jumping behind causes that seem like cure-alls. Reminding us of the past is important, and while often not a great indicator of the future, it is still crucial in recognizing that at one point in time all ideas and technologies were new. However, I almost admire the way he presents this message. It is clear he is not saying that all of these potential technologies will fail, but rather that it is more important to be willing to try a variety of different solutions if the first one doesn't succeed. While the major of this book is quite critical when looking at the near and distant pasts, Economix clearly has a shift of attitude towards being optimistic, while viewing the potential to make a difference in the future. The writer's ability to teach about other points of view and present his own, all while constantly reminding us that it is just his own opinion by using the little narrator guy is  ingenius. This book was a refreshing read that is well balance in terms of pointing out that it could and most definitely was, a reiteration of what economics is all about through the viewpoint of one man. As a person who does not know a vast majority about economics, this book was more than just bearable, but rather enjoyable and extremely easy to follow. Take it or leave it, but without a doubt, the last few pages of this book, in the least, serve as a great reminder to the many of us science kids who strongly stand by current technological ideas to be cautious of the potential benefits, impacts, and pitfalls of the supposed "breakthroughs" of today.

Confessions of an ex-Econ Major

As recently as a month ago, I was an economics major. Since I was a little kid, how we decide what kinds of stuff gets made, and who gets it has been fascinating to me. In the same way that physics undergirds all the “reality” that the hard sciences explore, I would be so bold as to suggest that economics undergirds all that the social sciences sets out to achieve (anthropology majors, I see your glares and am ready for your refutations!). However, I would come to realize that all too often, economics is co opted by pure math and theory, and moves away from what (in my humble opinion) is the prime directive, that is, explaining how shit goes down in the real world. To that effect, I want to highlight Goodwins treatment of “unconventional” economics in pages 165-173.
The reason I love these pages so much is that Goodwin does two things that I love: attacking my heros in a persuasive way, and reassuring me that I can do less math. By showing us the way in which inflation is partially a psychological phenomena, Goodwin shows us how shaky some of Keynes ideas were in practice. It turns out that something as big as aggregate demand in a whole country is not as responsive to bureaucratic whim as we once thought. He then launches into a discussion of monopolistic competition, advertising, and indirectly, the way we imbue goods with value that isn't tied to their functionality.
But why does this matter? The fact of the matter is that we do value goods and services apart from their utility. Who cares? We should care because the terms of our economic debate is at stake. To bring Mr. Descartes back into the room, we are torn between an epistme that depends upon “rational” human actors to make the math work, and the messy, squishy world of sociology, and all its accompanying warts. As we have seen, it's a little more complicated than that.
Even then, so what? Why is it worth learning about economics? Why is the way we learn about economics important? I would argue that its importance lies not in the realms of Mr. Descartes and Pinker--because lord knows I never want to tell anyone that they need to read about supply shifters “because of the intrinsic light of knowledge”--but rather in the province of the ballot box and the supermarket. This is a question of accessibility and legitimation. What kind of economic knowledge is good currency in our policy debates. If the only kind of knowledge that is redeemable in the sphere of public debate is the highly theoretical economics that has been mathmetized within an inch of its life, requires 5 semesters of calculus, 3 of stats, and 2 more of real analysis to understand, then only a very small subset of viewpoints will be legitimated to talk about economic policy in the public square, or in the halls of congress. *WAVES BLEEDING HEART LIBERAL MEMBERSHIP CARD IN THE AIR FOR ALL TO SEE* This is why the very theoretical ideas of Freidman still have currency. They are legitimated under the terms of a very narrow discussion, and in the confines of that discussion, actually work decently well. The problem is that real economies and consumers aren't very narrow, or confined.
If, however, historians, sociologists, political theorists, scientists, and even comic book writers can have some currency, and be legitimated, more ideas that work in the real world might be able to gain some traction, and might even be understood by the average voter. Don't forget that every legitimation structure is protecting an interest. It is in the interest of special interests and eggheads at the Heritage Foundation that only the quants get to speak with authority on matters of tax policy. We take this for granted, but should we? We all interact with markets all the time? We know how messy they are, and can pretty readily conceive of the value that diverse disciplines can bring to the table. At the end, it's both a simple and radical thing that goodwin, and the unorthodox economists are trying to do. They want to introduce some doubt, remind everyone how gloriously strange human beings are, and for pete's sake, ease off on the amount of math you need to know to have an informed opinion on the messy business of markets, what gets made, and who gets it. For that, I am grateful, because while I may no longer be an econ major, you will pry my opinions and my spot in the public square from my cold, dead fingers.

Can We Escape the Culture of Advertising?

The pages in Economix that really caught my attention were 168 and 169 that wonderfully illustrated the cyclic process (see the last frame on page 169) of consumer response to advertising and the culture that has arisen because of the perpetuated pattern of thought. Perhaps the most attention-catching frame on 168 is the fourth one in which Mike states that, "Demand is high partly because these ideas are part of our culture," followed by some arguably accurate truths into what the vast majority of Americans hold true about diamonds. Mike quickly adds that these same ideas, "originated in advertising, paid for by De Beers." What I am particularly interested in with this section is the overcasting suggestion that the culture we've accepted and embedded ourselves into is something that has been sold to us by those who virtually are not in it for satiating the interests of the people but rather their own self gain. And at what point did this process get so out of the people's hands that the advertisers began crafting wants we didn't think we had?

I will say that much of what I have learned in both this class and my communications classes have been pretty disturbing to me—someone who wants so badly to believe that there are and can be large corporations, who have a large anchor of wealth, interested in and operating on behalf of the genuine needs of people. However, as many will spectate and sometimes study more in-depth, this is generally not the case. What we have been talking a lot about in this class is condition branding and how supposed professionals in the industry are literally creating problems that we didn't even know we could have as means to generate profit from their faux, made-up solutions. The rhetoric used throughout the marketing and advertising industry, I think, creates such overbearing whirl of confusion and pressure on consumers that we're generally more inclined to make brash decisions based on what appeals to us at face-value and what immediately resonates with our values, whether they are defined by ourselves or society at large. Much of the methods we employ in these situations (that we don't have the time, interest, or agency to think thoroughly) are called "heuristics" which are rules of thumb we follow to maximize our efficiency as consumers.

What is interesting for me to think about is whether us humans have been forced to develop and employ these tactics in our daily lives because of the overstimulation by the works of advertisers and marketers or are these tactics part of our natural human behavior? I'm looking to get into marketing and advertising and what I've noticed is that a lot of the agencies and corporations that I've looked into are seemingly shifting towards basing their practice on "human-centered behavior" and "human-centered design." Not only are these companies marketing themselves as innovative people championing human behavior, but they are also selling the idea of humanity without really getting into the science of how that works with their practice. And for the most part, I can't help but feel that it WORKS for me. This is the way I've navigated myself through a complex culture of advertising merely in one aspect of my life and yet I'm still playing right into their hands despite thinking that I am a more conscious consumer and person of society.

Health care

On page 228 of Economix, author Michael Goodwin discusses health care and its role in the economy. He discusses how in the 1990s, private insurers began to shift their focus from serving their customers to serving Wall Street, as the pressure to produce profits was high. These insurers would turn down those in need of health care and deny claims, both extremely effective ways of making money. Government policies to fix this were proposed by the Clinton administration but got shot down by Congress. Many of these problems have since remained, although the Affordable Care Act was Obama's attempt to resolve these issues.

Health insurance has never been something that I personally have had to worry about. For one thing, I've never had any major health issues and the worst injuries I've ever dealt with were a sprained ankle and a cut above my lip that required three stitches. My mom always receives extensive health coverage through her work (she's a nurse) so any health problem has been essentially fully covered. But it truly blows my mind that this is a for-profit industry. Every industrialized, first-world country out there besides this one offers universal health care. The people in these countries don't have to worry about how they'll pay for their surgeries, their appointments, their emergency room visits. They don't have to let their health issues linger and ruin, hell, take their lives because they can't afford to pay to get better. The Constitution, as outdated as it is, gives us the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which are rights that I believe will never be outdated. If I can't afford health care, my life can end much sooner than it should, and while it's not entirely black and white, the right to health care clearly shouldn't lie in the hands of Wall Street.

The Planet is Sick

First, I would like to say that economics doesn’t make sense to me. I can understand basic concepts, but overall, sometimes it feels like a foreign language to me. That being said, the comic book Economix by Michael Goodwin was very helpful in going through concepts that weren’t very clear to me. At some points is definitely seems be has put his opinion in there, but overall it was useful.

The part in book that resonated with me that most was from page 284-286 titled Our Sick Planet. This short section brought the readers attention to the fact that we have “hit environmental limits”. There is a large two-page illustration that should what is happening to many parts in the world, such as ice caps melting, dead zones, and rivers drying up. After this, Goodwin tries to tell us that the problems we see were once though impossible. From this, he argues that the problems that will come in the future, we will see as impossible today. He than goes into saying that technology is thought to solve all of our problems, but it may end up causing more problems in the future. He than gives examples: genetic modification, nanotechnology, and geoengineering.

This is when I had to take a step back and take a deep breath. I am an engineer, therefore get excited as science advances. So, when Goodwin came at these fields, fields that have benefited everyone’s life so far, I get frustrated. Yes, I agree that there are some aspects to each that the potential to do harm if used to do so, but overall, without GMO’s, our grocery store would feel empty. What people don’t realize is how many of the foods their eating have touched GMO’s before getting on to their plates. In addition, nanotechnology is everywhere! Why should we be wary of a technology that has the potential to do so many great things?

Goodwin also made a comment at the end saying that the decision to use new technology is as much political as it is technological. For me, being in the sciences, this statement makes me very uneasy. I understand that just because we have certain technology doesn’t mean we should use it, but should the people that decide be the government? I think not. That doesn’t change that this may be the case though. Some people and groups have much influence over what is decided on, and that is just how the world works sometimes. That doesn’t mean I have to like it though! The facts that there might be technology that could benefit many people and the environment alike and it is not being utilized doesn’t make me happy. Goodwin even stated that this is happening in todays world.

1 Pro and 1 Con of CAPITALISM (Overpopulation and Expendables)

In the book Economix, I was intrigued by 1 pro and 1 con of capitalism.

In this book, Mike mentioned a topic that has always been of my interest - Overpopulation. As many of us know the scare of overpopulation is still highly prevalent in our society. This has grown again slightly after renowned physicist Stephen Hawking's death took place and many of his followers learned that he said that humanity's fall would be due to an exponentially growing population. From what I had learned last semester, in a geography class that I took, was that a lot of the beliefs of overpopulation relied on Malthusian rhetoric which Mike mentioned briefly in Ch. 1. Basically, his belief was that the Earth's population was growing at an exponential rate that would soon overcome our food production capabilities, thus inciting what is known as the Malthusian Catastrophe. One of the biggest counter-arguments to this theory was given in Economix which is increasing the population itself.

As counterintuitive as this sounds, the reason why capitalism is so beneficial to "preventing" overpopulation is because a higher population means more creative minds that help us solve our problems. When transportation became a necessity and not everyone was able to afford a horse and buggy, someone invented the locomotive, when the locomotive was not useful for a trip to the store, cars were made, and if land and water were not enough planes were then invented. It was also mechanized agriculture that basically destroyed the fundamental idea of the Malthusian Catastrophe. This ongoing innovation that creates competition is directly stimulated by capitalism. Surprisingly enough, what we measure overpopulation by, really isn't even how many people there are on the planet, but rather, how much we consume. Do we honestly believe that the world is reaching its limits for providing for us due to 10.85 million people in Haiti or 8.5 million in New York? If the whole world consumes like the average American then yes, we have a bit of a problem on our hands, however, that is not the case. I am not denying the fact that a finite planet cannot sustain an infinite growing population, all I am saying is that the geniuses that discovered the various purposes of corn have really prevented "the end of the world due to overpopulation" many times over. I do however recognize as well the carbon footprint we are leaving, but again it all ties back to how much is each person really consuming. A big issue I also want to bring forth to the light is once we start believing so much in overpopulation, it is almost as if we instinctively start evaluating who is and who is not worthy of using our resources. If you are not a rich white male, the world can change pretty quick for you, history has proved itself many times over. 

Like the book states, in many instances, Capitalism is not the solution to all of our problems and its hard to say for me personally in my religious beliefs that the benefits outweigh the costs, especially when the cost is a person who cannot find a job and is trying to feed their family or a person who is paying the taxes that corporations should be paying and is now facing the reality of not having enough money for his/her rent. To top this all off then face the reality that no minimum wage job 40hr/week can afford a 1 bedroom apartment anywhere in America. As someone who worked at A&W as a cashier/cook making $8.50/hr I began to get tired of working so much and getting paid so little and wondered if the CEO was really working 100x harder than I was. 11 hr shifts standing up near the grill was no easy task even for a 17-year-old in high school. Now what makes me or anyone else think that a 40-year-old man or a 60-year-old woman can do this for the rest of their life? The answer is often, "If you aren't getting paid a livable wage, then get a new job!" If this is an answer you may often give, I'm sorry to say that certain priveledges need to be checked. I know countless adults and family friends, who even if they wanted to become a lawyer, physician, engineer, teacher even be a driver for UPS or work at Delta since we all know they pay well, simply cannot. Why? Short answer is that they have no work permit. Although the beautiful capitalism allows "everyone" the mobility in work, others get the short end of the stick in this deal. This means no matter how many benefits your employer might cut, no matter how many fewer dollars you are making less than a 17-year-old high school student, no matter if your job is degrading or if your co-workers or customers treat you like the very matter they excrete after a heavy meal, some people do not have this luxury of mobility because their priority is to provide for their families and the alternative remains living in the street. When I read that even businesses compete for workers, I said, "must be nice..." It's nice to know that when I graduate from college at 22, I will be wanted by an employer, yet someone else in our society is seen as an expendable because they didn't "work as hard as I did." This problem isn't even limited to undocumented immigrants, imagine the millions of ex-convicts and homeless people that cannot get a job because in all honesty who is trying to hire Randy with a criminal record or Bill who has no home address to put in his job application after his name? Are they not seen as expendables in a capitalist society? When did the safety net of corporations suddenly become a greater concern than an individual person or family's safety net? (actually, this is mentioned in the book)

There are many benefits to Capitalism yes, however, it is within a person's religious belief, moral code, or just basic humanity to see that although Capitalism gives us many materialistic items, ideas, and freedom, it also leaves many people behind and that in and of itself is a great injustice.

The American Dream

Economix, was a book that made me have a better understanding of the economy. On page 83, The Robber Barons, was a page that really spoke to me and how we are as a society. Citizens tend to succeed with higher education or work hard to get to where they are in terms of being stabilized with a job in which they can have some type of income to their lives, but this is an idea that is driven out by Social Darwinism. We tend to say that we must work hard to succeed and get a life we want because if you don't work hard enough then you won't succeed. This all comes from that theory. One example can be that we see people in poverty asking for our help, but what we do is see them and start thinking, "well I don't want to be living like they are, so I must work hard enough to get what I want and not end up living in poverty" (This might not apply to everything) but that is what we have in our mind. 

Another thing is the competition that there is. There are bands that have the same product but just different quality. It seems that the quality is what drives more consumers/buyers the most. Companies pay lots of money to promote their product to the future clients to get the product being promoted. By doing this, there is always an image, song, sentence, etc, that most of the time people will recall the company/industry presents it. Competition is everywhere in the business industries and will continue to be a trend for them to get consumers and incomes. 

Remember the Looming Sky Scrapers? I'm Their Friend

Let me start out with the unavoidable fact that I am an engineer. Essentially, I am a scientist that cares about how I can use new discoveries, how I can make the new technology (i.e. chemicals, electronics, paper) on a large (read industrial) scale, and how much this whole project is going to cost (Net Present Value, IRR, Cash Flow Diagram). However, my economic understanding is pretty limited to gut feeling which comes from my life experience and observations.

As I started out reading Economix, I was led into a complicated world of wonder where every page or two, someone (whether an individual, nation, or global society) was stealing from the poor to give to the rich. Goodwin was explaining why this was happening from an economic perspective. The Invisible Hand (Chapter 1) really began to explain in simplified terms how the cycle of economics works (and why we have ended up where we are from a historical perspective). I would find myself nodding along with the text, completely convinced. Full Steam Ahead (Chapter 2) continued along much of the same lines. Then we get to The Money Power (Chapter 3), where the demonization of industry begins.

From what I can infer based on the reading, Goodwin has no trust in industry and essentially thinks that the larger the business, the worse the business is for society. This opinion plays out all through Chapter 3 and continues throughout the book by mentioning looming sky scrapers that have a menacing expression. I just cannot put stock into this opinion.

The larger the corporation, the more revenue it can generate and the more people it can employ. All of these factors contribute to a successful economy. I agree with Goodwin that monopolies must be restricted because industrial competition is what drives innovation, fair prices, and better business practices (i.e. if company x and company y perform the same function but company x offers better benefits, company x will end up with more productive employees and that will show up in the stock market value).

Although regulation is necessary to restrict monopolies and encourage start-ups and diversification, the actual practicality of all regulations should be considered. For example, Goodwin mentions that tomato size for green tomatoes was regulated to prevent Mexican tomatoes from being imported. Regulation like this is useless because it actually limits industrial competition. When regulation is limited (except where absolutely necessary for human or environmental health), innovation and market competition are rewarded.

Even though I couldn’t buy into all of Goodwin’s opinions, this was an excellent and worth-while read. However, I am a friend to industry and think that it is beneficial to society. (Without big industry, there I would definitely be out of a job!) I think that I more than doubled my understanding of historical economic events and how the economy should (theoretically) work.