"6 million jobless face loss of benefits”

In this article of “6 million jobless face loss of benefits”, it was reporting that the senates reject the job bill, therefore 6 million jobless face losses of benefits. The unemployment benefit: President Obama’s job bill gave checks to those jobless. However, this act has an advantage and disadvantage, the advantage was that when the people received the bills that they get from unemployment benefits, they will spend it right away, so it will stimulate the economy. Yet, the disadvantage was that those jobless will have no motive on looking for jobs, and there are limited checks, that would cause the unemployment rate to increase. Therefore, they find a solution which is to make the benefit temporary which is maximum 99 weeks, and they will try to help those people to find jobs, enhanced training, and start-up opportunities. If the benefit had started dropping, the unemployment rate would decrease.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/11/news/economy/unemployment_benefits/index.htm?iid=SF_BN_River

High-Speed Rails In the United States

From our class discussion about the railroad we arrived at the conclusion that the railroad was not a necessity to our economic growth since entrepreneurs could have invented alternative transportation methods. Why then do we want to build a new high speed rail infrastructure? How much business will it take away from our current railroads, the trucking industry, and the car industry? Will it be a direct competition to these businesses? Is the cost of the new high speed rail will be too costly due to these industries’ losses? Or through the cooperation of the new railroad and existing transportation methods our economy will be faster, more productive, and more efficient? Will it create millions of new jobs, reduce pollution, lower our dependency in oil, and reduce congestion on our interstate highways? In the United States there is one high-speed rail service, from Boston to Washington DC, but unlike the ones in Europe and Japan it shares the tracks with a conventional rail, which is very inefficient. The first dedicated high speed rail infrastructure will be built here in CA and it will be interesting to see its effects on our economy.

For further information go to:

http://www.economist.com/node/16636101

http://www.ushsr.com/benefits.html

Can Social Media Make Our Economy More Productive?

Social media firms are collecting data on their users every second. We the users benefit from social media so much that we sometimes forget how much information we are sharing voluntarily with these companies. Commercial companies can now market their products more efficiently through ad campaigns that target clients who actually mentioned their products in their blogs, Facebook pages, or on their Youtube videos. Moreover, social media provides a more efficient workplace environment. Companies use internal social networks in order to connect their workers from all over the country and the world. These networks lower travel costs and make communication between employees easy and fast. Individuals are also benefiting from social media since it provides a wider job search environment. People are able to stay in touch with their high-school friends, college buddies, and co-workers in a matter of seconds by typing a comment on their social media pages. We are not aware yet of all the contributions social media has to offer since it is still very new. But we already see increases in efficiency, which ultimately leads to higher productivity.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=5980177&page=1

Innovation and Jobs Creation in the United States in a Globalized Economy

The 2^nd industrial revolution was lead by the United States because we had an abundance of natural resources and we used them in the development of new capital and technology inventions. Furthermore, we had large enough internal market, which allowed mass production and a market of many consumers. Today, the United States still leads the global economy in innovations; unfortunately we gave away our production jobs to countries like: China, Vietnam, Philippines, and Thailand. For an example let’s take Apple, an American innovation that has its largest market in the USA. Apple has contributed to the economic growth of the United States and kept its high paid jobs in engineering in the United States. But, production jobs that require low skilled workers were moved to economies with cheaper labor. So we can see the same pattern as in the 2^nd industrial revolution in the USA in a globalized economy, high skilled workers are benefiting from American innovations, while low skilled workers are losing jobs.

For further information and data please go to:

http://pcic.merage.uci.edu/papers/2011/InnovationJobCreationiPod.pdf

Why the west is losing out to the rest

A very interesting front page CNN.com article about the reversal of fortunes in the Americas and the possibility that another one may occur as China's economy may surpass the economies of western Europe and the US. The article provides some compelling arguments for why Eastern economies are booming while the West's are declining. Where will we be in 50 years...?
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/03/opinion/ferguson-west-economic-decline/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Horizontal Consolidation

From The Economist, “Sony bought our Ericsson’s 50% stake in their Sony Ericsson mobile-phone joint venture, giving Sony full control of the business and allowing it to integrate smartphones with its network-connected consumer devices.” Just reminds me of the merger material from the lecture.