The Recession and You

Recession - a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters. Recessions are actual typical in economics, since economies fluctuate. These are "like a Cheshire cat, might disappear, reappear, and change shape." (5) They constantly are different and can be very hard to predict. The word alone is hard to define, so trying to predict when there will be one is just as hard. It is a period of time when all economic activity is much less then it should be, but that can happen whenever a major crisis occurs in a country. Recessions rarely lead to Depressions since "they occur when the economy's normal or recuperative mechanism fails to engage." (5) During depressions no economic activity is made which leads to many problems. Things such as unemployment rate increasing, value of things increase uncontrollably, and among other things. They are typical caused by a series of bad investments and giving businesses and consumers unneeded things that basically put down the idea of future spending.
The market though does have a cycle that it follows and it shifts between two different forms of market, a bull market or a bear market. A bull market is when market activity and investments are increasing. Even in a period of time when people expect prices to raise would mean that it is a bull market. Where as a bear market is simply the opposite of the bull market. During this period of time activity is down and stocks within the stock markets drop. This however only lasts for a couple months typically. There are great examples of the different switches of market throughout the US history. Before the Great Depression the stock market experienced a bear market which meant that the investments and stocks lost all value and people began to loose money. Another example would be understanding how the stock market works. People like to buy stocks during the bear market since prices of stocks are cheap, while the bull market means that people want to sell since the stocks are worth much more than what it was before.

The Underground Economy

This "hidden" economy is detrimental to the function of the current economy. This economy is nothing more than the lower class or unemployed people taking upon odds and ends jobs. These jobs not only help the people earn money but it also helps/deters the current economy.
Some of the benefits are that the people are actually earning some money for them selves. Who doesn't like money, these people who do jobs like house cleaning receive their money untaxed so they will be able to spend it more freely on things they would too. The people who lost work hours in their jobs can be somewhat supported with these type of jobs as support.
There are many negatives though to this "economy". One of them are that since the money is tax free the government is losing income so they raise taxes to make up for what they are losing. This effects everyone else and creates more people to take up odds and ends jobs. This hidden economy typically is involved with elevated crime rates and drug use which is always a bad thing no matter what.

Celebrity's of the Week

Steve Buscemi

LeBron James

Dean Winchester

Rewards Vs Earnings

The US government has been using a standard system for employing people for government jobs. This system was otherwise known as the Spoils system. Before 1881, it was natural for presidents to replace federal employees with people that helped out the president during his campaign. The president is allowed to hire individuals into high ranking jobs, but before 1881 it did not matter whether or not said individual was qualified or not. The president simply held the power to do so, which is why this system is named the Spoils system because "to the victor goes the spoils." In the past the president elected people like friends or family members to high ranking positions, since they were the victor. During Washington's presidency he nominated many federalist to government positions and later when Jefferson took the reigns he cleared all the people from their positions and reelected people with views similar to his since he felt that he held not only the power but this helped deter corruption. Eventually in 1881 James A. Garfield created the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act which basically eliminated the previous Spoils system and replaced it with a merit system. This meant that people that actually both qualify and earned the position received it. This however did not completely abolish the spoils system it simply made it harder for the positions to be given away, it seemed to be more of a way to deter presidents to give these positions away. Most of the current government positions are all determined based upon the merit system or competition based tests, despite that about 3% of the government jobs are determined by the president outside of the merit system itself.

Sources:
http://www.shmoop.com/federal-bureaucracy/spoils-system.html

Celebrity's of the Week: Creators edition

Paula Deen

(Phil's Idea)

Emeril Lagasse

Swedish Chef

Cell Phone Leakage EVERYWHERE!!!!

               

Many people believe that they have "privacy" from others, well those people are dumb. Thinking that you have privacy is a false delusion that one should abandon right away. Police officer's are allowed to be given search warrants which allow them to search any place that the warrant states. In the case of Riley v. California the police officers searched Riley's phone once he was arrested for having two loaded guns in his car. With his phone in hand the police officers began to violate the sanctity of the phone and found information that linked Riley to a gang shooting. He was given 15 years in prison for attempt of murder. The Supreme Court then looked over the case and determined that since the police officers did not receive a search warrant they violated the fourth amendment and the privacy of Riley. Due to this mistake Riley was relieved of the attempt of murder sentence. In order to search something "the police need a court-issued warrant to do a search."(15) If not the police will ask if they are allowed to do a search and if you say no then they would need the warrant, but if you say yes then you just gave up your right to privacy. There is no way for people to understand exactly what the framers of the constitution wanted since technology has changed many things. "The Framers could never have imagined anything like smartphones, Facebook, and Google." (14) The framers were alive during a period way when they only had telegraphs, so it was no probable for them to anticipate the creation of cellphones or the internet. These are things that the current generations understand and they would know how to effectively create ways to "search" these new technologies without violating the fourth amendment. When the Framers first wrote the fourth amendment into the constitution they "had in mind the British soldiers" (15) since they would barge into peoples homes expecting them to house them. This is a clear violation of peoples privacy and in some cases harmed the stability of the homes. The fourth amendment in the beginning was intended to protect the people from someone violating their personal records or other forms of privacy. Again there is no way that the Framers could have predicted smartphones or other such technologies. This is why the constitution was made so that it could be added to or changed so that it fit into the current stream of life.

Celebrity's of the Week

Alton Brown

Rob Gronkowski 

(Alex Rebello's Idea)

Captain Jack Sparrow