Week 12 Blog Reviews

Brittany,

I liked your "Limited Government" post, it had a lot of great detail and personal opinions toward the topic. You made good points overall on the subject the on thing I would have love to seen, was the connection between the readings and your opinions. I do have to say that our world would still exist even if we did not have government control. This is one thing I have to disagree with you on. You mentioned our world would cease to exist without governmental control but that is not necessarily true. Many centuries ago people lived on this world before a government was even structured, take the ice ages for example when their where "cave men". Although, I get the point your making I just wanted to bring that to your attention since it did not quite make sense. One thing you are right and I completely agree with you on, is that a life without government structure now is this era our life and surroundings would be chaos and so would crime rates. Your second post "Finical Fixations" is good. You used some of the readings to back up your respones, which I feel flowed very nicely. Good writing overall good post and I did not see any errors.

Jade,

I liked your "Big Brother Society" post, it was very well written! I enjoyed reading it, it seem to flow very nicely and was very interesting. I think you used the readings very well to help support your claims. Your last paragraph had important information that helped some up your ideas and I feel it fit your post very well. Did not see any errors, it was an overall well written post! Enjoyed reading it very much. P.S. I agree with you that our governmental laws have a purpose, and that purpose is not to harm us but to protect us and our rights.

Your second post "The Development of Finance", again was well written. I have to agree with you that it seems all society wants, is to want more in life and are not happy with what they have. You had a lot of info from the readings to help support your ideas and opinions which made it more interesting and compelling. Overall, good job on the writing.

Finance and Numbers!

"Money fascinates most people"! It does not matter whether we have little or lot of money because regardless we tend to always want more. For the majority of people money is a necessity to obtain the needs to survive. Money is a necessary component that we use in our everyday lives. It is a fact that without the use of money or finance most of us would not have what we have today without these components. It is true that most American want what they can't afford but it does not stop us because we finance to help us get what we cannot afford at this particular time. According to Chance and Peterson in the article The New Science of Finance, finance is best defined as the study of how money is invested and acquired. Finance emerged after World War II becoming quickly evolved into an important quest and influence on many people and institutions.

"In recent years, finance has developed into an academic discipline, thanks to borrowed elements, tools, and techniques from mathematics" (Chance and Peterson 446). People who work in valuation are constantly pursing new ideas in increasing investments or bringing in income to keep the performance of finance. "Valuation is the science that estimates what something in the future is worth today" (Chance and Peterson 448). Economists have begun to study human behavior and have tried to use mathematics to explain how individuals cope with financial issues and burdens. It seems like our economy plays a huge role in how people spend money because when we are negatively hurting in financially we tend to not want to spend and would rather try to save money or fix our financial issues.

Learning about finance is extremely important because it is a part of our everyday life and frankly most people do not understand it, which then causes financial issues. The discipline of finance is something everyone should know and understand because it can help people organize how they spend their money. Maybe if people seek financial advisor's they can help with organizing financial burdens and guide you on the right track to paying the debts off. Overall, money is an important component to everyone's life we all need it to survive.

Week 11 Blog Reviews

Brittany: For both of your post 11/3 and 11/5 did not show up. It only has "....." Was not able to comment due to no writing.

Jade:

Your 11/3 post "A Material World" was very well written! You had good concepts and outstanding structure. I really liked how you connected materialism with holidays. It is so true, and yet I am guilty of it. I believe we all are at one point. You can not help not spending around the holidays, especially Christmas! The point that you made I truly agree with because most people spend what they don't really have. Which then causes people to be financially and emotionally strained. I really liked your post, great job!!

Your 11/5 post "The Hungry Economy"was quite interesting! It was different which made it compelling to me especially all the support (findings) that you had to back up your statements. Until you spoke on the matter I never really realized how many Asian/Pacific Islander we had in the United States let alone businesses. According to your finding there were a lot of businesses which was new for me because I never knew or I should say realized that there were that many in our metropolitan area until this post. You sure did educate me, great post, great writing!

We need Government Structure!!

To think of our nation without any rules, restrictions, or a governmental system is hard to imagine. Could you imagine it? I highly believe that we need governmental control within the United States because without it there wouldn't be any structure to follow. People would be roaming the streets mad not knowing what to do and law abiding citizens would be frightened for there life and so would everyone else. Some individuals feel that our world is full of hatred and crime currently but if you think about it, if our nation had no governmental structure crime rates and everything else negative would be ten times worse compared to the rates that we have now.

Our laws were created for a reason, to help each one of us individually by protecting our rights and freedom. Laws were not created to negatively bring down our nation, they have a purpose and should be used when every possible and appropriate to the best of our ability. If people are using the Internet to commit crimes and create or participant in illegal activity then federal officials should have the authority to investigate so that they could try find the suspect(s). Our country needs to set examples and how that what these offenders are doing is illegal and will not be tolerated or accepted. Especially since the Internet is used throughout the world for almost anything. Many corporate companies use the Internet to hold private and confidential information that sometimes contains citizens address, social security, etc which is private and must people should not see it especially those individuals who are committing crime and fraud with such information.

Even though some people may disagree with certain laws or with how the government is functioning our nation, it is still good to have stability by providing and maintaining government structure. It is part of life to disagree not everybody was born to be similar or think alike, so with that of course there will be differences amongst how people feel and what they want. By not having government control will not make this country any better, if that, it would make us more vulnerable and financially unsuccessful. I know by having laws still does not deter people from committing crimes but at least we have some type of function and process that weeds out those who commit crime from those who are law abiding. "Cryptography is very useful to anyone who can't afford to leave behind a paper trail. That could be someone running an illegal gambling business or doing insider trading or distributing child pornography or arranging the details of a cocaine shipment" (McHugh 436). With cryptography being so helpful for people who are tying to commit illegal acts, why would you not want the FBI to investigate and stop these criminal offenders?

The American Dream

Immigration has been a problem for several years and has gone through many generations. North America has always been known has the place where dreams come true. Immigrants come to North America with the hopes of creating a better life for themselves, to be successful and to pursue any life long goals and accomplishments they might have. According to John Maggs article The Economics of Being Hispanic, it discusses negative economic impacts that the Hispanic race has brought or taken away from North America.

Although, I feel Hispanics have not contributed any negative impacts to our country. I believe people misunderstand our economic system and its function and automatically assume that immigrants are at fault because they are here illegally taking our work, food, and money so it is easier to blame others for their mistakes. I believe it is true that Hispanics are willing to do the work that most people wouldn't like to do or normally just don't do. People hire them because Hispanics are willing to work for a cheap price and it is not because their not worth more money but they work for whatever they can get because at the end of the day they have a family to support just like any other person in the U.S. Not only Hispanics but many other immigrants like Native Americans, African Americans, Jews, etc, have all had to work in slum jobs and live in high poverty areas. Native Americans have been miss treated and viewed abnormally for years as well. Native Americans were one of the first people to settle in American and call it their home. The Native Americans have been excellent contributors to Earth by their agriculture and farming practices. They are peace makers and they show a lot of respect to our Earth and its land. Animals are viewed sacred to them in many ways including the Earth and weather.

Regardless, of what ethnic background a person comes from should not be used to determine a person citizenship. If they are paying taxes and contributing to our economy than they should be considered American as any other person in North America. What we know about farming, agriculture, clothing, machinery, etc have all been contributed by immigrants one way or another. North America is land of opportunity and if that's how we view our country than we should allow others to experience it. It the government is strict on who is legal and who is not than we need to come up with a system for those individuals who would like to stay here and make a home in North America.

Week 10 blog reviews

Jade,

I really enjoyed reading your post A "split" second. I thought you creatively outlined your post and made it very interesting. I have been skiing before but I have never tried snowboarding. I have always wanted to, it looks so fun! It just makes me nervous I guess, not sure why I haven't but hopefully someday I will. Is is difficult? It seems it would be. Your Ahh, the irony post was very interesting. I believe it was well written and structured appropriately to your ideas and concepts. We did have similar views about the music industry, just different concepts and ideas. It was interesting and amusing to read the direction of which you took your post. I agree with you on practically everything you said. I am a hip hop fan too and whether or not its female or male the reality of the music industry is that "sex" sales. You overall post was very good and well written! Good Job

Brittany,

I really enjoyed reading your post crash. I am sorry to hear about your friend Nancie and her mom. That is a shame that had to happen to them, sounds so scary, just so glad that everything turned out OK for Nancie and her mom! I am glad to hear that the person who was driving under the influence got some type of punishment! I believe you followed the assignment criteria very well and written a good post with great ideas and concepts. Good job! Wow, Brittany your post clean lyrics: making hip hop lame, is very interesting and well written. I like the concepts you focus on. I agree with you on all the areas of hip hop that you discussed. You would think that people who find rap artist lyrics insulting wouldn't listen to their music but its hard. The fact is, their music is still good and all their really doing is expressing themselves or issues within are society. So in some way we are still supporting the lyrics. I think it is mostly done to make money because in all reality sex does sell and to artist or anyone people will do anything to make a buck, especially if your making millions. Good Job!

Materialistic!

"Materialism is the belief that one's physical possessions constitute the greatest value in one's life" (Twitchell 388). We naturally place a big importance on valuable things, thus making materialism a vital and meaningful role in our lives. To think of our world without any material possessions is difficult to do. Without materialism, our world would not mean the same as it currently does. Most of the world spends most of its energy producing and consuming goods (Twitchell). In the essay, Two Cheers for Materialism, the author James Twitchell explains that materialism is an important part of our society because we Americans make it that way. Twitchell, argues that materialism is a "vital source of meaning and happiness in the modern world" because we allow it to effect our lives physically, socially, and mentally.

The French calls the U.S. a nation of shopkeepers because of our rapid development of a mallcondo culture. There are malls practically in every city now within our society. It is the American way within all cultures to "buy things, steal things, exchange things, and horde things" (Twitchell 389). Each item or thing a person possesses has meaning to them but that meaning may not be the same to someone else or vise versa. It is safe to say that people live through things. We create ourselves through our things. And we change ourselves by changing our things (Twitchell). Our commercial culture has been blamed for causing several negative impacts within life, but is the commercial culture entirely to blame? No, it is not, although it has contributed but would not be fair to say it should be entirely blamed. Anthropologists want us to believe that consumption habits are gender-specific but I do not completely agree with that because although women tend to shop a bit more than men, the reality is that both genders do about the same amount of shopping within their own lifetime one way or another.

Accordingly to Stanley Lebergott, an economist from Wesleyan University, argues that most Americans spend money to find happiness (Twitchell 392). Consumerism causes people to get in debt because of its easy avaiablity. It is easy for people to obtain credit cards to help buy consumer goods to support their shopping habits. Materialism offers a temporary palliative against the anxiety of emptiness but with all sadness American continue to shop and spend on materialistic things. Twitchell says that "consumption will turn sour because so much of it is based on the chiemera of debt. Easy credit=overbuying=disappointment=increases anxiety."

It seems that materialism has many affects on our society. The negative debt that our country is facing right now is one prime example of what Twitchell argues. People can be affected physically, mentally, and socially from debt and the loss of materials especially those materials that have meaning. I agree that people who work hard for their money should have the ability from time to time to shower themselves or others with gifts or materials if the feel like doing so. Most people are thankful for having the opportunity to buy things they need and like, and at least they are thankful for those item they do posses and not greedy. I believe people do not like to be categorized my either upper or lower class anymore because it offends them in someway. Maybe this is what causes so many people to use credit so that they can keep up with other people and the trendy styles which then cause them to be in debt and have financial issues later. Regardless, of the issues that arise from being materialistic, the fact is is that our consumer market will continue to rise and produce more consumer goods, thus continuing this cycle.