Capitalism: A Love Story

"... this is Moore's magnum opus: the grandest statement of his career-long belief that big business is screwing the hard-working little guy while government connives in the atrocity." – Mary Corliss TIME

Yesterday I saw a movie called Capitalism: A Love Story, a documentary film directed, written and starring Michael Moore. It is from October of last year. The movie is a critic to the capitalism system in which we are living, showing all the disadvantage and damage it is causing to people right now. It centres on the crisis that started on 2007 and the recovery stimulus and talks about U.S. economic orderm and capitalism (capitalism history, how it started and the impact and the effects it caused in the U.S. and in other countries). It covers some topics that include wall street’s casino mentality, for-profit prisions like PA Child Care, Goldman Sach’s influence in Washington, the poverty
The movie started with a comparison of ancient Rome with the U.S. present and I was amazed by the similarities they had, nothing has changed much since then. We have the dependence of the economy on slaves (the hard working class), the disparity between rich and poor, behind the splendour of the forum the crowded areas of the slumps, few jobs, and citizens kept entertained with games and spectacles and brutal combats that were popular.
Elected representatives exercised the power but every function of government was absorbed by the emperor who was above the law. These were mayor reasons for the Roman empire decline and for our capitalism system crisis and collapse.
Moore wonders how future civilization would see us in the future and judge us… He then presented some cases were the bank took homes from people and sold them, leaving those with nothing.
Moore: This is capitalism, a system of taking and giving, mostly taking. The only thing we didn’t know was when the revolt was going to begin.
Capitalism was supposedly a system of free enterprise and market; a clever way of society voting what good it wants and what is made. Then other words come out such as competition, profit, etc. It is a system where you can decide where to work, but there are no works!
In the movie is presented really important information that makes all react, graphs of dept and unemployment among others that makes us say: HOW COME!!?
Companies go to bankrupt, so in order to stay competitive in today’s market they must eliminate jobs, as it happened to GM, eliminating more than 4,500 jobs.
Bush talked of capitalism as the greatest invention, but how possibly he could say that if there were a lot of people without jobs, homes, medical care.
I really invite you to watch this movie, I am not sure if you can already rent it because I just download it.
I hope Michael’s message is clear and more people join his fight, unless we do something, things are going to stay the same. We need to stand against insurance companies, employer exploiters, greedy merchants and predatory lenders.

Our Choice by Al Gore

We have been reading a book for our Ethics class named Our Choice: A Plan to solve the climate crisis, written by a man named Al Gore. First, I did not even know who this man was, but later searching in internet I found out that was a man who run for president against George Bush Sr. And later become a well-known politician for being in Bill Clinton’s office.
What Gore try to say to us in this book is principle how to use other resources to stop sending contaminating molecules to the atmosphere that destroy our planet, principally carbon dioxide. The most important thing to me in the book is how Gore tell us about alternative ways to produce enery, without contaminating Earth. Those ways include. Solar energy, how do we use sun and solar panels in order to store and produce energy, as well with wind and the turbines made to produce electricity.
And of course there is the geothermal energy, and the always controversial nuclear power, that became more disliked by people after the incident of Chernobyl. Every page of the book contain at least a graph or image to illustrate us of how it works a turbine or a solar cell, in order to make it easier for the reader.
I think we need more people to make this kind of books, even though there is people who says global warming does not exist, it is important to take no in this kind of actions in order to have a cleaner planet, so we can enjoy it as best we can.

New Rules for child labour in South Africa

I was reading something about children that are exploited since young stages of their lives and then I found that in South Africa, children can start working at age of 15.
A child under 15 years, or one who is subject to compulsory schooling is not allowed to work, or help at a business. This is in terms of the South African Schools Act, which stipulates that a child is subject to compulsory schooling until the last school day of the calendar year in which they turn 15, or the ninth grade, whichever comes first.

An exception to this is for children who work in the advertising, artistic or cultural industry and they must do so in terms of a permit granted by the labour minister. But still I think that at age of 15, even though there is a different culture in that country, the person is still immature to make a good or successful job. I know that many children does not have option, but I just don’t agree with that law, they should put a higher age on that law in order to have a better cohesion (work-employe).
According to News 24, once a child has cleared these hurdles, the regulations set out for example, whether they can perceive workplace dangers correctly, their sensitivity to chemicals or hormone disruptors and their ability to understand safety messages.

Borregos en Acción

On last week (April 6-8) was on curse “Borregos en Acción” an event which consists of several sports being played at the same time by different teams. Teams are formed according the grade of students, and in the case of Professional, their teams depends in which career they are, for example, carrera’s teams are Arquitecture, Licenciado en Creacion de Empresas, ITICS (Ing. En Tecnologia de Informacion y Comunicacion) among others.
I decided to make my post of this because is really cool playing against people maybe you did not know, and now you have the chance to interact with people that you maybe never saw ever before. Even though our team, fourth semester, the best team, we did well in some games, we all have a great time by cheering to our friends and classmates and playing those sports that we liked and we were happy to play in.
I think that Tec makes a wonderful job making this kind of activities, it help us to do physical and social exercises, to call it someway. It also feels good to interact in sports with the people you are most of the time in a classroom under a class, a bit quiet and calm. It may sound a little strange but is the truth; you don’t see a classmate the same as in a team competing on sports.
In our growth, these kind of activities help us develop cognitive (knowledge acquisition), affective (emotions and feelings) and psychomotor (muscle activity associated with mental processes) abilities which are interrelated in between and are very important. And for me, it is important because they remove my stress and clears my mind a couple of hours, aside that is a different kind of activity that breaks with the monotonous activities that we have during the semester.
I hope this kind of activities continue, Tec knows how to make students have a good time once in a while.

Venezuela and the increasing price of Oil

As I post in several post months ago, Venezuela, the country which I will spoke in my final project is one of the largest producers of oil on the world, a member of the OPEP (Organización de paises exportadores de petróleo), according to the Spanish initials.

Price per barrel of oil has been increasing in the last months, because it is expected that the demand for it will increase due to the recovery of many countries of the economic recession. Still, US stockpiles of crude oil have posted nine straight weekly increases. It held 354.2 million barrels on March 26, 6.5pc above the five-year average for the period, the US energy department said last week.
OPEP pumps about 40pc of the world's oil. It slashed output in January 2009 in order to prevent a glut. The group left its production targets unchanged when ministers met in Vienna on March 17.

Venezuela, is the group's sixth largest producer, is seeking a price band between $80 and $100 a barrel, Rafael Ramirez told reporters in Caracas on April 2. Prices are benefiting from OPEC's decision to maintain production restrictions, President Hugo Chavez said on state television on April 1.
So it seems that “ours” country economy will keep being good as far as the demand for oil do not drop again like in the summer of 2008 when the price reached almost 150$ per barrel.

Earthquakes now receiving more attention

This year we have been target of several strong earthquakes that have make huge impact on the news and for that reason many people around the world has been more alert when they hear the word “earthquake”. First, it was Haiti, a terrible series of events after that earth shaking bring this country to an almost total collapse. Many people included us, Tec students, helped this country to move on and recover as more as possible. Then it came Concepcion’s case, a really big earthquake that caused natural disorder in other countries.


This weekend, Baja California was victim of a 7.2 earthquake; it caused damage in several parts but most in the highways. And two days ago in Indonesia a hard 7.8 earthquake hit that country. These natural phenomena’s have occurred since long time ago in these places, it’s hard to know if it is just coincidence or it has something to do with climate change. But what is true is that several years ago, this kind of tragic events did not sound a lot in the media, at least here in Mexico. Now, thank you to internet and faster information processed, we know more in things in less time, unfortunately in the last months, there have been tragic events. So my question is: is our planet on a worst situation than other years or are we simply putting more attention to the news around the globe?

Couple on South Korea raised a virtual kid and forgot about their real baby

Yesterday I saw in the news something that leaved me really impressed and sad at the same time. I read on the newspaper that a couple somewhere in South Korea start raising a virtual child in a videogame or something related. They start getting very deeply in the virtual game that they forgot to care about their real kid and the poor baby died.

The couple fed their 3-month-old daughter once a day between marathon stretches in a local Internet cafe, where they were raising a virtual child in the fantasy role-playing game Prius Online.

“Police said the couple had lost their jobs and used the game as an escape from reality, especially after the birth of their premature baby” according the note I saw on the newspaper.

This is an example of how a vicious can lead to disaster, to lost something we really want, and because we are doing something else we do not notice. This case was a completely tragedy, but is also an example of how technology is controlling us even more with the years.

Of course this couple must have a serious stress problem and maybe they were trying to escape from their real life that maybe in that moment was difficult, but that is not a justification for stop taking care a 3-month baby, they obviously have some biggest problems in their minds.

Project advance

I decide to make this contribution to the blog our final project advances. Recently, our team made a homework which includes several aspects, mostly economic, about our country Venezuela. Before starting this project I did not know too much about this South American country, but know my knowledge and interest for Venezuela is bigger. One thing I learned was the scarcity of food that the Venezuelans are dealing with, and how this problem is making a lot of crimes are taking place on the markets by robbers that try to obtain food.

Now talking about more positive aspects about this beautiful country is the strong economic alliances they have, thanks to their great amount of oil. Venezuela has strong relation with the United States because of the oil that is exported to the U.S.A.

Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela has negotiated with countries from Middle East in order to have a better development of technology, according on what we saw in our research, this do not makes happy president Obama and the United States because they think these agreements are related with nuclear weapons.

A lot of interesting things can be found when you start investigating deeply in a country you did not know too much. Venezuela is not an exception, it has also wonderful places to visit, a great number of customs and traditions, and also the most beautiful woman of the world in the Miss Universe contest had come from Venezuela, a great place with no doubt.

Ethics

Ethics is concerned with how to live human life. Humans turned out to be far more dangerous than any other animal; the intelligence makes us extremely useful and valuable. Human treatment is to try to put you in the other person shoes, taking into account their rights and understand their reasons. Our interests are relative, except the interest of being human among us and without it there can’t be a good life. It means to feel sympathy for others. Life is too complex and subtle, people too different, too varied situations and intimate. Everyone is free and fair for oneself to live well. To understand what the other can hope from you, also love is needed, it is also very important; who lives must be capable of a sympathetic justice or a fair compassion.

Ethics can be applied at any field, and business is not the exception. In business, firms want the highest profit for the company, most of the time despite the ecological or social cost.

Apply the ethics in business means ethics in a professional field; examining ethical problems that take place (arise) in a business environment. It is basically that corporations keep a character of honesty, fairness and humanness. In some cases, corporations have redefined their values; however, the practice of ethics is not an instrument for image building.

People should realize that in order to live a civilized society we have to take part of it, acting in a human way, consequences will come if we don’t behave according to the time we are living. How would the world be if all though the same way a corrupted a business man does?.. A global disaster for sure.

Modern democracy has attempted to establish these minimum requirements, called human rights and people must demand them to be practiced towards them and others.

Everyone must behave in a civilized way, respect others, and have as our priority the healthy relations with people and not just the self-interest and benefit.

Economic Systems

On class we studied the different types of economic systems that have existed.

All talk about the level of control in a country.

The first one we studied is the commanded or planned economy

In this one the government controls the prices, the state control the resources and is basically described as controlled. Consumption and investment, matching of inputs and outputs, and distribution of the output is planned. And it has also its advantages, which are a high and stable growth, social goals pursue, high investment and low employment. Still it is expensive to administer, insufficient allocation of resources, it has problems gathering information, there are inappropriate incentives and it lack of respond to the consumer demand.

The free market economy

Is the one where the prices are set by the market and resources by individuals and firms. It is basically described as choice with free decision

This one has also benefits, it transmits information between sellers and buyers, there is no need for costly bureaucracy, incentives are efficient and there are competitive markets that respons to the consumer wishes.

The problems are that the competition could be limited, inequality exists and the environmental and social goals may be ignored.

Finally we have the mixed economy

Combines a little bit of both at any proportion. It uses taxes, subsidies and benefits. there is legislation and regulation, and there is a direct provision by the government.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

My individual Reflection

It is officially titled Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It is a continental mainland with numerous islands located off its coastline in the Caribbean Sea. The republic won its independence from Spain in 1821.

It is a relatively big country, its capital is Caracas. Venezuela is known widely for its petroleum industry, the environmental diversity of its territory, and its natural features. Venezuela is considered to be among the world's 18 most biodiverse countries, featuring diverse wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. Venezuela is among the most urbanized countries in Latin America.

In my opinion, I think we are working well, and we have found pretty much everything we are asked for, but maybe we need to go deeper and find out more information concerning their political and social situation. We have found information about what good and bad in their economy, what source scarcity they face, etc

We have seen that Venezuela in a very interesting country, and has a very strong leader that has done things other one could't before, fo example, Hugo Chávez didn't submit to the U.S. abuse by making contracts with them where they would sell oil and very low prices to them, but he opposed and said that Venezuela's oil would be for the benefit of the Venezolanos.

Models

In economics we use a lot models, but why?, I will later answer this question but first of all I would like to point out what are:

In economics, a model is a theoretical construct that represents economic processes by a set of variables and a set of logical and/or quantitative relationships between them.

We use models in economics to represet in a simple way the complex economics world, makin assumptions.

• Simplification of and abstractation from observed data
• It explains an economic process
• Used to examine an economic issue
• Developing a new economic theory
• Deals with problems or historical data in the economy
  

The principle used is cakked Ceteris-Paribus which is the principle of isolating the variables (not taking other variables in count, just the one we are interested in).

We also use the production possibility curve, that obviously shows the possibility of production.

Then in the graph, the line shows the maximum efficience of resources. When the price changes it is called movement, but if any other thing changes in the curve it is called shift.

In the model we have several elements, but the one we studied included:

· The supply curve

· The demand curve

· The point of equilibrium

· The quantity equilibrium

· The price equilibrium

· The shortage (demand in greater than supply)

· The surplus (supply is more than what is demanded and the price falls)

A world without SCARCITY

Well, on class, we talked about how would the world would be without scarcity, and at first I thought that it would be great!

Scarcity is the fundamental economic problem of having seemingly unlimited human needs and wants, in a world of limited resources. It states that society has insufficient productive resources to fulfil all human wants and needs. For example, fruits such as strawberries are scarce on occasion because they grow only at certain times of the year. When the supply of strawberries is lower, they are scarce, or not always available. If enough people want strawberries when none are available, then the demand increases. And this demand is high not because the price is low but because the supply is low.
So if it wasn’t scarcity at all it would be perfect then. We wouldn’t worry about food, oil, energy sources, water etc.

But later I thought, human behaviour would change dramatically, we wouldn't worry for the quantities we used, consumed etc. For example, the use of car would increase so much, that pollution will also intensify and global warming might be something sure, unless we changed our habits. Values of things would also decrease, since there are a lot of supplies.

Then, scarcity could bring us a positive consequence, which is an awareness, and conscious that not everything is infinite, and we should care a propose solution for actual problems.


In contrast with other post of classmates, where without scarcity there would be no sense of life, I think that our incentives (living reasons) ARE ONLY GOING TO CHANGE, they would be different, but still there would be.

We would care about people and their wellbeing, we would focus on improving technology, and the development of it and how to use it wisely to take advantage of resources and energy sources as possible, also how to distribute such abundance of resources and the use of these intelligently in such a way that there will be no damage to the environment so everyone can end benefited from them. Education would also be considered fundamental.