Thesis

The mixed feelings, the artifacts, and the actual baggage the soldiers carry in "Things They Carried" helps us understand what the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are going through nowadays.

Last words on Immigration

Before this unit started, I believed in the migration of immigrants into our country, because it is very crucial for us to get their help, and since they are working with very low wage, we are making profit off from them. After researching more on immigration, I still believe that immigration is important for us because in the downfall of our economy. No one can point fingers at anyone and make them feel they do not belong here. If we are too stubborn to work jobs with low wage, then we should just let them come and help our economy.

http://www.5min.com/Video/Why-We-Need-More-Immigrants-413387395

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More on SB 1070

There are many advantages of having migrant workers in our country, they take on jobs that we do not want because of a very low wage. We think more about living the "American Dream" and to fulfill our own needs instead of thinking of others. And because of having low wages, women starts to work in order to support the family. Young girls and womens are singled out because they don't have a viable alternative role to fulfill in the local village and if they go to work in urban centers as domestics, they can at least send home money. It is definitely important to consider what wages they get because it is how their family runs, they are human beings and we can't treat them like aliens just because they do not belong here. An average American, who lost his job in the recession will not work in bad conditions under any circumstances. And this is because the way we raised ourselves. If that law was passed here, people are are not immigrant would be more worried because we need someone to take care of the other industries that we refuse to work at, but is very important to us, and only immigrant workers can work at those industries.

Here's a video from MSNBC, hope you enjoy it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxHCS3gyi5E

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SB1070

After reading about this law, it made me think about why did they passed the bill in the first place. Even after passing this bill, people are still going to migrate to a different country. This was the broadest and strictest immigration measure in generation, would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and give police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being illegally in the country. According to Obama in Time's Magazine, "it undermines basic nations of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe." We are all humans, and it is our responsibility to do something good for ourselves and our family. Why do immigrants go to another country? To become something better. I feel like we will have more poverty in third world countries if we we don't allow immigrants t our country, and also we won't have anyone to do labor work for a very low wage. It might be inhumane to say that only immigrants should do work for low wages, but think about it, it is a good job for a start, and they can make their way up from their.
Check out this video by President Obama and his take on the law
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRfEb0D5I_s&feature=related

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Who is Responsible?

Investment is one of the most important variables in our economy, as it impacts individuals, organization, banks and international economy in general. When the global market fell in 2008, “it swept up many jobs, cost of living, availability of credit, and the economic stability of countries” (pg 138).  When many people failed to pay to pay mortgages on their house or on any other kind of property, and big companies like Washington Mutual held these mortgages failed. Because the banks started give out loans like they are giving out free goodies, everyone had a house, but who is going to pay all the mortgages back? The bankers did not think about that while giving the loans and that is why we are all in debt. They started to give money to big institutions as security money, and they lost all the money in the stock market, which led to our economy downfall.

So how did we get here? Instead of saving money to buy a house, many Americans found that it was easy to take loans from the bank, even if their income would not support it, and some were tricked by subprime mortgages to sign a loan. Wall Street thought by giving everybody loans, they would make money off from them, but what they didn’t know is that, how would people pay their mortgage on their houses if their income wasn’t enough to pay the bank back? Suddenly the housing markets started to rise; banks and investors kept buying and selling for a greater profit. And so the debt started to get bigger and deeper. And so the big companies, who were supposed to help tradition mortgages, they decided to buy and hold billions of dollars of the securities.

The economy started to get lower to a point where almost everyone started to get affected from it. Home prices fell; bank ran out of money, people couldn’t pay for their house, so the bank took their houses but couldn’t find anyone to buy them. Also investors pulled their money out of the stock market, soon enough, big institutions didn’t have enough money on hand to pay off the obligations, and the banks stopped to give loans and to try the save the money they already had. Since loan was the only way to finance the purchase on home, car, college education, people had to either stop buying goods from the market or but it from the money they saved. Most people weren’t doing that because they were trying to save money.

When banks stopped lending money, business started to lay off workers, people didn’t have enough money to buy cars, automobile industry was in jeopardy, and when people couldn’t buy houses, banks were in trouble. Because our securities are traded worldwide, our economy only started to get weaker

Immense amount of damage to our economy has been done, but we need to take further steps in order to refine our economy and status of our country. The first step is to “fight a severe shortage of demand in the economy” (The Banking Crisis). Which can be done by lowering the rates of goods, so most people can invest in our economy and give as much money as possible, so we can bring our economy up. We also want to create jobs, so that people would make money and invest it, and it is goods that people are still getting health benefits and unemployment benefits, so they are making money for us. If people have enough money to spend, and mostly people buy stuff from their credit card, so the next step would be to “heal our financial system so that credit is once again flowing to the business and families who rely on it” (The Banking Crisis). If we get our credit back on track, then banks would be able to give us loans, without having the doubt of us paying them back.

When the Wall Street crashed in 1929, World War II bought our economy back on track, but we do not need another war to fix our country’s economy. To prevent our economy from crashing again, we need to make sure that we are investing money; it is going to the right hands, and not the big institutions who will keep our money. We need to create many more jobs around us, but we also need to get people in school, so they can work. White House sponsored a Jobs and Economic Growth Forum, has found some way to stem job losses that have caused the worst unemployment rate. But here is the hard part, how do we do it?  “At least until unemployment drops below 6%, passing an extension to about-to-expire Bush era tax breaks will help small business owners keep more of their profits, and represents a straightforward common-sense solution that the president can put into place now” (Ten Ways to Create Jobs And Put America Back To Work as Unemployment Rate Drops to 10%). Another thing that can be done is to widen the TARP. We can send our TARP money to agencies such as the EPA, as well as directly to cities to be used for things like urban redevelopment we need to stabilize everything, so that people like us won’t be worried if we buy something in this economy and worry about losing it all. It is good that Congress has raised our unemployment benefits, because of that we are seeing consumer spending to improve. Unemployment checks aren’t going to turn our economy around but if people don’t have the money, they won’t be spending it.  

There is always a bad side to everything. If our economy starts to do good, cheaper goods will be exported from other countries affecting the local industries; people’s lifestyle has changed, and has become more lavish. A closet full of materials comforts them rather than on saving money that they do not need.

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My Future?

As I'm getting closer to the real world, I can see how people are getting affected by our economy, and it is going in the opposite direction. At my work yesterday, they fired almost 20 people, and it is hard for us because now we have have to work harder. I've never faced this kind of dramatic changes right in front of my eyes, and it was scary to see all the people get fired. Our unemployment rate just keeps getting higher and higher. if it goes on like this, then I'm not really sure how my future is going to look like. Before anyone could become whatever they wanted to, but now they all want something from which they can make a lot of money, which led to even more competition for school and jobs. I just hope that in couple of years we get back on track, so that people gave more choices.
I found a article in TIME Magazine which talks about where our new jobs would come from.
Hope you enjoy it!
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1973135,00.html

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Jamie Dimon

James "Jamie" Dimon who was born on March 13, 1956 is the current CEO and chairman of JP Morgan Chase & Co. He has been known as the world's 100 most influential people, and was on the cover of the Time Magazine in 2006,2008,2009, and 2011. He was born in the New York City and he attended Browning School. Later he majored in psychology and economics at Tufts University and earned an M.B.A degree from Harvard Business School. After graduating, he worked at American Express as an assistant. In March 2000, Dimon became CEO of Bank One, which was the nation's fifth largest banks. Later he became President and Chief Operation Officer of JP Morgan Chase in mid-2004 when it purchase Bank One. In March 2008, he became board member of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and CEO of JP Morgan and made decisions in connection with the $55 billion loan to JP Morgan to bail out Bear Stearns. 
Today JP Morgan has been one the successful survivors of the most horrific time in our economy's history anyone has ever seen. According to the USA Today, JPMorgan is the only large financial institution that posted a profit during the financial crisis. This month, it posted its 20th-consecutive quarterly profit: $2.7 billion, a 36% increase from a year earlier, with record revenue of $27.7 billion. Its stock price is up more than 150% from its bear market low in March.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMasTlWXwj4
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JP Morgan

Chase has always been in one of the most reliable banks in America. In recent years, economy has been improving, and we can see some new jobs getting available to people. But before the fall in 2008, the stock market for chase was high 40.66 and low 38.88, but as the fall started to come, it went down to 37.65(high) and 36.15(low). The difference in the economy affected everyone, because their market was on stock market, and the stock market crashed. The bank initially did receive TARP funds of $25 million, but they repaid all of their funds because they now look at TARP as investment, and insisted that the taxpayers could actually make money on the bailout.

while the revenue dropped  from previous year, a decline in customer losses highlighted improving financial circumstances for both business and consumers as the economy started to improve. Their net income was risen to $5.56 billion during the first quarter of the year, and they also reported that it was $3.33 billion in 2010. But still they were able to cut funds by 83%. JP Morgan Chase's first quarter revenue did fall by 8% to $25.8 million, and the bank's retail division lost $208 million. 

Apart from all the downsizing and receiving funds from TARP, Chase had shown me that they are getting back on track by returning the money, so that other people can invest in them, and maybe help other countries that are still struggling with the economy.

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Are we good Consumers?

Minimum wage is the lowest employers are legally allowed to pay the workers, and it turns out that it it the wage at which they may sell their labor. Supporters of minimum wage say that it increases the standard living of workers,and reduces poverty, but people who oppose it, say that it increases unemployment among workers with very low productivity due to inexperience, and lesser skilled workers can benefit from them better skilled workers. U.S. workers are not benefiting from the other sweatshops because us as consumers are not buying their goods because, first of all, we are getting the same goods at lower prices, and second, we get more choices  from outside trading. It is necessary for us to keep buying goods from overseas because we do not have to pay so much. Even if we try to purchase U.S. goods, we won't have as much choice, and as consumers we are hungry for different choices. It would help if we purchase our own goods, but then no would want to trade goods with us, and we will be less on resources.

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Truth about Sweatshops

Extreme exploitation, poor working conditions, and arbitrary discipline are only some examples of the life in sweatshops. Most people describe it as"subcontracting system in which the middlemen earned profits from the margin between the amount they received for a contract and the amount they paid to the workers. The margin was said to be "sweated" from the workers because they received minimal wages for excessive hours worked under unsanitary conditions" (Fashion Crimes). Sweatshops exists because it has become part of a global economy, which is ruled by a free trade system.  In this system, a powerful country such as the U.S., negotiates trade agreements with poorer developing countries. Free trade agreements promise more market access to all countries involved by lowering or eliminating trade barriers such as taxes or tariffs. In this way, goods and services are sold or traded between the countries. Unfortunately, these trade agreements include very weak social clauses - provisions that set labor, social, and environmental standards - which do not adequately address worker protections or environmental concerns.
Nothing will happen if we decide to change our consumer habits, but it is up to the big corporations to change their lives. If they provide more advanced technology and better conditions to the workers, they would most likely benefit from their work even more because the workers would work even faster. Workers in Sweatshops are always trying to provide us with different types of clothings to choose from, and they work day and night for us. The least we can do is to appreciate what we have. 


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Made in ________

I always wondered where my clothes came from. I only shop at two or three stores, which are my favorite. When I looked at all the tags of my clothes, I found out that most of my clothes came from China, and I was not surprised. Some of my clothes were from either Bangladesh, Vietnam or India. Which made me wonder, how many labor factories does China has? I knew it would be hard for me to find those kind of information because they do not put their whole information online. But I was able to find out that people in china make 5.55 yen an hour. In U.S. dollar it is 65cents an hour and $54.6 a week, which is extremely low compared to what people make here. I think, even they should have laws to protect their salary and at least get minimum wage, and feed their families properly. People who work there are probably either immigrants, or very poor families who do not have any other choice than to to work wherever they can find a job. The companies put their labels on the clothes about where it is made, and they are getting all the credit for it, but what about the people who made it? They are not getting any credit, and if the companies started to pay them a little better maybe their lives would change and they will be able to do something for themselves and their families.

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Introduction

Hello Everyone,
        This is my third quarter at Foothill College. I'm trying to finish all my prerequisites classes as soon as possible, and then start with my major classes. I'm trying to do Nursing first and then Physician Assistant. Hopefully I'll get it done in time. English and Math has always been my weakest subjects. I was not planning to take English this quarter, but I'm almost done. This is the last English class I have to take, and from this class I plan to learn develop a main idea, and thesis because I always have some problems coming up with those two things. I'm currently working at Fry's Electronics in Fremont, and I started 6 months ago. Since I live in Fremont, I was going to go a community college close to my house, but I just wanted a new environment, that's why I decided to come here, and I love it. I hope to transfer to Davis after next year in fall. I am happy with the education rout I have finally decided on, and I'm excited to learn a lot in this class as well as having a great discussions with all of you. And also, with the help of this blog, I will learn how to write regularly and just focus in one topic that I will be writing about.

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