The Fed

The Federal Reserve has been a detriment to the United States since it was created. The country has faced hardships on a economic level due to it. The United States dollar has lost 96% of its purchasing power. Inflation has arisen due to their actions. Decisions such as interest rates, national debt, and money supply are all controlled by the Feds. This private ownership of this "federal" bank is in place to benefit the private stockholders. The board of governors at the Federal Resvere are not elected by the American people. These seven members are not respected to the people. Most of its operations are done in secrecy and are dominated by the Wall Street and New York banks. 

Mega banks such as Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup doiminate the United States banking system using the Federal Reserve as a tool to make money. Huge amounts of money are lender to these mega banks for nothing and they use all that cash to add to the United States debt.  The Fed acts as a "last resort" and bailout to banks. Sixteen trillion was spent in secret bailouts to corporations and banks around the world in less than three years. Many argue that the Fed is unconstitional which is correct, occurrences such as secret bailouts happen without a single vote taking place in any chamber of Congress.

Inflation in our dollar has significantly risen. Higher prices are a direct consequence of inflation since increasing the supply of money decreases the purchasing power of the dollar. The poor is impacted the most because they have less disposable income. Consumers with low disposable incomes will be negatively impacted by higher prices for food and clothing.

The policies of the Federal Reserve hurt the middle working class. It benefits the privileged few at the expense of average American. Access to money and credit before the harmful inflationary effects impact the entire economy are given to special people. High power lobbyists are in favor of the Fed due to the special privileges the Fed gives this group of people.

Out-of-control spending by Congress the Fed initiates. The federal government can only obtain money through taxation, printing or borrowing money. Printing money has become the federal government’s common action. This negatively impacts the economy due to their printing during spending sprees.

In conclusion the Federal Resvere is too powerful and does not benefit the American people and hurts the economy. They are primary reason to the high national debt. 

http://www.debate.org/search?q=Why%20is%20the%20federal%20reserve%20bad

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/11-reasons-why-the-federal-reserve-is-bad/inflation

Business Cycles,Recessions, and Depression

Due to the cyles of the economy the business cycle is hard to predict. Population and productivity make the economy rise, but the economy endures cycles of expansion and recession. "Business cycles are an unavoidable and largely unpredictable feature of market economies" (2 Ip). Prdeictions of this cycle are primarily made on gut feelings. Both the household and businesses aspect of the economy bet on and make plans based on how much they expect their sales or wages to grow.

Bear and bull markets are imbalances in the economy. A bull market is when prices are rising or are expected to, bear markets are more viloent than a bull market. "Bullish expectations boost investment, stock pricees, and lending, all of which feeed back to the economy" ( 6,7 Ip).  Throughout time the economy crashes it is just the reason why is what changes. For examplle "in the ninteenth-century America, it was often a natural disaster, a crop failure, or a bank panic" (3 Ip). Eventually every business expansion dies. 

A recession can be defined as "two or more consectuive quarters of declining GDP" (4 Ip). The start of a recession begins with a press release. "Thy delcare a recession whn they conclude there has been 'a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months' " (3 Ip). To investors, the start and the end declaration is useless. The word depression has changed over time to what we now call a recession (4 Ip). 

When the economies normal recuperative mechanisms fail to engage a recession becomes a depression. The aftermath of a depression is when it is usually undrstood. Banks are crippled when investment booms from compaines fail and loans they took out to finance them go bad. Also other countries collapses can lower affect our economy.  For example "Finland's GDP shrank 10 percent between 1989 and 1993 thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union, a major trading partner, and its banks" (5 Ip). "Financial crises don't always produce depressions, but htey often leead to servere recessions with unusually weak recoveries" (5 Ip).  

In conclusion both consumers and businesses view of the future drive the cycles of the economy (6 Ip).

Once imbalances happen recessions occur. The Federal Reserve is responsible for adding to the production of it. The failure of the natural recuperative process comes from a broken financial system blocks the flow of credit (7 Ip). This is how a recession can become a depression. In a common situation a  recession leads to lower interest rates which then over time release the demand ending the recession (7 Ip). 

$2 trillion underground economy may be recovery's savior

The underground economy is the work the US citizens do under the table. In this line of work no incomes are reported and no taxes are paid. The income this hidden economy brings in is beneficial. Much of the money made goes back into the economy, boosting it. Also positively many of this work is not illegal jobs. This is another factor that plays into businesses especially small being saved by cutting expenses with these workers. This economy can affect businesses from hiring workers in the first place. Negatively these underground workers affect tax payers. Taxes could be lowered if the underground workers were paying taxes. These workers do not get benefits that many jobs do such as heathcare or social security. In conclusion the bad outweighs the good with benefits and negatives. 

Net Neutrality

"The principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites."Many believe net neutrality to be primarily important for the preservation of internet freedoms. A lack of net neutrality would allow network providers to charge consumers more. "Network owners may be able to block competitor Web sites and services, as well as refuse access to those unable to pay." Small businesses and entrepreneurs have been able to thrive due to net neutrality. For big businesses this would make competition between companies. The consumers would choose what service provider has the best websites accessible loading it's data faster. For compaines that are dominant in a certain area would benefit because it would force consumers to pay the extra cost due to lack of variety of providers.   

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Debate_in_the_United_States

http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-what-you-need-know-now

Spoils System vs. Merit System

The merit system of th bureaucracy is based upon a canidates ability in the process of promoting and hiring within the government. In addition the spoils system is a process in which the governmnt uses. The spoils system is based differently than the merit. Once a candidate wins their election they give political positions in their party to supporters, friends, and relatives as a "reward" for working toward their victory. These candidates using members to have an incentive to continue working toward improving their party. The merit system is mainly based off one's education and abilities through testing. 

Andrew Jackson argued during his time in office that it is healthier to hire a candidate with experience in the workforce. Also in addition he believed there was less of a chance that they wouldnn't become corrupt due to them not coming for a high social background. In result from people who believed this way the merit system formed. This system dervied from China to British India during the 17th century and then into continental Europe. The advantage of one having political connections does not matter with this system. Mainting power was the key target. Background of a potenial official is not factored into the decision of hiring. 

Cell phone blog

In the case Riley vs California the courts were able to rule against the police after David Riley was sentenced 15 years in prison due to his phone linking him to a shooting. David Riley was pulled over by San Diego police in result of his car registration being expired, they found two loaded guns and saw text messages and videos in relation to a local gang. "It's the Supreme Court's job these days to try to balance the Constitution's somewhat antique values with today's technology" (14). The fourth amendment in the constitution prohibits " unreasonable searches and seizures" (15). The lack of a warrant or permission for them to seize the phone made this against the constitution. In addition the police looking through the cell phone. The Supreme Court overruled Riley's conviction. 

The difficulty is figuring out how the 18th century amendment applies to the 21st century electronic device, this problem lead to the overturning of this case. Our Founding Fathers wrote theses amendments with the purpose of to protecimg themselves against the British soldiers. Now Americans carry around these devices with all their information on them the making it their personal property. These devices can hold evidence making them crucial to open cases. "Chief Justice Roberts acknowledged that the ruling will make things harder for police" (17).  In conclusion the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of protecting the fourth amendment and many others, the court understands that digital information needs protection too. This is "the latest example of how the courts are trying to apply the basic rights enshrined in the constitution to life in the 21st century" (14). 

U.S Government Welfare Payment to Walmart.

Walmart recieves $2.66 billion from the government each year, about 420,000 per store and $5,815 per worker. Their full time employees seek public assistance in result from their low wages. The middle class is being destroyed because of companies like Walmart that do not provide livable wages when they easily could. When the middle class jobs disappear, their is no middle class. More compaines are giving the same treatment to benefit themseleves. Customers continue to reward the companies behavior because of their cheap prices. The Federal government has to take care of their employees through medicaid, food stamps, and other social welfare programs. The author believes the "pro-business" voices of our country are in reality "closet communists". They want everything to be made in China and Americans workers to be paid like the Chinese workers. 

The issue is that Americans feed into cheap prices of Walmart and are not taking any consideration of how their employees are treated. I do not agree with Wal-Mart's poor treatment to make larger profits.  "Today, Wal-Mart employs approximately 1.2 million people in the United States, and it makes a yearly profit of about 17 billlion dollars."  In addition, "Walmart is the leading food company in the U.S (taking a one of every four dollars spent on food in the U.S)". The author adds more evidence of Wal-Mart's business success, they have the largest fleet of trucks, a larger global computer network than the pentagon, and twice the number of employees than the U.S Postal Service. The amoutn Americans alone spend $36 million dollars per hour in their stores.

The Federal government programs should only be to help people in need, and should not be needed for employed Americans especially large companyies like Wal-Mart where they have the funds to  provide a liveable paycheck to their workers. In addition these workers seek heath care, $1 billion in heath care is provided from the Federal government. The essential question of this article the author is providing is "what is the society going to look like as millions more Americans become dependent on the federal government each year?" I agree with his concern to the nation and economy as a whole. If this one business can have this much affect on the people and economy of  our country what will happen when mutliple  businesses follow in their footsteps. 

Article: http://michaelsnyder.mensnewsdaily.com/2014/12/the-2-6-billion-dollar-welfare-payment-that-the-u-s-government-gives-to-wal-mart/

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