Lissette's Econ Blog

How To Save Money

2007-06-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

The article More Advice Graduates Don’t Want to Hear by Damon Darlin in The New York Times gives information concerning good saving habits. We all know that once money is in our hands it just goes through our hands as sand, so in this article Darlin sayd that graduates should save 10% fo their income and never borrow money to pay for a depreciating asset. Also he mentioned to spot the lattemaniac, young people are getting realy adicted to them and lets face it, they could cost more than five bucks, this one i think isvery easy and I will stop I love lattes, but yearly they are costing me a fortune.

Plus if young people started saving now, when they get to 60 their money will have increased a lot, its better to save small amounts now than save a huge one later (if later you do have money to save).

Here are some of the main advices to save money:

*Buy used things, except maybe used tires.
*Get on the do-not-call list and other do-not-solicit lists so you can’t be tempted.
*Watch infomercials for their entertainment value only.
*Know what your credit reports say, but don’t pay for that knowledge.

*Consolidate your cable, phone and Internet service to get the best deal.
*Resist the lunacy of buying premium products like $2,000-a-pound chocolates.
*Lose weight. Carrying extra pounds costs tens of thousands of dollars over a lifetime.

taxes- How Does The Government Spends Money?

2007-05-23T06:25:00.000-07:00

The US Government spends peoples taxes: department of labor, department of education, department of commerce, department of homeland security, environmental protection agency, health and human services, department of energy, NASA, treasury department, department of transportation etc...
The State of New York spend taxes, in jails, community service, medicines, health plan, the homeless, public places (parks, picking up garbage etc)

Saving and Debt

2007-05-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

My reaction to the New York Times article:

Couple Learn the High Price of Easy Credit is shocking, because interest partically makes your debts impossible to pay them off. People get into bebt just by buying a house or any item when their interest are high. Finance charges cann be so dangerous because their interest rates are high and if you miss a payment you will get a fee and the interest rates increases even more. Americans do not save money anymore because they have to use that money to pay off their debts and their interests.

Critique of GDP Podcast

2007-05-16T06:11:00.000-07:00

In economics class students were assigned to create a podcast about the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), students needed to answer a set of questions provided by Mr. Moloney, The podcast that i decided to review was David-Magnos' , I think that the podcast is well organized, it answers all the questions, with deep and thoughtfull answers.
The recording is pretty unstable the majorities of times, sometimes their voices are too low, also in some sentences I could tell that they were reading the infirmation from a piece of paper, but overall I liked it a lot, it very informatiove and it goes right to the point.
The images are well organized, they appeared when they are supposed to, they go together with the information.
The podcats is interesting, but is not really creative, they just talk about the subject and go from there. I did learn a lot about the GDP, its well explained and gives you the informationfrom the beginning to the end.

US Trading Deficit- getting better?

2007-05-14T05:51:00.000-07:00

The article "Rising Exports Putting Dent In Trade Gap" from the New York Times, refers about trade deficit and how trades all over the world are being handle, it informs that 500 companies are going to rely on generating more than 1/2 of their sales in foreign nations. Trade deficit is the excess of imports over exports. The US trade deficit is likely to go down in the furute because the United States buys less goods than they sell, the kind of product that the US is selling overseas are: factory machinery, earth-moving equipment and the digital components used to build a modern telecommunications backbone. A weak dollar can actually help the US economy and the trade deficit because it has became more expensive to buy for European countries.

Taxes-How Does The Government Get Money?

2007-05-09T05:53:00.000-07:00

The different types of taxes Americans pay are: federal taxes, state taxes, and local taxes.
Federal Taxes: The actual amount of federal income tax that your business pays each year is determined partly by the type of legal entity you have created.
Americans pay a lot of taxes everything you buy come with taxes for them to pay.
Also people pay taxes when you have a property( house, store etc), this goes to the state.

Students Loans - Beware

2007-05-08T14:31:00.000-07:00

I think some of these culinary schools students took out such a large student loans because they were told by the school that as chefs, they would earned at least $40,000 yearly, but the truth is that they make only around $20,000 yearly, half of what students were expected to get or sometimes less, another reason could be that they wanted to get the best education they could because they thought they will have the $40,000 yearly promised by the school to pay the loan.

Student loans is a great way to get educatedwithout worring for maney until you are done with college, I think is a great resource for us, students, that do not have the money right in their pockets to pay for their careers.

I do plan on taking student loans, the amount I will take will be approximately $32,000, hopefully it wont take me all my life to pay it back.

Critique of Federal Reserve Podcast

2007-03-19T05:54:00.000-07:00

For this assignment second and forth period had to talk about the Federal Reserve System, we had to do a podcast answering some questions provided by Mr. Moloney, students had to listen to some else's podcast, for example I listened to Lucy and Veronica's podcast{http://mmoloneyiths.com/econ/podcasts/fed/lucy-veronica.mov}, the content of their podcast was really interesting they answered all the questions correctly, the sound was very clear but sometimes they made it a little obvious that they were reading, over all for their first time they did pretty good!!!
The images went well coordinated with what they were talking about, it educated me to know a little bit more about the Fed, I think they got the hang of it. WELL DONE!!!

Compound Interest and the Rule of 72!!!

2007-03-15T06:13:00.000-07:00

Compound interest is when interest is earned on a principal sum along with any accumulated interest on that sum. meaning that you're earning interest on interest. it makes your money grows by percent in years.

The equation for compound interest is: P = C(1+ r/n)nt

The Rule of 72 is a rule that investors use to approximate the time it takes for money to double at a given rate of return. It states that if you divide the number 72 by any given rate of return the answer you get is the time it takes for money to double at that given interest

Insider Trading Scandal

2007-03-02T05:56:00.000-08:00

One of the largest Wall Street insider trading rings, since the 1980s. Some of the suspects are executives and brokers at firms such as Bear Stearms and Bank of America Securities have been accused of $15million. A recent report stated that the suspects used research information regarding stock values and corporateacquisitions stolen from UBS Securities and Morgan Stanley to make stock trades. Ringleaders in the UBS scheme allegedly used clandestine meetings at Manhattan's famed Oyster Bar and disposable cell phones, secret codes abd cash kickbacks to hide their illegal activities. The suspects will be in prison up to 25 years, only one off the suspectshas already pleaded guilty.

Dow down 416 pts.!- Why???

2007-03-01T14:03:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, China’s worst one-day tumble in a decade set off a tumult that rolled through markets around the globe, from Tokyo to Frankfurt to Brazil to Wall Street. Jones Down went down 416 pts, meaning that the whole globe lost billions of dollars.
Shares in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Australia and the Philippines all tumbled more than 2 percent after Wall Street suffered its worst day since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Dow went down because many people sold their stocks and not as many people bought the stocks that were being sell.
This is good new for people that wanted to buy stocks because now is a great time to buy stocks they are really cheap!!!

Opportunity Cost

2007-02-27T14:45:00.000-08:00

What are opportunity costs? Give some examples. And give some examples from your own life.
The decision to produce or consume a product involves giving up another product. In my case the opportunity cost of going to college is the money I would have earned if I worked instead. On the one hand, I lose four years of salary while getting your degree; on the other hand, I hope to earn more during your career, thanks to my education.

Types of Economic System

2007-02-27T14:10:00.000-08:00

-Traditional economy is an economic system in which resources are allocated by inheritance, and which has a strong social network and is based on primitive methods and tools.
-Centrally Planned (Command) Economy is an economic system in which the state or government controls the factors of production and makes all decisions about their use and about the distribution of income.
-Market Economy is an economic system in which the production and distribution of goods and services takes place place through the mechanism of free markets guided by a free price system rather than by a state in a planned economy.
-Mixed Economy is an economy that has a mix of economic systems. It is usually defined as an economy that contains both private-owned andstate-owned enterprises or that combines elements of capitalism and socialism, or a mix of market economy andcommand economy.

Socialism is an economic system in which the goverment conducts major companies and lets individuals own the rest and communism is when the governments ownes and conducts the nation's capital.

Stock Markert Game- Initial Investment Stragety

2007-02-27T13:56:00.000-08:00

My stragety for this game is to accumulate the most money possible and be in the first place and beat Mr. Moloney
I will buy some stock from recognized companies and others stocks from ones that are not that well known but that make a lot of money!!!
With the $50,ooo that I start with, I will try to rise it to the most, which is pretty hard because the game only takes a few months and I will have to be very precise to buy from the right companies. Hopefully i will get to my goal soon or at least when they game is over.