ALERT! DANGER ZONES!!
30 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
- Ineffective evaluation
In most of the practice paper 1 and 2, I always showed weakness in evaluating. Sometimes I wrote a partial evaluation, yet I always failed to include a thorough evaluation. Therefore, my grades were rather lower than I expected. By practicing more and remembering the criteria well, I want to increase my skill of evaluation (CRAMPSS)
- Lack of explanation about economic relationships
I usually defined and explained each economic concept effectively, yet I always lost marks when I had to explain relationships between those concepts. Sometimes, I start explaining the relationships and get confused about which concept I’m explaining. Since explanation is the most fundamental and significance aspect of the extended response, I will improve my explanation skills through more practices and thorough understanding of ideas.
Obama’s turn: What is he going to do with Tax Cuts?
30 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
The Bush tax cuts are viewed as the tax system for the rich, because the rich pay smaller proportion of their income for tax. It is based on the regressive tax cuts. Regressive tax cut system basically refers to the system in which the effective tax rate, which is the percentage of one’s income one pay in taxes, decreases as income goes up. That is, rich people pay less percentage of their total income than poor people do. While there are many different opinions on this, according to the article, President Obama wants to expire this tax cut and bring in a more progressive tax system to promote fairness in paying taxes. If a tax is progressive, unlike regressive tax, the effective tax rate increases as a person’s income goes up. That is, rich people pay higher proportion than the poor do. The economist Mark Zandi insists that the tax cut should be expired after the economy is fully driven out of the economic recession. The reason is that the rich will start conserving their money since they will be paying higher proportion of their incomes as taxes. Nevertheless, the President believes that making tax more progressive is the key to satisfy the fairness. As you can see on the top left hand side, the graph shows how progressive tax curve is pointing upwards, whereas the regressive tax curve is pointing downwards. Although there are a lot of debate on this controversial issue, Obama seems to expired the Bush tax cut for the altruistic goal of achieving fairness. Whether his decision is correct will be determined later by citizens.
Extend the Bush tax cuts: Is it FAIR?
26 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
According to the article, there are many debates over whether to extend the Bush tax cuts. Currently, the Obama Administration has defined “rich” if an individual earns more than two hundred thousand dollars a year or a household earns two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. Although some Conservatives consider the Obama
Administration’s threshold for the “rich” to be low, people who are to be categorized as “rich” by the new administration still belong to top 3 percent. Hence, increasing the tax by a little will not cause individuals or households to break down financially. However, there is a big irony that you can find in the tax cut systems in the U.S.: the top and the second-highest bracket of the whole population pay the SAME amount of tax, when their income differs. It is strange because the top bracket population generally pays less than they should be paying, if the system were to be “fair.” Nevertheless, the rich still says that it’s not fair, for they are not as privileged as they should be.
The diagram above is the graph of Lorenz curve. This curve illustrates the degree of equality of distribution of income with the use of Gini coefficient, which measures the degree of income inequality. When the value of Gini coefficient is closer to 0 (when the Lorenz curve is more angled), the income inequality is greater, and vice versa. Currently, the U.S. is not achieving the straight Lorenz curve (Gini coefficient closer to 1), which means there’s a great income inequality.
To evaluate the fairness of the Bush tax cuts, multifarious opinions from different stakeholders can be analyzed. Having the tax cuts will be more beneficial to all the stakeholders (poor, middle class and rich) than eradicating because then, all the stakeholders will be taxed heavily. However, when the issue of fairness comes up, the middle class might complain.
End of Year Reflection
10 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized
In this course, I could find many things about myself as a learner of IB Economics. First, I found out that I am interested in Economics, but sometimes I have hard time understanding the details of concepts. Also, I found out that I am good at short answer questions. However, for extended responses, I got marks off for not mentioning several aspects. Throughout the year, we practiced many of Data-based questions, yet I think we lacked practicing extended response (paper 1 questions). Furthermore, this year, I got lower grade in semester 2, and I think I didn’t understand the concepts well. Next year, I want to learn more from lectures and spend more time on learning the concepts. Also, I hope we practice paper 1 questions and learn what we should include to get high marks on the exam. Overall, I like the class and I think it will be better without several time-consuming group projects because I don’t think the group projects help the learning a lot.
PBL Reflection
31 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized
I personally think that Problem Based Learning is not the best way to learn the concepts for me. First, I think spending about three weeks on this project was quite long. Knowing that we have a lot of time to work on the project, I couldn’t focus well. Also, I don’t think I learned a lot compared to the time we spent on this project. Although I understand the basic concepts that we covered in this project, I am still confused between several different types of policies. Next, I think we need more practice to understand the problem fully, since I thought that we didn’t quite understand how some groups would think, when we promote certain policies. Also, the mini-lectures didn’t work for me. I thought the mini-lectures were too fast that I think I understand at the spot, but later, I can’t remember the significance of it.
Today’s presentation was the final product of the 3-week PBL project. To be honest, I wasn’t satisfied with what we’ve done. The actual 5-minute presentation part was done by the person who was chosen from the random drawl. However, when it came to the question time, I regretted not to plan for answering the questions. It’s true that the questions were very hard and sudden, but we should have divided the work in order to answer to each representative more effectively. Moreover, it would have been better if we had practice presentation in the same conference room. Overall, I think I will be able to do well, if we practice more.
iPad in Korea!
29 Apr 2010 2 Comments
in Economics
The demand for the iPad by Apple continues to increase as the consumers find them interesting. In the near future, it will
have the same Wi-Fi 3G ability as the iPhone. The iPad is basically a mixture of iPod Touch and iPhone, yet the calling and texting abilities are gone. The iPad is going to be sold in Korea with the Wi-Fi 3G in June. Seeing the success of iPhone in Korea, the iPad is also expected to be sold a lot. In Korea, Samsung and many other cell phone producers tried to compete against the iPhone by lowering the price and enhancing the appearance. It seemed to work at first, yet consequently, a lot of people use iPhone regardless of the price or the appearance. There are many reasons, but two major ones are the brand value and the consumer taste. Since iPhone is used by consumers all over the world, Korean consumers also become curious and get interested into iPad.
This can be another alert to Korean companies as many of those companies are planning on producing the tablet PCs. If iPad starts to be sold in Korea, those companies will also promote their goods at much cheaper price with brand names. Although I am not sure if I will get one, I am surely interested in it. However, I am not sure how my decision will affect the Korea’s economy.
Circular Flow Diagram
26 Apr 2010 1 Comment
Four-sector circular flow diagram with injections and withdrawals
As money passes around the economy, from firms to households and vice versa, some will leave in the form of withdrawals, such as savings, taxes, and spending on imports, and some will enter in the form of injections, such as investment, government spending, and revenue from exports.
Save the EARTH!
20 Apr 2010 2 Comments
It was Earth Week at Canadian Academy (Kobe, Japan). During this week, energy and resources were to be saved in various ways on each day of the week. Although it was whole school activity, Middle School had more detailed goals for each day. There were posters all around the school in order to make people think once more before using resources. In my opinion, turning off all the printers was the highlight of this week for High School. I am sure that not only students but also the teachers realized how much we need the resources, yet how much we waste them.
However, I asked myself a question: “Is the Earth Week really effective as to conserve the energy and resources?”
I thought about it. At first, I answered, “Yes.” Everyone definitely used fewer resources and tried to cut down the energy use during the week. Fewer papers were wasted and less energy was used meaninglessly. Though the short-term goals were achieved, I am uncertain if this will lead us to the long-term success. We discussed about this issue in class and found out that some students didn’t actually print fewer times during the Earth Week. Since they couldn’t print at school, they printed more at home. Hence, there may be a little conservation of energy at school, but overall, the energy and resources were used.
Therefore, I think the Earth week aroused negative externalities. Negative externalities are actions of a product on consumers that imposes negative side effects on the third party, and they are usually related to the environmental consequences of production and use. By limiting the printing, there were more printing occurred outside of the school. Therefore, the energy and resources are wasted at the same rate as normal weeks or even more, but not less. As the graph shows, the welfare loss (wasting energy at higher or the equivalent rate) occurs as the MPB (marginal private benefit) curve shifts from MPB1 to MPB0. Hence, the optimum equilibrium between MSC (marginal social cost) and MPB curves change to the equilibrium that causes the welfare loss.
Which one is the Best Economy in the World?
15 Apr 2010 Leave a Comment
The best economy is the economy of the United States of America.
-health care: large portion of government expenditure
-education: large portion of government expenditure
-GDP: high
-unemployment rate: low
