US Trade Deficit: Getting Better?

And what about the US dollar - how can a weak dollar actually help the US economy and the trade deficit?

This New York Times article, entitle Rising Exports Putting Dent in Trade Gap. The article was about how American companies are now relying significantly on sales from foreign territories. As a result of this new dependency, the huge trade deficit which as plagued to US may slowly start to decrease. Accord to the article, 500 companies in America are expecting %50 of their sales to be generated outside of the US. Trade deficit is when a country losses more money importing goods and services than it earns through exports. The opposite to this is known as trade surplus, when a country makes more money through exports than it losses through imports. And due to a weak dollar, American goods are also competitive in foreign domains.

The sort of goods that the US exports are cars, such as GM and construction equipment and engines such as those provided by Caterpillar. America is also exporting it's franchises, such as McDonald's and KFC. Infact, there are more KFCs in China than in America.

Taxes - How Does The Government Spend Money?

Taxes are an inevitable part of life. We know that we are taxed by all levels off government, which include federal, state and city governments. As much as 30% of out income is taken away before it evens reaches ours hands' because of tax. But where is it all going? Well, according to this chart, 30% of the United States' tax dollars goes towards the military! Thats a lot of money dedicated to killing people! Go America! Another 20.3% is dedicated towards health care, which is good to hear. But whats startling is that education receives are measly 3.7% of the governments spending. Thats barely enough to register on the pie chart. Is the destruction of our fellow man 3 times as valuable than the education of the future generations of the world? Apparently so. After searching for a while, I found it difficult to find a breakdown for New York's tax allocation. However, I did manage to find out that the number of full time park employees has fallen, even as the budget for part spending increases. And we all know that the governor has been using eminent domain to seize land in order to build stadiums all over the city.



It seems that at the end of the day, the true nature of government spending will be limited to the brightly colored segments of vague pie charts. It is apparently hard to come across concrete information, such as how much of that 3.7% used for education went towards paying teachers or buying text books or paying for building leases. Or did Joel Cline have throw a party and put it on the tax payers tab? Lets just hope that the people in control of our money have our best interests in mind.

Savings and Debt

After reading this article, "Couple learn the high price of easy credit", all I have to say is Hoe-ly cow! This family is over $100,000 in debt! I can understand how people fall in to so much debt. With interest rates as high as 32%, if allowed to go out of hand can easily spiral out of control. I believe the reason American's don't save more is because the cost of living is increasing , yet incomes are staying the same. It seems remarkably easy to fall into debt.

Other nations are suffering a similar faith or falling savings rates. From 1990 to 2003, Japan has suffer a sharp decline in it's savings rate. And while the United States's savings rate did climb in the year 2000, it has since fallen off, lower in fact than that of Japan, Britain, France and Italy.

Critique of Gross Domestic Product Podcast

I am critiquing the podcast of Ronald and Richard. The first thing that struck me was the originality of their podcast. It had a cool beat in the background, and Ronald is kind of yelling like a rap artist. At first the volume was loud and clear, however after a while the voices became inaudible and droning. The images were relevant, but seemed to be just a bunch of GDP graphs, but not having anything to do with what is being said immediately. Richard sounds like a girl. I didn't really learn anything, since we all did the same project. But theirs was by far more interesting than mine, as mine was just about 5 minutes of straight talking. I liked it.

Taxes - How Does The Government Get Money?

There are many ways for the government, both local and federal to make money, however the most important method is through tax. There are several types of tax: sales tax and income tax.
Income tax, which is designated by the federal government, is tax that is charged to individuals as well as corporate entites. This tax is levied from the idividual's source of income, such as thier wage. Some states also chrge income tax, but not all.

Sales tax is chraged at the point of purchase, or at the time an item is payed for. Sales tax is usually charged by the state. The tax rate for Queens, New York is 8.375% while the tax rate for Saratoga Springs is only 7%.

There is also a third form of tax - property tax. Property tax is a tax payed for the ownership of land. There are three categories that determine the value of a property and therefore the amount of tax that is to be payed: Land, Improvements to Land (immovable man made things), and Personalty (movable man made things). In America, property tax is handled at the county level.

Student Loans - Beware

We were asked to read a New York Times article called "Top Chef" Dreams, which was basically about how culanry school students pay exhorbitant amounts of money - up to $40,000 for a two year school. Only a fraction on that cost - up to $4000 - is covered by federal money. The rest has to be found through loans. When entering the school, students are told that they will have around a $200 monthly, but end up with a $700 monthly instead.

The reason why these students are falling into so much dept is not because of a lack of jobs in the market, but because these jobs don't pay very well. The average income for a culunary student is just over $9 an hour. At that rate, it would take a student thier entire life to pay off a nonsubsidesed loan.

In order to go to a private school like RIT, I would have to pay $35,000 for all 4 years together, which is insane. And RIT pretty much gaurantees a good paying job. Why would someone pay $45,00 for a 2 year school, that does not allow for good paying jobs when any CUNY or SUNY with an art program probablly also has a culunary program for a fraction of the cost.