Final Blog Post

My experience in this online course has been a little hectic, but ultimately I was able to finish all of my work by the due dates the majority of the time. Being honest, I thought that this class was going to be much less time consuming and I had some trouble managing my time in the earlier weeks, but I was able to handle the blunt of the work once I figured out voicethread, blogger, the online quizzes, etc. This course exceeded my expectations when it came to the amount of work, and the amount of material we would be learning about. This class was organized making it easy for me to travel, play baseball, and have a life outside of this class. I liked how we got all of our due dates at the beginning of each week because I was able to figure out when exactly I would complete my work. I think that having an online class this summer was a great idea, especially for a class like Economics because it allows me to get a history credit in a short span of six weeks.  Even though I had a decent experience with this class I would probably rather take a class like economics because I think I would learn better from a face-to-face confrontation rather than learning from a voice on a youtube video. Although the Skype discussions were a little awkward, but they were helpful because it gave me a feel for how other people were handling this class.

            I didn’t know much about Economics before this class, but what I learned will help me later in life. The most valuable thing I learned in this class is how much everything costs, and that I need to manage my money better now and when I get older. I learned about how the government takes money away from you and how the economy works. I think that this class will help me in college because I know that I will be doing more independent work after high school just like I did in this class. I am glad that I took this class and I think that there should be more classes like this at Episcopal High School.

Week 5 Blog Post

The three possible topics I am considering for my final project are the effect that a major sports franchise has on a local economy, the effect that hosting a super bowl will have on the city where it is held, and how much money should be sent on major state university's athletic programs. Obviously you can see that I have a sports theme to my three topics because those would be my most knowledgeable topics to write about.

Topic 1: The effect that Major Sports teams have on a local economy

    -A countless amount of dollars are spent every week at, and around Reliant Stadium during a fall football season on tickets, concessions, tailgating, at sports bars, etc. What people do on a Sunday afternoon is revolve there whole day around watching there local team. This sports franchise makes money for the tv networks, the grocery stores, local restaurants and bars, sports apparel stores, and much more. I am considering this topic because I want to show people how much a sports franchise impacts the city it's in and its economy.

Topic 2: The effect that hosting a super bowl will have on the city where it is held

     - The city of Houston is thrilled to be the future host of the Super Bowl in 2017. Not just because we love football and we take pride from the fact that it is in our city. The Super Bowl is the single biggest sporting event year after year, which means lots of money will come with it. While Houston is a big destination when it comes to business, you normally don't see many tourists visiting Houston over cities such as Miami, New York, and Los Angeles. On Super Bowl weekend in 2017, thousands of tourists will venture to the city of Houston to watch a football game, and most importantly spend money. These tourists will buy hotel rooms, spend money at our stores and restaurants, buy our gas, and much more. Hosting a Super Bowl will make the city of Houston a lot of money and it is very important that we are receiving it in 2017.

Topic 3: How much money should be spent on the athletics of state universities?

     - Did you know that Mack Brown, the head football coach of the University of Texas, is currently the highest paid government employee in the state of Texas? You may wonder, why is Texas spending so much money on a coach rather than a top professor. Education is more important than athletics right? While this is true, the revenue that the athletic department of a major university makes for the university is nearly enough to cover the expenses that academics at a school would cost. I am thinking about choosing this topic because not only am I interested to see how much a schools athletic program means financially to a school, but I also want to show everybody why an athletic program should be taken seriously in order for a school to make more money.

Week 4 blog post

I think that it is worthwhile for us to measure the overall health and happiness of a nation in economic terms to an extent. I think that if certain economic terms such as becomes to extreme in a certain direction, then it could certainly affect the overall health and happiness of a nation. For example, the air pollution in the United States today can be considered bad. We have one of the most industrialized countries, if not the most industrialized countries so you can expect air pollution in the United States to be somewhat bad. Despite the below average air quality in large cities, and towns that house factories and refineries we remain content because the air pollution is not so extreme to the extent that it effects the way we live. In this case we don’t need to measure our nations happiness on the economic term of air quality because it has not reached an extreme. An example of a place where the poor quality of air has become so extreme is Mexico City. The people of Mexico City are told when it is safe to leave there house without having to wear a mask and when you must stay inside, or wear a mask when leaving your home. The poor air quality here has become so extreme that it is directly affecting the health and well being of this city’s inhabitants. Overall, I think that we should still measure our nations well being based on economic terms, but we should not take them too seriously unless they become too extreme in either direction. I think that the economic terms that the United States currently uses to measure the well being of our country do not need to change. Robert Kennedy’s made some great points in the second paragraph when he states that we determine our countries gross national product.

Week 3 Econ Blog Post

         A moment that I can reflect on where not enough information was provided for me in my EHS experience is the beginning of my high school career. I am not sure if this was a withholding of information more than it was just a wake up call for me, but one thing that I think I may have benefited from in my freshman year is if I knew that I needed to keep track of my assignments in form of a planner, or the sticky tabs application on my mac. I'm sure everybody has there tactics for remembering whether or not they have a quiz the next day, or figuring out which day there project is due. For me, I need to be as organized as possible, or I will surely forget about all of my assignments or do them wrong. The people in the College Counseling office always say "Your Freshman year matters just as much as your senior year." Sure, this makes sense, but this warning does not give me enough information on how to do as well as possible in my freshman year. Going into our freshman year, Ms. Davidson taught a summer school class teaching students how to study and how to be organized headed into high school. This class was generally for the weaker middle school students and was not offered to the average student. I could have really benefited from this class because it would have taught me to be more organized and I would have known that I needed to keep track of my work in a planner rather than attempt to remember them off the top of my head. If this class was offered to every student I really would have made better grades in the first semester of my high school career.

Blog Post Week 2

A recent example of where a local government has attempted to intervene with the market takes place in New York City by means of rationing. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed that all restaurants, fast food joints, movie theaters, gas stations, sports stadiums, and food carts may not  serve soft drinks/sodas that exceed 16 ounces in size. The proposal was shot down, but the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is fighting it in court currently. While Bloomberg's proposal should be very affective in preventing diseases such as diabetes, I think that his office could have created a stronger proposal. What they should do is tax very high on large drinks. They should tax those who sell 16 OZ or greater sodas, and they should tax those heavily who sell these drinks. This would allow New York City to be better financially and spend the taxes they gain from the large soft drinks  on more important aspects such as roads, schools, and public goods. Being honest I do not agree with Mayor Bloomberg and his attempt to put this ban on large soft drinks. I think that people will always find away around this rule and I do not think that the enforcing of this rule will make much of a difference to the city. If they decided to make this idea beneficial financially for the city then I may back it. With all of the health problems such as air pollution, alcohol and drugs going on in New York City, I don't think that Mayor Bloomberg needs to put any of his focus on sugary soft drinks. It is a good idea and a fairly harmless idea that Bloomberg and his advisers came up with, but they should adjust their ideas on taxes towards this, or they should worry about other harmful substances to peoples body's other than Coke. 

Week 1

My experience so far in Mr. Bradshaw's online course has been a little stressful. I am not the best with technology and I am having some trouble figuring out these new programs. I have been barely meeting these past few deadlines because I have been getting back from baseball tournaments pretty late and I had some trouble figuring out where to start earlier in the week. Something that I like about this course is the material that we are learning about. I think that learning about money and how the economy works is interesting and it is a lot more fun to lean about then classes such as Algebra and Chemistry. I do think I would enjoy this class more if I took it during the school year because I think that I probably would learn more from a teacher face to face rather than a video lecture. Something that has surprised me about this course is learning about how much work goes into putting together a well run company financially. I think that the video chatting should have focused more on the actual course work and less on small talk. I felt like I was having more of a conversation then actually learning something. I'm not bashing the use of Skype in this class, I just think the topics we were to discuss should be slightly different.