Business Cycles, Recessions, and Depressions

          It is so tough to predict the business cycle because it is driven by a tug-of-war between expectations and reality. What I mean by this is that companies, businesses, and households are constantly basing their plans off how much they expect their sales to grow by, Greg even states, "Business cycles are an unavoidable and largely unpredictable feature of market economies."(2 Ip) These are the why the business cycle is so hard to predict.
          There are two kinds of markets that exist. There is a bull market and a bear market. A bull market is when economic activity and investments appear to be long-term climb. The unemployment rate is usually low as well. A bear market is when economic activity and investments appear to be decreasing. The unemployment rate usually goes up during this period. (2 Ip)

          The cause of economic problems has differed over the years.  In the nineteenth century natural disasters and bank scares caused it to crash.  In 1973 and 1990, it crashed from a spike in oil prices.  In 2001, it crashed because the technology investments crashed.  In 2007, it crashed because housing values plummeted.  It is almost like like a reoccurring disease.  "We can develop immunity to the last virus we contracted.  The problem is that it mutates and we're susceptible all over again." (3 Ip)
          A recession is two or more consecutive quarters of declining GDP.  A recession leads up to a depression, but does not always become a depression.  In order for a recession to turn into a depression the bungee cord has to break.  What I mean by that is the economy has to hit rock bottom and stay there for a while.  Truman described recession and depression as, "a recession [is] when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours." (5 Ip) 

The Hidden Economy

          When most people here about the underground economy they think about the black market.  This is not the case though.  The hidden economy is system of workers who can not find a full-time employment.  These people are usually paid in cash for doing certain tasks and all this is done without the government's knowledge of the transaction taking place.  Some examples of this are paying housekeepers, the hiring of illegal immigrants, and one day construction tasks.
          The hidden economy can be beneficial in several different ways.  It can help support the actual economy by providing the working class extra spending money to put into the economy.  It can also allow workers to provide for their families even though many people loss work hours.  Also the income that you make in the hidden economy is tax free because the government does not know about the transaction that took place.
          The underground economy can be detrimental for several different reasons.  The first is that it causes the government to loss money so they increase taxes to make up for the money lost in the hidden economy.  Secondly, the hidden economy usually leads to increased drug issues and other violent crimes.  Thirdly, those who participate in the hidden economy don't receive Social Security and health benefits for the tasks they are doing.

Net Neutrality

          
          Do you want big businesses to own the internet?  Big businesses, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Cox, Comcast,  and Time Warner Brother Cable are trying to dispose of the law that creates net neutrality.  Net neutrality is the principle that everyone should treat data on the internet equally, without any discrimination. This is important to both corporations and consumers because it would allow them to have priority over other internet websites, thus increasing the speed of their website as long as they pay extra.  For consumers this would mean that only big companies would be able to have fast internet so little businesses would go bankrupt, thus limiting competition and increasing prices.  The FCC controls the neutrality of the internet because is in charge of all communications, including the internet, radio, and television.


Sources:
https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~raylin/whatisnetneutrality.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU

Spoils vs. Merit System

          In 1789 George Washington became the first president of the United States.  When he was in office, he mainly hired employees that were members of the Federalist  Party.  After Washington stepped down, Thomas Jefferson dismissed the employees hired by Washington and hired employees that supported his own political party.  This set a precedence that created the Spoils System, in which new presidents dismiss previous employees and hire new ones that support their party.  There are several benefits to this system.  The first benefit is that the new president can reward his supporters by giving them jobs.  The second benefit is that it prevents employees from becoming corrupt by changing them out, president Jackson argued this while he was in office.  The third benefit of the system is that president would people who support him in office.
        In 1881 this system changed from the Spoils System to the Merit System. This occurred after a president Charles Guiteau was assassinated because one of his supporters did not receive a job.  The Merit System requires that each applicant take a competitive exam, and whoever is most qualified and receives the highest score on the exam will be hired.  Now-a-days, 85 to 90 percent of federal employees must take this exam.  The benefits of this is that it allows qualified individuals to receive a position instead of whoever the president decides to appoint.  It also gives opposed party members equal opportunity to receive a job.  The Merit System also allows the government to remain stable by not dismissing employees when a new president is elected.  Finally, this prevents supporters from thinking that they deserve a federal job.  
          I believe that the Merit System is still active in the federal and local government.  If you support the president or local elected official they will recommend you for the position or usually make sure obtain a job.  A while ago, Obama gave jobs to several supporters who had donated large sums of money to help him during his election.  Mainly of his supporters received well paying, higher positions in the government.  This proves that spoils system is still around today, but is just not as prominent as it once was.


Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-influence-industry-obama-gives-administration-jobs-to-some-big-fundraisers/2012/03/06/gIQA9y3txR_story.html?hpid=z2

Cell Phones and The Constitution

Recently the Supreme Court got a case dealing with Fourth Amendment and cell phones.  The case was about a man who got 15 years in prison because they found some evidence on his cell phone.  The ruling was that the police should have gotten a warrant to search his cellular device and that it violated his Fourth Amendment rights.  This now sets a precedents requiring law enforcement to recieve a warrant for searching electronic devices.  I personally agree with the Supreme Courts decision that requires police officers to get warrants.  "These days days law enforcement can sometimes use e-mail to get a warrant within 15 minutes," (17).  Getting a warrant today is really not that hard.  The privacy that this decision creates is quite important because the amount of information you can get off of your cell phone.  "An average smartphone can hold 100 times more information than the entire 72,000-page collection of James Madison's papers in the Library of Congress," (16).  All this information on your phone is about you and it is a violation of your privacy if the police can access it with out a warrant.  

In emergency situations the decision does not have to be upheld, but in all other situations the decision  must be upheld.  This is because in emergency situations police officers have to violate your privacy without a warrant as stated in the Fourth Amendment.  The main problem is that the suspects can delete the information off their cell phones .  "The possibility that evidence could be destroyed or hidden by remote devices or encryption programs could be addressed  by an officer turning off the phone or placing it in a special evidence bag that blocks the signal until a warrant can be obtained," (16).  This desicion is good in the long run too because it is protecting American Citizens from the government.  This decision may also lead to some people filing law suits against the NSA for the surveillance program used to collect information from our cellular devices.

Government News

       

          In 2007 the Department of Homeland Security released 800 pages related to the Aurora Project when they replied to the Freedom of Information Act request for a malware attack on Google.  The Aurora project was doing research on how easy it would be to hack elements in power and water systems.  Once the machine control system is hacked, it can be used throw the machine's parts out of synchronization causing parts of the system to break down and eventually the machine to break.  Within these papers was also a list the main power plants and pump stations across the country.  If these stations were shut down, it would take out large sections of the power grid and shutdown water lines.  You may not think this applies currently, but it still does.  Some people believe that the hacking that occurred at Sony was a test to see if they could hack the United States successfully. 

          The good part is this problem is easily fixed with a single part that the Department of Defense will provide to any power plant, but unfortunately most power plants won't install this part due to the fact that it will open their facilities to NERC-CIP audits. An attack on these stations would also be as easily traced as the attack on Sony was.  This is do the fact that no programs are needed to be uploaded into the control systems in order to break the machines, and these programs that are uploaded are what is used to figure out who hacked the system.  Hopefully, this never happens.

          I believe the government should force the devices upon the electrical companies and make them install them because of the risk to the United States of America.  The government should also not force the electrical plants to have NERC-CIP audits for installing the devices to help make their system for secure from hackers.  I agree with the article that this is a serious matter and should not be overlooked.  It has been seven years since the problem was discovered.  This should have been fixed long ago in order to prevent hackers from trying to take down our electrical grid.  

Work Cited:

Tucker, Patrick. "How a DHS Document Dump Imperiled U.S. Security."Government Executive. Defense One, 2 Jan. 2015. Web. 6 Jan. 2015. <http://www.govexec.com/technology/2015/01/how-dhs-document-dump-imperiled-us-security/102129/?oref=top-story>.

The Electoral College

        The Electoral College was created as a way to protect the elite from the poor.  The elite did not want the poor people of society to have too much power.  They were afraid that the poor would try to use the government to take money away from the rich.  For that reason they created an indirect democracy that allowed the elite to be protected and poor to feel they have some control over the government.  Another reason that the Electoral College was created is to it allow small states to have several votes in the election for president. If they did it by population, small population states would not even matter to candidates and would be completely ignored.  They are already some what ignored, but they would not matter if it was done by population.

          I personally believe the Electoral College is fair and without it we would have quite a few problems.  The first reason I believe that is because there will always be an immediate outcome.  If we were to vote for president with the popular vote, the candidates will always ask for recounts to try and get more votes which will extend the process and complicate it.  The second reason is that makes it so the president cannot just be popular within a particular region of the country.  That is because of the amount of votes you need to get in order to become president is greater than any, one region of country can give.  The third and final reason is that it helps prevent runoffs that could occur if we elected the president from popular vote.  One example of this is the 1992 election between Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, (Source).  For these reasons I think the Electoral College is fair.