Crash Course Economics 8 Answers

[Rosham Rosebure]

Forevery product you buy on Amazon, 40% of the price goes directly to Amazon. Corporate titans dominate the market, leveraging their control over technology and resources to outpace smaller rivals and impact value chains, labor, and economies. Why compete, when you can own the market? Why produce when you can lay back and collect monopoly rents? read more.. ...read less

We all know how that game of monopoly ends: winner takes all. But in the real world, there is hope: the hegemony of this system is being challenged. New battle lines are being drawn as the interests of different sectors of capital diverge. Consumers and workers are fighting back.

FiscalMatters' week of debate is the high-level moment on European fiscal policy in 2021. From September 27 to 30, it brings together the best minds to raise awareness and elicit debate. It builds on a wide range of perspectives to present recent academic work and connect ideas and people who care about our future and recognise the importance of fiscal policy for it. read more.. ...read less

But the tide seems to be turning for these powerful corporations. Increasingly, Big Tech is being recognized as a powerful enemy to democracy and part of the rising post-truth society which is fueling xenophobic and illiberal ideologies. Big Tech has gained the reputation of an unchecked corporate power.

In the past year the seven largest Big Tech firms had financial assets (surplus profits) of US $631 billion. In October 2020, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet each single one represented a value over US $1 trillion. The financial firepower of Big Tech firms is unrivaled, and new or independent platforms often do not stand a chance against these monopolists.

These seven Big Techs increasingly dominate the tech universe, with thousands of smaller platforms orbiting around them. Millions of applications are built on top of them -- all relying on its core infrastructure, and paying rent for doing so. With each firm having cornered its own monopoly, Big Tech as a whole has effectively come to colonize key forms and means of social exchange, broadly defined, overlaying the ways in which people interact via digital interfaces.

This Crash Course series investigates the main threats and challenges that Big Tech monopolies confront us with and invites you to contribute to progressive answers to rogue techno-scientific capitalism.

The indebtedness of developing countries had reached alarming levels before the Covid-19 crisis. A wall of money, managed by investment funds seeking profits across the planet, had an endless appetite for investments in debt from the Global South. Once the panic hit capital markets in March 2020, financial flows to the Global South suddenly stopped. The drop in financial flows to developing countries was faster and larger than at any crisis seen before. Since May, money has started to flow back, leaving the Global South with even less means for coping with the consequences of the Covid-19 crisis.

In the 1990s, global financial markets were further liberalised, creating opportunities for speculative funds to take advantage. This resulted in new debt crises in regions like East Asia. More recently we have also seen the controversial handling of the Greek debt crisis and the severe adjustment package imposed upon Greece, with the consequences that followed from it.

Our new Crash Course on monetary policy, central banks and ideology is a platform designed to open up debate on how we can move out of the current crisis and make the necessary steps towards achieving social, economic and ecological justice. Crash Course is inviting global experts on monetary policy to break down complex issues in lay terms and make them accessible to all so that we can understand how to shape our global monetary policy for a fairer future. read more.. ...read less

QE policies were controversial right from the start. While the community of central bankers had always displayed a unified front, QE policies led to a visible split on several issues. The Bank for International Settlements, for example, refuted the claims made by the European Central Bank (ECB) that QE money was reaching the real economy.

There was also a global component. Investors searched for a return on investment as interest rates were low in the global north. One of the outlets of this massive wall of money looking for activities was a huge increase in the amount of debt in in the global south. In particular, non-financial corporations and government debt in the global south swelled through bonds issued in dollars and euros. This debt will play an important role in how the Covid-19 crash will impact on economies throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Fast forward to the Covid-19 crash. Centrals banks intervened enormously as the global financial system appeared to go into the second meltdown in just 13 years. This time around everything is even bigger and moving even faster. But a community of engaged and critical researchers stands ready to comment on the ongoing monetary policy changes and help with formulating progressive policy proposals, drawing lessons from the previous global financial crisis.

If we are able to pump tens of trillions of dollars into the financial system to save the global economy, why not use this to finance the necessary steps to move to green societies? How can we use the Covid-19 crisis to become stronger than before? What is the role of central banks and monetary policies in this process? How can monetary policy be useful to avert a new decade of austerity and debt crisis in the global south, and to finance a global green deal instead?

I chose to major in economics, because I enjoy learning about human decision-making and how our decisions directly impact our communities and environment. I also appreciate the extreme versatility within the field. Economics is the perfect crossover of research and analysis with human activity. Economic theory reaches into the fields of both STEM and social science, involving studies of areas such as math, politics, and psychology. Additionally, economic theory allows for quantitative analysis and qualitative examination of human and economic interaction in complimentary fields like law, business, finance, consulting, health and athletics.

Our Economics Department provides collaborative learning experience with professors. In the economics classes I have taken, I was fortunate to meet so many brilliant professors who are more than willing to help us learn economics and prepare for our future. I enjoy going to office hours, where professors are willing to explain the class material until I can fully understand and are open to talk about my future plans.

During Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP), I had a chance to work as a research assistant for Professor Michael Kuehlwein who was my professor for Principles of Macroeconomics class. We researched the impact of rising minimum wages in Los Angeles (L.A.) on the employment rate of the garment industry in the city. I was fascinated by this topic because the empirical effect of the change in minimum wages is still debated despite the fact that the economic theory suggests that the rise of minimum wages would decrease the employment rate. For our research, after collecting a sample of apparel manufacturing firms in L.A. from 2008 to 2018, we measured the ratios of the employment rates in the garment industry in L.A. to that in the United States as well as the ratios of minimum wages in L.A. to the federal minimum wages over these years. By using ratios, we controlled for other factors that may influence the employment rate, such as the rise of the rent prices and global competition. We ran regressions to measure how the ratio of minimum wages in L.A. to the federal minimum wages, which has been increasing as the minimum wages in L.A. increases rapidly over the years, is correlated with the ratio of employment rate in L.A. to that in the U.S., or how much faster the employment rate is falling in L.A. compared to the national trend. Professor Kuehlwein helped me write my own research paper for the first time, and this experience gave me a glimpse of what it is like to conduct a research in economics.

Pomona College gives us opportunities to explore different subjects, and I believe that economics is the one that is worth being explored. This is not just because of how great our economic department is but also because this subject is intertwined with other fields of study. After taking economics classes, I became interested in other subjects which are also discussed in our economics courses, such as mathematics, politics, and environmental analysis. If you are a Pomona student, I would definitely recommend taking at least one econ class!

During the summer after my sophomore year, I was fortunate enough to have an internship at a private equity firm called the Vistria Group. They buy companies that work in healthcare, education, and/or financial services and try to improve their business models. I was working in the healthcare team and was tasked with creating an investment thesis for the durable medical equipment market, which is made up of things like glucose monitors, ventilators, and other products for chronic conditions. I had to use data from sources such as the Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services and the U.S. Census Bureau to support my argument, allowing me to use some of my economics knowledge in a real world situation. It was a really valuable experience and I also felt like I was doing some good in the world at the same time.

Growing up in Singapore, I was constantly exposed to policies which strived to maximize our benefits given the constraints of our limited natural resources. I had always considered an economics major, but with the vast array of fascinating fields offered, it initially felt difficult to confine myself to a single field of study. However, the beauty of economics lies in its multidisciplinary nature which allows me the flexibility to focus on economics in conjunction with my other interests.

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