I believe this is one of the most important issues we face today. In my opinion, the money is being tied up and is stuck at the top. The richest of the rich aren’t paying an adequate amount of taxes, and the middle class is being forced to make up for it. With rising taxes and shrinking incomes, the middle class carries most of the stress. We’re paying taxes, but that leaves us with less money to put back into our economy, so how do we keep it going?
Theres not to many ted talks that can make me laugh but “is the future sustainable” was not only amusing it was incredibly fascinating. I had previously done allot of research on the concept of fish sanctuaries primary those kept in tanks that are extremely polluted. This ted talk was pretty surprising for me because i had not realized that there was a fully self sustaining fish sanctuary. I have looked into allot of self sustaining models for solutions to world hunger but i believe natural fish sanctuaries could be a possible real solution. and could be created with little to no infrastructure and maintenance. One other concept that i really liked is the concept of low maintenance high reward vegetation growth. Below is a link to a ted talk that explains everything about this computerized farming. its a really neat idea that could have the possibility of huge implications for the world.
https://www.ted.com/talks/caleb_harper_this_computer_will_grow_your_food_in_the_future?language=en
Below is a short article about the economic woes for Africa’s top 4 economies. I have been hearing allot in the news lately about how african economies are not doing as well as predicted and there growth is slowing. One thing i found shocking in this article is the percentage of revenue in some african counties and there reliance on oil. For example Angola receives 95% of its government revenue from oil. I just cant believe in todays world that fully organized government does not realize that a diversified portfolio is a means to avoid the scenarios they face today. But in broader terms what will the reduction in growth mean for the rest of the world. companies are pulling out because of stagnant growth which further exacerbates the crises. what will be the future result for countries like Nigeria? I think this actually might contribute to a rise in gas prices. which i hope not because i have been enjoying paying less at the pump.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/15/news/economy/africa-economy-south-africa-nigeria-kenya-angola/
The whats the goal videos was very interesting i thought the video regarding GDP as a false indicator of growth is an excellent video. One example that fits best into this is china. they have enormous GDP growth and allot of it is falsified by mass amounts of infrastructure and other factors being pumped up by government support which makes china look as if it is growing when the reality is the disparity of wealth is growing and peoples average lives are not getting any better. This falsified GDP levels of growth are making it look as if China is doing better than the rest of the world when the reality of the situation is just the opposite. The other video talking about happiness as an economic indicator was something that i had never heard before. I thought it would play a larger role than simply more happiness equals higher pay grade but the concept itself interests me and is something i will look into further down the line.
The future essay was really interesting for me because i have always been interested in future technologies and sustainability. i have looked into all of the different concepts mentioned in the essay. One thing in particular i found interesting after looking around in a few different articles is that Australia is leading the way in nanotech, dumbing billions into research. Another point i wanted to talk about is open production. with companies like apple with there open source applications for app design as well as other things is leading the way in the future of medical science research. Researchers in the medical field are able to get results form thousands of people across the world in seconds because of open source apps they create expanding there knowledge of disease such as Alzheimer’s. Another thing i wanted to say about open source is crowed funding i believe this is one in the same because it is helping out with thousands of startup’s in an open source format. allowing for a revolution to be started in the amount of products coming to market.
For as long as I have been alive my grandparents have been telling me social security is broken and does not work. sense I’ve gotten older i have realized that is simply not true. well not entirely. after reading the Why SS Is Not “Broke” And How The Trust Fund Works essay i was actually blown away. i had always known there was a cushion but i had no idea that our cushion was so large no less sustainable for over a decade. after reading this i am going to intently look into the history of ss and see more of what the real story is. Its pretty difficult knowing something that you have heard your whole life was misleading but you simply cant argue with empirical evidence.
I just want to say something about the elderly living in poverty. I work with many elderly women. These women come from a time when women didn’t have to work, they relied on their husbands to take care of the family but for whatever reason, death, divorce, these women are living on their own. Their typical social security check each month is $733, their rent on the low end is about 400 per month, plus they have utilities, and the other costs of daily living, however, they get food assistance totaling 16 dollars per month. Often these people do not have transportation. In my rural area, most of the cities, towns and villages don’t have public transportation. The one city within this county that does have public transportation charges our seniors 3 dollars 1 way per ride. It’s no wonder a good portion of our seniors don’t take care of themselves, they don’t have 6 dollars to ride the bus to see their doctor, or they live in an area that don’t offer transportation. Don’t get me wrong this happens to men too, if they worked all of their life but didn’t have a pension or retirement plan, they can expect to see roughly 1200 per month from social security which is still hard to live off after all of their bills. I just can’t seem to wrap my head around a system that will continue to take care of someone that has no ambition to work, but not those that have made their contribution to society.
I enjoyed the fish video but did you notice he never addressed the question of how do we feed the world? He said that we are CURRENTLY making more food than gets distributed (Great point) but he never answers if we would have that surplus if everything was raised in an ecologically friendly way. Im not hating on the idea but he dodged the question which makes me wonder if he knows the answer is no.
Also its hard to grow food locally in say arizona in an ecologically friendly way. Maybe thats a good thing? Maybe people wouldnt move to deserts if that was our method. Maybe a decrease in the amount of food produced would curb the population expansion?
We have CEO’s with higher pay while others are still living off unemployment. I’m not sure if any of you have heard much about this but here in the Grand Rapids area, it has been in the news a ton over the last year. I personally know 6 people being sued by the State of Michigan for misrepresentation when in most cases that’s not true and these people didn’t falsely obtain their benefits. So to make the blow of the recession harder on families, once they have almost recovered, they are now being forced to pay back their unemployment, often at a very, very high interest rate.
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/04/22/michigan-unemployment-agency-lawsuit/26196043/
http://fox17online.com/?s=unemployment
this link will take you to fox 17 problem solvers who have interviewed many people being sued for fraud that didn’t commit fraud. Some of the stories are astonishing.
I find interesting in the article “The Top 0.1% Vs. the rest of us, the paragraph about higher taxes for the rich. I guess I would assume that the more taxes taken the less money they would have but it seems to me the rich always find a way to win. Carter, Reagan and Bush eliminated high end tax brakets? Of course they did……..