If You Think the Dollar Is Doomed, Read This

This article talks about the prediction that the dollar will weaken in the near future. This is very important, since the United States' dollar is considered the reserve currency of the world due to its stability, security, and protection from inflation relative to other currencies. In 2008, people who invested in other countries that earned different currency were hurt because the currencies were worth less then the US dollar.

The problem will be that the growing balance deficit and trade deficit will cause the dollar to grow weaker because other countries may choose other currency as their reserve currency.

This connects to what I learned in economics that a strong dollar buys more goods in the world market, and a weak dollar allows other countries to be more willing to trade with the US. Both have its strengths and weaknesses.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30667271/

Labor Department official analyzes April unemployment numbers

This article informs about unemployment numbers in the United States for April. Unemployment is very important, especially in times of recession, because the information tells people how many people searching for jobs are unemployed. Overall, the US incurred many job losses, especially in construction and manufacturing. However, health care and government employment increased in the month of April.

The US is having a problem with rising unemployment numbers, and it is not surprising to people that unemployment is going up, because it is cyclical unemployment (meaning that people are losing jobs because of economic conditions). However, the rate of unemployment is steadily decreasing and hopefully the job market will turn back within this year.

This connects what I learned in Economics that the market goes in booms and busts. The classical economist would say that unemployment will naturally go back down over time, and the Keynesian economist would say that some government intervention will set the market back on track.

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/05/04/daily82.html

First 100 days: Defending Geithner

This second article shows the writer supporting Tim Geithner is his economic policies during Obama's first 100 days of his presidency.

AIG's bonus crisis has caused an uproar among citizens, and many want Tim Geithner to resign from his post as Treasury Secretary. However, people don't realize that Tim Geithner is in a position where economic meltdown threatened the economy, and many details issues he had to deal with.

“‘Tim Geithner didn’t draft these contracts with A.I.G.,’ Mr. Obama told reporters as he left for California on Wednesday. ‘There has never been a secretary of the Treasury, except maybe Alexander Hamilton right after the Revolutionary War, who’s had to deal with the multiplicity of issues that Secretary Geithner is having to deal with — all at the same time.’”

What I got from the article is that though government intervention is harmful for the economy and makes investors angry, intervention is a necessary evil in order to the economy back on track. Geithner's agenda is revitalizing the financial markets in order to stabilize the economy and allow it to grow in the future; using governement spending in order to raise our GDP.

Personally, I agree with the idea of the government buying up bad debt from banks, because it was done in 1991. This article is from a year ago which debated whether the government should intervene or not by buying bad debt. Now the United States is in the process of buying bad debt and stabilizing the markets. The question is whether the US will see the same results from what happened in 1991. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/business/17resolution.html?fta=y

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/03/19/1843281.aspx

Geithner's Five Big Misconcpetions

I've decided to analyze the different viewpoints of Tim Geithner's from both his supporters and his critics. This article points out Geithner's five statements he made, and clarifying why it is not true or misleading.

One of the misconsceptions is about bad assets.

"Bad assets are "bad" because the market doesn't understand how much they are really worth. The reality: The bad assets are bad because they are worth less than the banks say they are. House prices have dropped by nearly 30% nationwide. That has created something in the neighborhood of $5+ trillion of losses in residential real estate alone (off a peak market value of housing about $20+ trillion). The banks don't want to take their share of those losses because doing so will wipe them out. So they, and Geithner, are doing everything they can to pawn the losses off on the taxpayer."

These bad housing investments have a big impact on GDP. One of the major components for GDP is investments. Banks are investing in houses predicting that they will continually go up, and be able to take less of a hit if the owner defaults on their loan. Not only do the banks lose money on their investments, home owners also lose money when they see their homes lose their value. This results in a lose of GDP.

The article also shows two staggering graphs of the percentage of our GDP as debt, and the writer is very skeptical that the economy will recover due to America's huge debt.

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-geithners-three-big-misconceptions-2009-3

Why is Wii Sports the Most Successful Game of All Time?

http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=2724

Why is Wii Sports the Most Successful Game of All Time?

The video game industry is a very lucradive business that is always trying to appease its consumers with great vigor. There are many video game reviews and discussions on the quality of them, which makes the consumers want the highest quality video game they can get. The Nintendo Wii has cause not only a revolution, but also helped make Wii Sports to be the best selling video game. The article declared that Wii Sports has become the top selling game of all time reaching to over 40 million copies sold.

This article shows that the video game industry is satisfying the demand of video gamer.This is the market economy in action. Nintendo is thinking about the wants and needs of video gamers, and specifically target the casual gamer with Wii Sports. Wii Sports is a simple game that allows you to play different sports such as golf, tennis, or baseball using a motion sensitive controller.

When the Wii were introduced into the market, many gamers would buy them and cause shortages in Wii Consoles. However, they were packaged with Wii sports as a bundle. The article discusses on whether bundled games should count towards the best selling video game chart. Since Wii Sports is bundled it may be considered a force sale. However, the article makes an argument that the appeal of the Wii console includes the Wii Sports game, and in Japan, consumers would still buy Wii Sports even if it was not bundled. This is a controversy that might be related to other products that the product would may seem unfairly popular, through a force sale. For example, salsa that includes chips does not mean that the consumers really liked the chips, even if they liked the salsa.

Wii Sports represents the demand of casual games for consumer market, and that a market economy would allow companies to work hard to satisfy consumer wants.