How to Save Money

Basically, the article was about how the columnist wrote a section in the newspaper regarding the amount of debt that college graduates have to face as soon as they get their diplomas. It also states the importance of saving and how a little money you save monthly for example around 250 dollars, can add up to thousands that you can retire to by the time you reach 60. I think that the advice he gives is very smart and has inspired me to start saving as soon as I can because it will definitely pay off by the time I am old and wrinkly.

To save, I can cut down on shopping for uneccessary clothing, shoes etc. I also can stop eating out as much with my friends in fast food places and I think that adds up a lot. It's really important to save in life because a lot of time people pay their bills and everything that have to pay and the little money that they have left over and spend it on petty things because they feel like it is more important. But the reality is that if in the future, you want to retire and settle down you should save money since a young age so you can have something to rely on when you get older.

One tip that the author mentions that I plan to apply to my life is saving around 100 dollars a month for every month. Eventually that will add up to enough money so I can have some extra money when I get older to help me settle down and buy a house to grow old in !

Taxes - How does the governement get money?

I read an article named Bush has no right to spend taxes pushing religious values and totally agree with it. It talks about how President bush feels that he has the right to spend the money that comes out of our pocket to spread his influence and his beliefs for public schools, agencies and reason. This is an example of how the federal government spends tax money that they collect from us. Things like military, parks, jails are all part of the federal government "bill" so to speak.



As read on the article How Washington Will Spend Your Taxes In 2005, the federal government spends an average of $22,039 on each household. That amount of money is divided into subgroups of the following: Social Security/Medicare, Defense, Low income programs, interest on the federal debt, federal employee retirement benefits, education, health research, veteran benefits, highways/other transit, justice administration, unemployment benefits, international affairs, natural resource environments, and lastly agriculture. So as you can see each household is spent a very low income and it's spent on a whole lot pf things that we mostly have nothing to do with and the government takes that money that we get no benefit from, out of our paychecks.



I think that a lot of people do not realize how much the government takes advantage and steals our hard earned money off of taxes to please their needs that don't concern us in any way. I strongly disagree with that and I think that needs to change because nothing is being done about it and we are the ones that are paying the price at the end of the day!

Savings and Debt

After reading the "Couple learn the high price of easy credit debt", I am not surprised at all with how much money they owe and how deep they are in debt. I think that this nation is slowly but surely becoming poorer and poorer because the high amount of people that go crazy with credit cards not realizing how much of a burden it is going to be on them later on when they have to pay it all back. People get into debt easily simply because the price of life has definitely gone up in the last few decades and now a days to live comfortably you need to be able to make a comfortable salary which is going to provide for your living costs, your family needs and your food as well as other necessary expenses. Finance charges can be dangerous because the high amount of interest and the high amount of money that can accumulate when time passes by and you don't pay your money can really hurt you in the end and you end up paying them more than the actual money you spend to begin with due to finance charges.

Americans don't save money anymore because the reality of it is that a good amount of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and with their rent, mortgage, car payments, family expenses and everything else, they have nothing left over to save. The average family makes from 66,000 to 70,000 dollars a year which is not that much when you pay all your necessities so it's really hard to save and as time passes it will get even harder.



An article I found called Low U.S. savings rate could harm nation's competitive Strength talks about the importance of our country saving money to fund more necessary things such as education, research and other things that are essential and beneficial to our nation. With a low saving rate, interest rates are forced to go up and potentially can hurt the nation's people economically. The article also states that the U.S. is ranked among the lowest saving nations out of all of the industrialized nations.

Critique of GDP Podcast

I will be critiquing Sharonna & Nadia's GDP Podcast.

I really enjoyed watching this podcast and I think they did a really good job. The content of the podcast is really thorough and they really go into depth regarding how the GDP is calculated and the ranks of the of money that the U.S. gets from GDP compared to other countries. I liked how they made the podcast into an information session that you would see on a show on television which made it a little more interesting and fun to watch.

Although they provided a lot of good information, I feel like they jumped from topic to topic way too quickly which made it hard to comprehend what they had just said since they just ran through every sentence. I also think that they could of spoke a little bit slower because at times, I couldn't really focus on what they were saying because of how fast they were talking and jumping from topic to topic at the same time.

I really liked the pictures that were used like the cartoon where there was a flag and the man was waving to it and his hat said made in China and so did the flag. They had a lot of informative political cartoons and made their point really clear especially with the fruits image when they were talking about imports and exports. I did think that the podcast was educational because they covered every single detail and I learned what per capita income, trade deficit and GDP is in depth and I know where the U.S. stands in the rankings.

U.S. Trade Deficit: getting better?

This artilcle mainly concentrates on the amount of imports and exports that America is involved in. It also explains the growth that other countries such as Europe and China and Japan and others compared to the slow rate that American has faced in the last century. But that recently has changed due to the high demand of exports which causes the need for more emplyment which ultimately contributes to our nation's economic growth. A trade deficit is when a nation is importing more than exporting goods which doesn't help you in the long run but instead just decreases the nation's economy. The U.S. trade deficit is likely to do down in the future because as said in the article the value of the dollar keeps decreasing while those of other countries are increasing at a fast pace like the Euro which is now worth $1.40 and a british ppound is up to a value of 2 dollars. The U.S. is selling things like General motors like engines as well as food businesses like KFC as mentioned in the article. A weak dollar can actually help the countries economic growth because it gives the American good more competition for other countries to purchase.

Taxes - How does the governement get money?

When it comes to taxes, the government is the most that benefits from them the most. The different types of taxes that Americans pay are Federal taxes, Real Estate and state taxes as well as all the taxes you pay when you purchase any item except clothing which is now tax free in the state of New York only if the item is under 100 dollars. The federal government gets money by the taxes that are taken away from each employed person and is given to the government to fund for things such as the war and other expenses that the country has. The state also gets money from deductions from the nations employment and is funded for necesities in that particular state. Local city governments get their money by smaller businesses and money gained from clothing, food, electronics etc.

Overall, the country gets money basically from it's people by deducting a certain portion of the nation's paychecks depending on their salary and is used for the nations neccessities most of the time.

Student Loans - BEWARE !

After reading the Top Chefs Dreams article in the New York times, I think that those students took out so many loans because they have aspirations to follow in the footsteps of successful, professionals chefs such as the ones that are seen on T.V. But even though they invest so much money in loans, most of the time they don't even make it big time and cant get a job after graduating because they are in so much debt that they have to live paycheck to paycheck. I think that student loans are okay for some people that need a little extra help to pay their tuition, but I definitely think it should be used with moderation. Applying for loans of 40,000 dollars or more a year is just not worth it because by the time you graduate you will be in so much debt that you wont be able to find a job and pursue a career. Yes, I do plan on taking out a student loan to pay for the amount of tuition that financial aid didn't give me. The loan will be around 6,000 dollars which I think is a reasonable price and wont be too much of a burden to pay back when I graduate.