California: Moving people leaving than Moving in

Recent census data that a troubling state economy has caused many Californians to leave the state, discouraged by job prospects and rising house prices. Domestic immigration boomed during the 1950s and 1960s, slowed in the next 4 decades, and since at least 2005, California has seen more emigration than immigration. Much of the deterrent has been from unemployment. The state’s once prime industries, notably aerospace, have contracted or been outsourced. The demographics of California now more closely resemble to early 20^th century California.

Immigration from Mexico has also slowed, for different reasons: increasing border violence and job shortages. The latter is a sharp contrast from the circumstances before, where immigrants saw many more opportunities in California and the US than in Mexico.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-california-move-20111127,0,5338351.story

The Near Poor

The more-educated young people were more likely to be financially secure, but nearly 21 percent of households headed by college graduates struggled to make ends meet. Current poverty statistics do not tell the entire story of financial struggle as many Americans are working full-time but not making enough to cover their expenses. Even though numbers were a little better for high school and college grads, the majority of households headed by only high school educate persons struggled to financially self-sufficient.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700202673/The-Near-Poor-Many-educated-employed-Americans-struggle-to-make-ends-meet.html

US wealth gap between young and old widest ever

An analysis of the most recent census data revealed that households headed by a person 65 years or older has a net worth 47 times greater than one headed by a person younger than 35 years. While it makes sense that older persons accumulate more assets and wealth over time, the gap is twice what it was in 2005 and 10 times more than 25 years ago. Younger persons have been hit harder in the current economic downturn, with common troubles such as higher mortgage payments, student debt and unemployment at its highest since WWII. A staggering 37 percent of young household-heads have a net-worth of zero or less, and wealth-inequality is increasing within all age groups.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2016707710_apuswealthgapyoungandold.html

China's Labor Tests Its Muscle

A labor shortage had occur in South east of China due to the fact that many factories are operating in the deeper part of china, and workers are now able to find jobs closer to home. Many factories in Zhongshan have been operating with vacancies of 15 to 20 percent. Young Chinese factory workers had raised their expectations rapidly. This is mainly due to the decrease in supply of unskilled worker in China. The expanded university enrollment, the one child policy in China had largely decreased the supply of factory workers. Therefore, together with the rapid raise of living cost and housing cost, the factory wage in China is expected to rise rapidly in the up coming years.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/china/labor-issues/index.html?scp=1&sq=china%20wage&st=cse

Why Denmark Is Shrinking Its Social Safety Net

Denmark is known to have the best welfare among all the countries. They had the longest unemployment insurance scheme of four years. However in June 2011, the Government decided to cut down the benefits to two years to help the country's financial situation. The reason behind the cut is studies shows that the longer a person goes without a job, the harder it is to find work. According to the graph in the Article, most of the people find jobs either in the first 3 months or toward the end of the benefit period, and in recent years, it is obvious that the percentage of people look for jobs at the end of the benefit period had increased largely. It seems like the Danes are not seeking all jobs they could get, but instead only look for jobs they would like to have.

I am honestly jealous of the unemployment benefit of Denmark, however at the same time I feel that their unemployment benefit system is a little unrealistic. If the US have had this system, I higly doubt that the US would be as strong as it is today. So if I am a citizen of Denmark, if I work, I'd have to pay tax and provide support for the unemployed people. If I don't work, I don't have to pay tax, plus I will receive money for the up coming four years. Of course the motivation of job seeking would be a lot lower, and many would not work. I wonder how much did the system affected the economic growth of the country? May have been large.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/why-denmark-is-shrinking-its-social-safety-net/

Gender Gap on Wages Is Slow to Close

Even in the twenty first century while having the same college and professional degree, men and women still have a consistent wage gap. According to the data provided in the article, younger women are completing bachelor's degree at higher rate than men, yet they represent a higher proportion of low-wage workers. After adjusting for other factors like age, race, number of children, women still earn 14 cent less than men per dollar. Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee said that he is surprised with the report and thought that with the increase in level of education, the wage gap between men and women would narrow down even more.

The article provided many reasons for the wage gap, such as job nature, flexible hours for women and discrimination. One of the reason I would like to further discuss is the job nature of women. Female most likely are to take job in health care and social assistance, and these jobs have lower pay than other jobs like construction, transportation. It seems to me that instead of women wanting to get into these lower wage fields, it is more like the society in many years have presumed that women should take these jobs. Think about it, when I think of a nurse, I think of female. When I think of flight attendant, I think of female. People expect women to take these jobs no matter how equivalent men and women's education are.

Therefore, I don't think that the wage gap between men and women would be narrow down a lot more in the future, largely because of the social norm. Women are to be expected to be in job field that provides caring or assistance, and these jobs are most likely to be lower wage. Unless the thinking of society changes dynamically, for example like the social norm of women is now to work in the finance field/ construction, then the wage gap might alter. But that seems to be very unlikely.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/gender-gap-on-wages-is-slow-to-close/

Chinese Economy: Post #3

The New York Times printed an interesting opinions article about the rise of the Chinese economy and its convergence upon the United States economy and the fight for world supremacy. While at this point it is more of a thought for the future the author brought up many interesting points. The author stated, “The key to international influence was political power, and the central attribute of political power was morally informed leadership. Rulers who acted in accordance with moral norms whenever possible tended to win the race for leadership over the long term”. His believes that in the end money is not going to determine the world power, rather it is going to be political leadership that thrives above all else. One of the most important factors to consider on the road to world supremacy is domestic peace. While the economy and GDP is important, the gap between rich and poor is a good indicator of social justice and inevitably, political leadership that stands as a model to the rest of the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/opinion/how-china-can-defeat-america.html?_r=1&ref=unitedstateseconomy

Technological Innovations: Post #2

The advancement of technology and innovations such as the internet has connected the world in unbelievable ways. Now, more than ever, people are migrating from their homelands to new countries for school, work, or sometimes just for a new experience. As we learned about in class, transportation greatly restricted peoples’ ability to leave their homeland. Now, due to cheap transportation and the ability to still stay connected with the people that you leave behind, people are seizing the opportunity and moving around the world. The way that business is conducted has also been revolutionized due to the internet. In the modern day, companies are able to grow internationally, and people have the ability to become entrepreneurs and develop businesses in foreign countries. The advancement of technology has changed the world forever.

http://www.economist.com/node/21538700

Occupy Wall Street: Post #1

The Occupy Wall Street Movement is something that has received a lot of attention in the news recently, and we have even experienced an Occupy UCLA Movement on campus. One interesting question that the article proposed is “what if our system is so badly broken that honest democratic politics is no longer possible?” This statement made me think a lot about the development of American politics and democratic freedom that we have been learning about in class. The author infers that one of the most frustrating things about the Occupy Wall Street Movement is that it is difficult to decipher what exactly the people who are protesting are fighting for. The article also brings up the point that the protestors continually use the words “we the people”, but really they only make up a very small percentage of the total population.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/11/occupy-wall-street-0

As the rich-poor gap widens, so does debate about what it means

In class we discussed why certain countries prosper better than others. We pointed out the rich countries were converging on each other, while the poor countries were getting poorer relatively to the rich countries. The same pattern can be seen in the class divisions in the US today. The lower class is getting poorer relative to the rich, while the rich simply get richer. In Hennessey’s article, he reveals polls that show a large majority of Americans seeing a widening gap between the haves and the have-nots. In fact, there is significant consensus that the country’s political system is skewed in favor for the wealthy. This skewed system will only worsen the divergence of class divisions in the US.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-income-disparity-20111129,0,2030624.story

Why inequality is bad for you -- and everyone else

Richard Wilkinson, a professor of social epidemiology at the University of Nottingham Medical School would get along real well with Engerman and Sokoloff. Wilkinson believes where there is more equality, there is more cooperative social strategies, but where there is more inequality, people feel pressured to fend for themselves and competition for status becomes more important. While human beings are capable of being each other's most feared rivals and competitors, humans also have the opposite potential: Humans can be each other's best sources of cooperation, assistance, help, learning and love. Wilkinson goes on to say perhaps 90% to 95% of the population benefits from greater equality. Engerman and Sokoloff would agree with this and further elaborate by stating that equality leads to open franchise which results in broader public education.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/06/opinion/wilkinson-inequality-harm/index.html

Lack of soap means illness, death for millions of children

In class we discussed the fall in life expectancy in the late 19^th century. This decrease in life expectancy was improved through advancements in public health infrastructures. Today poorer regions in sub-Saharan Africa, South America, East Asia, and the Caribbean are suffering from sicknesses related to contaminated water supplies. However, nonprofits such as The Global Soap Project have been collecting used soap bars and reprocessing and distributing them to these nations in need such as Haiti, Kenya, Swaziland, and Uganda.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/15/health/cnnheroes-soap-hygiene/index.html?iref=allsearch