Roanoke College Economics: Roanomics Volume 2, Issue 2

Roanoke College Economics: Roanomics Volume 2, Issue 2: Roanomics, Vol 2, Iss 2

Roanoke College Economics: Kassens' paper makes Top Ten list on SSRN

Roanoke College Economics: Kassens' paper makes Top Ten list on SSRN: The Social Science Research Network describes itself as " .. . devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research and...

Miss Millie has another question for ECON 122 students!

For an extra credit point be sure the send your answer to Dr. Kassens via email.

Question: The Employment Situation Report came out on Friday.  What was the reported labor force participation rate?

Roanoke College Economics: ECON 122 Student Blog

Roanoke College Economics: ECON 122 Student Blog: Students in Kassens' ECON 122 (Principles of Macroeconomics) class are finished with their blog assignment. Clearly these are some bright s...

Critique-America's Jobless

I really enjoyed reading this
blog post because I think that it does a great job of explaining how bad the
job market is right now. The mining example does a great job of demonstrating
how desperate some people are for work in the United States. It also
demonstrates how even if somebody was willing to do such dangerous work, it is
very hard to get that job because of the employers uncertainty about the
current economy. Unemployment is so high in the United States because the
economy is very unstable right now and hiring new employees is very risky
during these times. It is crazy how people who are very qualified for jobs are
having a hard time finding them right now. It is crazy that veterans are having
a tough time finding jobs in the country that they risked their lives to fight
for. The only part about this blog post I would have possibly done a little
different is that I would use a different example that had to do with employers
in the United States. The example used is very interesting because it
demonstrates that it is really hard for an employer in another country to hire
workers from the U.S. because then they would be responsible for transporting
the workers to the country and also they would be responsible for setting them
up in the country. By the time the employees were finally ready to work, the
employer would have spent a lot of extra money that they would not have had to
spend if they hired workers from their own country. The example showed that it is really difficult
for Americans to get jobs in other labor markets in other countries but it did
not show the other sides of unemployment in our country. The post needed an
example that used employers from the United States so we could see why it is so
hard to find a job in our own country. The reason someone would leave to work
in another country is because of the problems here and I don’t think that point
was made. I enjoyed this blog post and I agree with every point that was made in
it about unemployment. However, using an example that shows why it is so hard
to find a job in the United States right now would have made it easier for
somebody to understand what a big problem we really do have in this country in
regards to unemployment.

Tien Nguyen - Critique on "Korea" by Colin Picard

            This article mentioned the great success of Korea’s rise in its economy. One of the main points is how Korea is a huge net exporter company that contributes to their GDP. I do agree that being mainly a net exporter country will contribute to a higher GDP. As discussed, net export/imports directly ties in with the GDP equation, while the US is an importing country, the NX of the equation is negative, taking away from GDP. On the other hand while Korea is mainly an exporter, they are selling their goods overseas, giving them a positive number on the NX side, adding to their GDP.

            The writer did mention that South Korea’s labor force is also really strong, does this mean they are fully utilizing their available worker and is at their natural rate of unemployment? I personally do not agree with the statement that South Korea’s labor force is really strong. I feel like Korea probably knows how to utilize their workers and hire the best to avoid failed hiring and losing money which contributes to GDP. Though, in order for Korea to have a strong labor force, full employment should be met. The writer himself mentioned women, even though they have a great education, are not being used in the labor force. It does not mention if they are considered unemployed or not, but to be able to use all their resources to meet the PPF curve, people who are able to work should be in the labor force, women included.

            I do agree that government’s regulation has a huge impact on Korea’s hit or miss economy. Because most of the powerful corporations are own within the family, it is hard for outsider’s to come into higher rank of the business. If the government were able to put forth laws that prohibits one family from being the major contributor, shareholder, higher rank in the business; rather than the company falling to pieces if the family were in financial turmoil, they can then use the assets from other people to prevent the business itself from being in the same condition. Also, if this were to happen, as the writer has stated, GDP would not be as good and could also lead Korea in a terrible recession.

            Overall, I agree with how the writer analyzed the article on Korea’s current condition and how they’re utilizing their labor force.

Anouk van Gaalen

Critique on the blog “Unemployed Veterans”

As the author of the blog mentions the economy has been suffering lately and the job market has been very tight. Even though the economy has shown a slight growth lately, there are still a lot of people without a job. Especially for veterans it can be very hard finding a new job, since they have a different education than is needed for most jobs and especially for the job vacancies. This is called structural unemployment: there is a mismatch in skills between the veterans and employers, but also cyclical unemployment, since the veterans have an extra hard time finding a job because companies are uncertain about the suffering economy and they are not hiring. That is why the government decided to interfere in the economy with expansionary fiscal policy: a bill that is supposed to provide more jobs for veterans. They are lowering the taxes for companies if they hire veterans and the government will retrain veterans to make them hirable for different kinds of jobs. As the author of the original post states, this reduction in taxes for companies is supposed to reduce the unemployment rate, this will increase the national income and therefore it will be a boost for the economy, so will the new education for the veterans give them more chances to be hired and thereby reduce the unemployment rate, increase the income, and the Gross Domestic Product therefore as well.

As the author of the blog says the lowering of the taxes will encourage businesses to hire veterans, because this means that their total amount of cost will lower and the company will be more profitable. The companies can either spend the extra money, which means that the GDP will grow (Investments) or they can reduce the prices of their products or services so that the demand for their product will rice and the GDP will rise through the consumers.  This shows that the lowering of taxes is increasing the GDP and therefore expansionary fiscal policy.

This bill is however only a small part of the Job Package Obama promised. The veterans are only a small part of all the unemployed people. There will have to be a lot more policy to reduce the total unemployment rate. Obama promised to create one million new jobs to reduce the high unemployment rate and so far he has not been successful doing that. Even this bill for the veterans is not signed by Obama yet, but the White House has said that it supports the bill, so it is likely that this bill will go through. This means a step in reducing the unemployment rate in the United States.