Justin Woo's Blog

As countries around the world still feel the effects of the current recession, the old debate, about whether to stimulate the economy or let it run its own course, has found new life. On one hand, there is Keynesian economics which condones government intervention through fiscal policy, including government spending and lowering taxes. This policy has recently been put to practice by the United States with their near trillion dollar bailout and in other countries such as Greece’s with their trillion dollar bailout. Here in Canada, the Conservative government went against their roots by dishing out around 30 billion dollars in bailouts. The alternative to Keynesian economics is, of course, monetary policy which advocates influencing the market through raising and lowering interest rates as well as controlling the flow of money.
A recent worldwide poll, done by BBC World Service, shows that more than half the world is opposed to stimulus spending. Interestingly, the strongest opposition comes from the countries which have already started spending. Among those countries are the United States with 58% of those surveyed rejecting stimulus, Germany with 66%, and France with a 63% rejection. .
In my opinion, stimulus spending is impractical because it simply redistributes debt from the people to the government. Beyond that, it is a theory which requires the government to save during good times in order to pay off the debt. This is something that citizens are generally unwilling to accept as people tend to want more services during economic booms. Instead, I believe it would be wiser to practice monetary policy, a policy which guides the economy to fix itself. It does so by offering incentives for people to spend using practices such as lowering interest rates.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/world-split-on-stimulus-spending/article1729626/

For decades, women have been lobbying for equal treatment, at home, in the workplace, and in society as a whole. There are some who assume that the goal of workplace equality has already been reached. With that in mind, it may be surprising to discover that, as of this moment, the Wall Street based investment banking firm, Goldman Sachs Inc, is being sued for alleged “gender bias” by three former female employees. The amount is undefined. The lawsuit is based on two basic contentions: that women have less opportunity for job promotion and that women have been victims of pay discrimination. In their defense, Goldman Sachs Inc stated that they “make extraordinary efforts to recruit, develop and retain outstanding women professionals.” However, the three former employees point to the numbers which show that women constitute 29% of vice presidents and 17% of managing directors. This scenario really calls into question whether or not business should overlook a more qualified individual in order to promote a more diverse workplace. While the three female former employees believe that Goldman Sachs Inc views men more favorably, Goldman Sachs may believe that, coincidently, the company had more qualified male workers. Whatever the outcome, it is important these situations involving workplace equality are investigated in order to promote justice and fairness in the workplace.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39191541/ns/business-us_business/

Hello, I’m Justin Woo and I’m from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Feel free to leave me a comment.