Month: November 2011

External blog: ‘Bagehot’s Notebook,’ articles about British politics –  The Economist

According to the article “Recessions and the Young,”  Bagehot states that the British government plans to solve their recession by creating jobs for youths in the labour market.  Youths, particularly teenagers, in Britain are suffering the most from the recession due to the growing numbers of youth unemployment which are reaching historic highs.  Foreigners and immigrants are being blamed for taking jobs away from the youth however, employers prefer to hire university students or foreigners since they are often more skilled and hardworking than the youths who lack experience and aren’t as driven.

Apparently, the government plans to fix the current education system since employers aren’t impressed with the quality of education that the youths are receiving thus, employers prefer not to hire youths.    In addition, the government also plans to cut back on the welfare spending since they were losing money by allowing too many out-of-work benefits.  I think that the two plans will not have much impact in terms of solving the recession.   However, it will make incremental improvements to the recession.

The American government passed a bill during October 2011 that imposed tariffs on imports from China because China is ‘manipulating its currency‘ by ‘keeping it artificially low.’

Background Info: American corporations went to China for manufacturing because of China’s low cost of production.  This caused American corporations to earn a larger profit and Americans losing their job to low-waged workers in Asia.  However, American corporations soon realized that Chinese products lacked in quality thus consumers stopped buying Chinese products.  American corporations then complained to their government that when they pull out of China, they will have to exchange their 8 yuan for $1 USD which, according to the American corporations, is unfair since China is ‘keeping [their currency] artificially low.  This along with un-employed Americans supported the tariff.

The article did not explain the whole story; I feel that the article was highly mediated in favor of Americans.  Firstly, it puzzles me in that America borrowed huge loans from China to help with the US debt crisis and now America repays China by imposing tariffs on Chinese products (maybe due to US government: President did the borrowing, Congress imposed the tariffs).  Also, China isn’t purposely keeping their currency low since their currency has always been lower than the American currency.  The article just failed to mention that American corporations knew that the currency conversion was $1 USD to 8 Yuan at the time they converted their USD to the Chinese Yuan, which seemed like a great deal since the number 8 is more than 1; however, the monetary value is equal/same.

Re: “L’Oreal Advertisements banned in the UK” – Beini Chen’s Blog Post

L’Oreal’s Eraser Foundation ad showing Julia Roberts’ perfectly smooth, glowing and blemish-free skin has been accused of unethical practices since the ad falsely led consumers to believe that their foundation will give the same results as Roberts’.  The UK government accused L’Oreal of performing digital re-touching to the original photo of Roberts which enhanced the actual effectivneess of the foundation.  As a result, the UK banned L’Oreal ads in order to protect the esteem of the targeted consumers.