Chapter 22 Reflection

     I found many concepts interesting throughout this course changed my way of seeing economics and had a lot of fun learning about them. Even on a day to day basis I was able to see the different parts of economics we were learning about at work. The biggest things that I learned about were all the small parts that effect the economy in big ways especially with exports and imports.

     The short run trades off between inflation and unemployment because as the inflation rate rises unemployment becomes lower. However if inflation rate decreases unemployment begins to increase so an economy must find a good median where the inflation rate is not to high or too low so that unemployment is not too high or low. There is not a long-run trade-off because this is expected inflation that an economy is able to adjust and even out the unemployment rate. The short-run will not last for a very long time because as time goes by the economy is used to a higher rate of inflation.

Chapter 21 Reflection

    As consumer confidence declines the consumers spending drops during a recession. Public policies can help consumers to save money to help them to spend later by putting higher or lower taxes on certain objects. In  a boom consumer confidence increases and at the same time consumer spending increases because of the wealth of a household which in turn increases income for the nation and helps the production of goods. I think that policies are more effective when achieving economic stability because even though it could take a few months for the changes to occur they change. This shows that reactions need to be quick to adjust the economy and to fix them in the correct ways to benefit the economy.

Chapter 20 Reflection

     This chapter talked about economic fluctuations and how they are always changing and are very hard to predict. Fluctuations are always happening in the economy and one of the biggest and most recent was in 2008 and 2009 where the unemployment rate jumped by 5.6 percent between 2007 and 2009. This lead to falling incomes for families as well as many unemployed during the depression which didn't help those just graduating since they couldn't get high level jobs and employers were forced to lay off lower level workers. Another big point in this chapter was the aggregate demand which depends on the price levels of consumption, investment, government purchase or exports. This shows the effects of changing prices and how they can affect an economy for the better or worse and help them to thrive or to spiral out of control. The other side that also effects the aggregate demand is the aggregate supply which depends on the labor, capital, natural resources and technology that are being supplied to a country. This also can make or break an economy depending if another country can make goods cheaper as well as if the supplies coming into an economy are too expensive. In the end this chapter shows how easy it is to fluctuate a countries economy with relatively small changes that will either allow for an economy to prosper or to sink like a rock.