Topic 10: How to Boost My "GDP"

Productivity can be altered in order to achieve better results, through several factors: quality of labor, technology, energy costs, and financial markets. In terms of using productivity in school and with academics, the factors would be altered to better fit the description and needs of a school environment.
First, quality of labor would be changed to the efficiency and the quality of homework and studying we put in to our learning. The more efforts and better quality the work, the more likely that the knowledge was imparted into your brain. This then increases the product.
Second, technology can be adapted as tools of learning. This may include textbooks, the internet, or even human resources, such as teachers. The better the technology and our access to it, the more likely that we can learn more. For example, if a school was to be able to put in an online library for students, it would be more likely for students to get accurate information from credible sources.
Third, energy costs can be the costs in knowledge. Using the example above, online libraries would greatly reduce the costs, because students wouldn't have to buy books. If e-textbooks were more available, students and parents would be more willing to pay the lesser amount to have the same material, and thus, learn.
Lastly, financial markets refer to how the school or such learning systems works. If a school is able to run smoothly, this will greatly increase the efficiency of learning. For example, if a school didn't have a staff to be in charge of textbooks, most likely, the school would work really slowly, because teachers and other staff would have to deal with this problem. How well the school facilitates determines how well a student can learn.

Topic 9: Financial Markets

As a starter, I'd like to put money into pension accounts, to ensure that I would have money after I retire. I think Certificates of Deposit are the safest, risk less, and basically guaranteed-money investment. In the future, this is probably he type of investment I'd use regularly, as a means of safely and surely earning money. Also, I would have to be aware of the financial stance of the bank I was investing in, because I would not want it to default. Bonds would also be preferable, because the government is basically guaranteeing an insurance on such investments. However, these types of financial asset does not hold as much value as would be desired. As a result, I'd also rely on stock exchange as a means of investment. Seeing as I'd probably be majoring in political science in university, I'd have a pretty good knowledge about what is going on in the world, which could be a great advantage for me in terms of buying and selling stocks, and the best time for it.
In general, most of my money would go to the safer investments, to make sure I will get returns for them, but around 20 percent may go the stocks.

Topic 8: Money

For me, money is just a medium of exchange for me. Money is used as a medium of exchange and a store of value. I don’t have the capability of investing with it, nor can I actually earn it yet, but I do save it. Normally, I have my money in a bank account, instead of in cash. I get my money from my parents, who give it to me on a set allowance each year. Generally, I do not receive money other than from this source. For example, on the popular holiday of Chinese New Year, I do not get to keep the money, but instead, my parents save it to an account for it to be used during college. In a sense, that would also be for me, but not for me to use immediately. Money for me is important because I understand its value. I do not generally spend that much of it, except for necessary times like buying for my own supplies, or gifts for others. I set a specific amount of money that I can spend each month, and save up the rest. The money I extract each month does come in cash because it is more handy this way. I believe that I can live by less than I receive now, but obviously, I would want more. There may be times when I spend more than the monthly amount I allow myself to spend, but that is only for special occasions. I am willing to work for money, because I feel that that would only be fair. I would be willing to do work that is within my capacity, and maybe a little more. I would not be willing to do anything harmful to myself for money, because I believe that is not a good trade-off.

Topic 7: Change and the Future

I've been through several changes in my life. However, I believe that because I've been in this system of education, it’s made my changes significantly different then what other people would have faced. For example, the school I’ve been in has a small population, and doesn’t change much, meaning that actually moving up from one grade to the next doesn’t really change my life so much. The people in my class are the same, the teachers are pretty much the same, and the only thing changing is the level of difficulty of the material that I’m learning. Perhaps the biggest change I went through in my entire life was my move to Belgium. When I moved to Belgium, everything changed. My family there only consisted of my parents and my brother. The system of schooling was also different, because my school followed a British curriculum whereas my previous schools have followed an American System. Another big change was the scale of the school, in which the school in Belgium was much bigger, consisting of people from over 70 different nationalities.

The second biggest change that is yet to come is in regards to moving up to college. That will be very different because I will have to learn to live by myself without the support and guidance of my parents.

I think the most important skills needed in future job fields include: technological skills and problem-solving skills. In the future, due to an essential dependency on technology, everyone will be expected to know how to deal with computers and basic telecommunication. However, the negative implications of technology and development is various challenges posed in our futures such as with environmental degradation. We will need to learn how to deal with those problems if we are to be able to continue living. I think the more important job fields in the future will be having to deal with these kind of imminent threats as well as long-term sustainable development.

Topic 6: Who's Running the Show?

In my opinion, I believe that PAS has aspects of various different organizations. First of all, in terms of sole proprietorship, our school does show a unique quality not unlike that of more controlled systems, whereby the sole proprietor is making basically all of the decisions. This school is not really a partnership seeing as no one else was really part of the setting up of the school, other than the headmistress herself. I find that there are a lot of parallelisms in terms of our school and corporations, partially due to the nature of the education system. First of all, it is not easy to open or close schools; there are too many people and futures involved in the process. It requires a lot of paperwork and licensing to open a school, and requires even more paperwork for the closing. The staff and teachers, who are part of the running of the school, also need qualifications. Moreover, perhaps the biggest burden to the running of a school is resources. It is extremely difficult and money-consuming to start a school. Right now, the funding mainly comes from the tuition fees from the students. In the past, the funding came from the sole proprietor, who had started the school on her own, with the help of others. In terms of liability, in my opinion, most of the liability is more unlimited, and lies with the decision-maker, as most parents complain and directly react to the decision-maker, partially due to the fact that all outputs are seen as direct results of the decisions that were actually being made. The life of the school is unlimited, seeing as the decision-maker can be replaced. However, given the fact that the decision-maker provides a very special asset to the school in terms of her specialization in college application and such, the school would not be the same without her.The profits of the system are probably saved in a fund for future use, or to pay off previous payments, etc. I believe this method of organization is chosen because the decision-maker had believed that it is the most effective means of achieving the purpose of the school. The advantages would include an actual product and successful result. However, the disadvantage would include a lot of conflict with many people. If I were to start a school, I’d probably run a similar system, except with more inputs from other people as well. 

Topic 5: A Different Phone?

*What caused Nokia to develop mobile TV?

• Nokia had wanted to develop the mobile TV due to its wish to stay "on top of the game" and in front of their competitors, by designing uses of cellphones that people would find useful. With other services such as internet connection, photo-sharing, etc. becoming ubiquitous among most phones now, Nokia had hoped that its development of the mobile TV is new and attractive to consumers.

*Why do cell phone producers include so many features in their phones?

• Cell phone producers want to develop phones that will satisfy the needs of the consumers, in order to gain more sales. As a result, the producers choose to pack a lot of different apps and features in, to widen their market and attract more users.

*Are manufacturers more likely to offer differentiated products in new markets or old markets? Why do you think so?

• I think manufacturers would most likely want to try to differentiate their products in new markets. Now as more markets for cellphones are developing, competitors would like to try to differentiate their products from others. Recently, although most cellphone producers try to jam pack their products with features in order to attract consumers, they have realized that most consumers is aware of such features, and therefore look for products that can offer them a different experience in using a cellphone.

The features I find most useful in a cellphone are calling, text-messaging, internet connection, cameras, and games! Although personally, my phone is packed with apps that I "think" I would use in the future (and don't delete just IN CASE they might come into use), I never actually touch a great part of the applications. I would like for my cellphone to have all the features I mentioned above. A feature that I would like to have on a phone that has not been developed is a function of a fingerprint scanner. I think it would be really cool to have this function to protect my phone. I don't ask much of a cellphone, because I believe that it's purpose is really just to take and make calls and send text messages. However, I do depend on my phone quite often for quick internet searches. The most important thing about a phone for me is speed. My phone lags a lot, so I think speed and storage capacity is the most important.

Topic 4: Ripple Effects and Elasticity

Oil is one of the most important resources on earth. With its scarcity, it is more valuable than ever, powering most of our technology and life. As a result, any change in oil prices affects basically ever part of our life. The most obvious change it would have on our lives and the general economy is the transportation sector. Our cars depend on oil to run, so obviously, with the rise of oil and gas prices, it would cost us more. Another aspect of oil which affects us profoundly is the production of plastic. Plastic is essentially made of petrochemicals and other such resources. As we all know, plastic is basically everywhere now: in our mechanical pencils, pipes, bottles, etc. Without plastic, it is hard to find a similarly durable material which could replace plastic. With just these two factors, oil affects everything. For example, without the oil to help transport every single product in the world, trade would be dramatically decreased. Without plastic as well, there will not be such packaging on products and supplements to certain other products. The change in price of oil affects us on a larger scale (i.e. through the use of oil in cars) and also on a smaller scale (the relatively smaller changes of price in plastic products). Another way oil affects us is its position in global politics. As oil is an important resource, it is often used by countries as a way of getting what they want. For example, because of Iran’s heavy dependence on oil exports, US or other such countries could place sanctions to cancel buys in order to get them to stop their nuclear programs. Although this does not seem to affect us immediately, in fact, this would cause a rise in oil prices. So now we can see that the changes in prices for oil is an extremely delicate and crucial part of our lives. As a result, organizations such as OPEC attempt to regulate oil prices in the oil-exporting countries to prevent too much fluctuations. Another example of resources which affects us very profoundly is rare earth metals. Living in the technological age, we are very dependent of the rare earth metals in our products, such as cars. However, due to China’s monopoly on the possession of rare earth metals (up to 95%), China could easily use it as a way to force countries to do what they want. For example, China had withheld exporting such metals to Japan do to island disputes, which had hurt Japan’s economy badly seeing as they produced a lot of technological products.