Value of money

While growing up there was a point in time where I was doing chores and the reason for it was to learn the value of a dollar. When I got older I realized there is no set value for the dollar and much of it's value is perspective. If you grew up on the streets the value of the dollar was either underhandedly get it illegally, a way to buy things to help deal with the pain or take on an exceptionally poor appearance and beg for money. If you had a home but were in lower class you saw the dollar as a way of not ending up on the street and getting by. Middle class views the value of a dollar as a way to get stuff you want and you save up for it. Then there is the upper class that holds the value of a dollar as being able to get you anything you want and a way of replacing anything as desired. 

With all these views of the value of a dollar it is not possible to create simply one truth of it. Now the foundational principle of economics is that money only holds value because it is widely accepted and our government makes sure it is. Now in a nation where even the president feels the need to continually remind us we are in an economic crisis there is much concern about the direction of the nation. I'm a junior in college studying economics and have been gathering whatever information I can. 

I have met liberal and conservative views and seen that most economists are neither. They apply both parties applications when needed and it appears that many factors are hitting us all at once to create this economic turmoil. When looking into the value of money many people differer in opinion and some may seem less moral but ultimately they all hold truth. 

Now to begin the economics of this we need to understand this is all macroeconomics based upon a free market, capitalistic, economy. The classical model is from the 1700s and it is the most conservative view possible. It mentions that supply creates its own demand and that minimum wage, salary caps, and other government interventions raise the unemployment level and create higher inflation. they hurt the long run and if the government doesn't restrict the economy in the long run it will reach equilibrium on it's own.

The opposing view came into play in the 1930s and is known as the Keynesian  Model. This states that Demand creates its own supply and it is all about the government stepping in to fix the money supply to help stimulate the economy. This Economist was around under the great depression administration and was after the establishment of the U.S. Treasury. 

In the 1970s under the energy crisis the inflation rate and unemployment rate sky rocketed and as a result a new theory called supply side economics came into play. It was a theory of the government manipulating the money supply while believing supply creates its own demand. This theory would become known as Trickle-down economics or Reaganomics. It set a president of the neo-conservative view that has split the conservatives.

Another popular belief for our economic problem is the housing boom, in the 1920s people could buy stocks fully on a loan from a bank and it spiked the price in stocks causing the spike to come to an end and decline rapidly into the great depression. The housing market approved loans without any proof of income. This has lead to the housing spike that just hit its peek in 2007. Now the government is trying to fix the problem and the traditional conservatives that follow the classical model were concerned.

 The government has actually not fixed much and spent over 2 trillion dollars since the beginning of 2008. This will cause high inflation and a high unemployment rate. supply side is the system that had the quick fix from the 70s to the 80s but now we are following a Keynesian model which is the opposite. Will it also work? Only time can truly tell and it will be obvious in history books as everything else is.

All of these views have been proven to work at times and now our nation is viewing our crisis as something their way can easily fix because it worked in the past. These might have worked in the past but just in the last 100 years our nation has been working on new methods to fix the economy in trying to keep up with technology. Now our technology is on a new level, the housing boom ended, and we are about to see what our economy will do under our new leader.

Irresolvable conflicts

The world is full of hostility and in reviewing disagreements such as Atheism vs. Christianity, Republican vs. Democrat, and Capitalism vs. Communism it is painfully clear that there is no possible way to resolve our differences for more than a moment. The only way that there can be temporary peace is when there is a force threatening greater than the issue. 

On September 11th Democrats and Republicans worked together to keep the United States strong. This moment came and went and we are back to a nation of Democrats vs. Republicans. 

The battle of Atheism and Christianity will probably wage on until the end of humanity. Christians want to save atheists from Hell while atheists find Hell to be imaginary. Atheists try to disprove God by attempting to disprove the Bible and Christians try to prove God by trying to prove Intelligent design through science. The problem is even if atheists disprove the Bible or intelligent design is found true it doesn't have a baring on the existence of God. It might destroy Christianity and Darwinism but the existence of God on a whole is not possible to be touched.

Mark I. Vuletic, an atheist writer that published an article in "The Free Mind" claims that atheists hold a higher moral code than Christians. He claims that some Christians hold their moral values contingent upon God and if God is disproven they believe they have the right to stop being moral while atheists are moral regardless of God. There is also the 101 contradictions of the Bible.

Now as I posted in an earlier blog some Christians go for science to show their case against atheism. They explain how the Bible is scientifically accurate with websites such as clarifying Christianity.com. Marilyn Adamson along with other greats in history take the approach of making a list of six proofs of God.

Communism and Capitalism are both economic ideologies and neither can fully exist on Earth. Human behavior makes it that people won't work to their full potential if they get treated the exact same regardless. Also people don't approve of a purely capitalistic system where the government allows a golden parachute and other corrupt business tactics that make the wealthy and the poor the only classes. In pure capitalism there is no middle class while in pure communism there is only one class with no potential benefit or reward for hard work. 

Laissez-faire is an approach many capitalists believe in but is impossible to exist in practice. The opposing economic system is communism which has a very unclear approach to how to fully operate.

Each of these opposite sided views will never fully get along, because side the individual doesn't believe is the ignorant unenlightened side that is easy to find flaws in. Since that is the mentality of a select group of people on each side it creates hostility. No one wants to hear they are wrong and ignorant and the opposite of what they follow is right. 

So Democrats and Republicans will oppose each other  since they find the other side to be immoral, Christians and Atheists  will oppose each other for being immoral, and capitalists and communists will oppose each other for being immoral when the problem is they just hold different values based upon different beliefs and clear cut if you stand firm on one side of any of these issues you will look at the opposite in a negative light and if not publicly then secretly find the opposing side to be blinded to the truth and not understand it. 

In my opinion if you are an atheist and you are sick of Christians because they hinder scientific progress then rather than fight them in a battle you can't win, just fundraise and support the cures for cancer, aids, and other scientific studies that will benefit mankind. If you are a Christian and you want to see people believe in Christ then practice what you preach and help the poor, be like Jesus and go out to meet all groups of the world while having accountability, and just bless people because God has shown you how to truly love. At the very least we will have a better quality of life due to the benefitting of others.

Democrats and Republicans along with capitalists and communists just need to show patriotism and accept that some people have an opposite  view from yours that has nothing to do with intelligence level. There are intelligent democrats and intelligent republicans along with there being complete idiots on both sides also. 

The point is attempting to discredit the opposing side is not a wise idea and will only cause there to be more tension and division between both sides. In talking down to the opponent they feel threatened and must defend there side and at that point trying to make them see your side as anything but corrupt and horrible is not going to happen from you.

what is reality?

Have you ever seen someone get their head cut off? Or someone set them self on fire? Or see the Eiffel tower?Maybe in movies but most people haven't sen the actual things.We also see in movies aliens, ghosts, wizards, and monsters. What makes these things not real when we only see them typically transmitted from the same form of communication? To do this we have to determine what is real? Why is it real? Can I make it not real? If I think its real but it can potentially be not real does that fit my view of real?These form what is known as reality.

 Reality according to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary is "the quality or state of being real." This makes us ask then what is real? The dictionary states real as "of or relating to fixed, permanent, or immovable things" So this makes reality  the quality or state of or relating to being fixed, permanent, or immovable things. 

Plato believes there are two worlds of reality also known as the two-tired metaphysics. The world that we see and the world of the enlightened which is summed up in the cave analogy. Plato believes that we are all metaphorically in a cave trapped staring at a wall of shadows and sounds and one day one person broke free and found the way out of the cave thus reaching a new form of reality. 

Aristotle disagrees with a two-tired world and believes everything is connected yet separate. He looked at humans as each being a separate primary substance and stated that primary substances have no opposites yet can have attributes that are opposite. An example would be Bush and Obama are both primary substances and have no opposite although their political views, speech, and backgrounds are opposite in almost every way. 

Some people such as Christine Scivicque believe that reality is perspective and emphasize the perspective of things. They take what your view point is forms your reality and thus everyone has different realities since no two people have the exact same life experiences. Your fears,doubts, knowledge, desires and environment also play a part in how you perceive the world.

This goes completely against the dictionary since if it is based upon what's fixed, permanent and immovable there can't be many different views of that. Although this vague definition gives room to fight over if God is or isn't real. It also states that most of reality isn't what we seem to believe it is.

There is a church of reality that is a group of darwinists stating that there is only one reality and it is as the dictionary states based upon what is real. Simply if it isn't able to be seen it isn't real. On the section about religion they state that rather than being faith based they are doubt based. 

This is throwing out the whole theory of perspective and discredits the ability to create your own reality. The problem with this belief of being the only reality is it makes you exceptionally closed minded. To disbelieve God and claim the world needs to is very dangerous, since Christians, Muslims, and Hindus all focus on God and make up 67.5% of the world population. 

With all the facts the confusion of reality is pretty strong. So real objects are fixed, permanent or immovable. The truth is that by this definition the stars, planets and moon aren't real, they are movable and constantly not fixed and can be obliterated at anytime. This is the case for everything we see, the problem with this definition is the more you know the less real everything would be by the definition. So real is not properly defined by the dictionary.

Now we come to a psychological principle known as mind over matter. This belief is that you control what is real, some have been able to walk across burning hot coals without a scar or pain, others have sat in subzero weather in just a cloth and not been cold, and infact they have determined that the human mind can cause an individual to get sick or healed. 

This brings us back to the beginning.I will close with these questions. What is real? Why is it real? Can I make it not real? If I think its real but can potentially make it not real then does that fit my view of real?