Community Service Reflection

Alexys Hebner

Martinez P1

Economics

Community Service Reflection Paper

My project was to volunteer for free, absolutely no payment, for a total of ten hours. I chose to spend this time volunteering at a non-profit animal rescue shelter participating in dog adoption events and working at the kitten shelter cleaning cat cages and syringe-feeding the kittens who hadn’t figured out how to eat on their own/refused to eat because they were sick. I also participated in a dog take in event where they bring in a dozen or so dogs from out of state, get them microchipped and checked by a vet, then put them in foster homes until they are ready to be adopted by a loving family.

The mission for the shelter was to provide animals of all kinds (cats. dogs, chickens, goats, bunnies, ETC) a loving family and good home.

My volunteering at the rescue shelter of taking care of the animals until they could be adopted helped their mission by keeping the animals healthy and safe, and by helping advertise the dogs to families looking for a furry friend to add to their household.

If every teen did even a small amount of community service, then the community would be a little more appreciative of the youth of today. However, if EVERYBODY did a little bit more community service, then society as a whole would be bettered because more people would be helped, and it would keep the youth off the streets. It would also create a more welcoming and accepting society in my opinion. Plus, volunteering teaches people valuable skills, such as compassion, dedication, and selflessness.

If volunteer organizations did not exist, then there would be more paying jobs for people, however, people wouldn’t be able to learn the previously mentioned valuable skills.

I found out about this event from my mother, who told me that that was where we adopted our first kitten. She suggested I ask if I could volunteer there, and they eagerly accepted me for the first dog adoption event. Then, I couldn’t make it to the second adoption event (which would have finished off my hours), so they offered for me to come work at the kitten shelter instead. I agreed, and the very first day of working at the kitten care center, I fell in love with one of the kittens. At no discount or anything, my parents and I adopted the kitten from the shelter, and I continued to volunteer there, even exceeding the hours needed. 

I do plan on continuing to volunteer at the rescue shelter, and have been eagerly accepted to continue. From here on if I do continue to volunteer at the shelter, then I will be able to earn a t-shirt promoting that I volunteer for the shelter. Though not necessary, it would definitely help with the adoption events to separate me from everybody else walking around at the event and promote me as one of the volunteers instead of just another passerby.

I really enjoyed working with the puppies and kittens, and I made a few new friends by volunteering at the kitten shelter on Thursdays and participating in dog adoption events on the weekends. There are also students from NEHS (or something from the school) volunteering there as well, and there is at least one family from the school who is a foster family for the kittens and puppies.

Week 15 HW

We talked about the national debt and how our taxes are distributed through proportional taxes (constant percent), progressive tax (larger percent as income increases) and regressive tax (larger percent as income decreases). Then, we looked into how GDP, CPI and Unemployment affect the economy (recession if not meeting GDP or Unemployment goals, inflation if not meeting CPI goals, stable economy if meeting those goals, or stagflation if there is a recession and inflation). We fix a recession through the expansionary fiscal policy (increase spending, decrease taxes) or through the easy money monetary policy (lower interest rate, lower RRR [taxes on banks], and the fed buys back all the CMOS or bonds lent out). We fix inflation through the contractionary fiscal policy (lower spending, increase taxes), or through the tight money monetary policy (higher interest rate, higher RRR, and Fed sells CMOS to banks, which ties up their money). We fix stagflation through either the tight money monetary policy AND expansionary fiscal policy, or through the easy money monetary policy AND contractionary fiscal policy.

The hardest part is remembering which policy goes with what problem.

1) I actually prefer this over the daily worksheet. If only math homework could be that simple...
2) I really enjoyed the class, more so than almost any other class I've taken (except creative writing. They're on about the same level). I really remembered the examples we did in class like the Reeses Peanut Butter Cups (which showed the marginal cost) or the wine selling, so if there was any way to incorporate more things like that of those, that would be awesome. :3

Week 13 HW

Throughout the week, we learned of the big indicators of the economy. GDP (Gross Domestic Product. It means how much stuff we make, but only takes into account final goods, or goods that have theoretically reached their final buyer. It's not always a good indicator as things like the black market, though still considered products that reach their final buyers, don't fit the bill. We always want to be above 0%) is always accompanied by CPI (Consumer Price Index. It is the government looking at the average cost of prices throughout the country every month during the year. The goal of this is 0-3%  increase). Neither of those measure a key factor, though. We learned about unemployment (One must meet the following factors to be able to be considered a part of unemployment: Must be unable to find work, must be looking for work, must be physically able to work, must be willing to accept a wage consistent with your training and ability. There are four main types -- frictional, structural, seasonal, and cyclical. To be doing good, we want to reach full employment, which means unemplayment must be below 6%) on Finance Friday.

If our GDP is 4%, and our CPI is 2%, then our economy is doing great.
If our GDP is -1% and our CPI is 4%, then our economy is not doing very well.
When CPI is negative, that is called deflation.

(Based off what I've heard from other classes, this is what I understand about a huge national debt...) A huge national debt is a bad thing because that means that we are spending more money than we have. Sometimes, like in our case, a country (China) could buy us out of debt, but then, in a sense, we are owned by that country, and we owe our debt to that country.

Week 11 HW

The first day back, we talked about Über, and how it affects taxis as we did that wrong last week. Then we talked about the golden rule of economics (marginal costs) and marginal costs (marginal revenue brings in the most money). We talked about what to do if losing money at the marginal cost, as well. Then we talked about monopolies through the board game and how monopolies can be both good and bad, as well as the stages leading up to a mobopoly. A true monopoly can control the prices to the point where it is no longer affordable to the majority. On finance Friday, we talked about insurance, the different types and why we need them all. 

Based on the book factory, some advice I would give is to hire not enough workers, then keep adding one more workers as time goes on until you hit the "sweet spot" of workers, where every worker is doing something useful for the company. 

The hardest thing to grasp would be the which of the determinants is the actual correct determinate of the shift in the market, as there is normally two good determinate that could be argued. The easiest thing was which determinate goes with which curve. TENORG (tech, expectations, #of producers, recourse costs, other goods by comp) goes with supply, and TRIBE (tastes, related goods, income, #buyers, expectations)  goes with demand. 

Week 10 HW

Throughout the week, we learned about price floors (such as minimum wage, where the government sets a specific price and prices cannot go below that, though to be effective it must be placed above equilibrium, which creates surpluses) and price ceilings (such as Rent Control, placed below equilibrium in order to keep prices from rising to a point where they're affordable to most people, which creates shortages). We also expanded on the idea of how prices are created in any market, specifically the free market. On Friday, we worked on our Rockonomics project.

When adding UBER into the equation, the demand for taxis will decrease because the prices of UBER are lower, and the supply of taxis will stay the same, thereby lowering the equilibrium. This will affect taxi companies by forcing them to lower prices in order to compete with Uber, which results in less taxis going around.

Another FF topic I would like to cover what it costs to have children -- both opportunity costs and literal costs.

Week 9 HW

On Monday, we practiced with the determinants of supply and learned about the elasticity of supply. The price elasticity of supply is how much a change in price will affect the supply of a good. Elastic goods are relatively easy to make, and inelastic goods are more difficult to make. Time affects elasticity -- all goods are elastic in the long run. On Tuesday, we learned about how supply and demand affect how people name their children. The smaller supply of people with a certain name increases the demand for the name, as well as how the name of a very successful person (such as Thomas Eddison) suddenly comes into high demand after the person becomes successful. On Wednesday, we learned about our final major project of the year -- Rockonomics. The project is basically taking a song and rewriting the lyrics to teach a lesson learned from Economics, then recording somebody singing the song we wrote, and applying that song to a video. On Friday, we participated in an activity where half the class was selling wine and half the class was buying wine, and the activity explained how neither the consumers or producers can really control prices, but the free market can.

I plan on working alone, and I have several songs which I'm debating on doing, one of which being Welcome To The Show. The one question I have is if two units are closely related (EX: Scarcity and Incentives, or Cost and Benifits and Scarcity), can we include both of those units together and show how those two units are related?

My strategy for winning Monopoly was to get all of the section I landed on (EX: all the railroads, or all the dark blue ones), then move on to collecting all the other sections one at a time. That way, it would ensure that other people would land on something I owned at some point.

Week 8 HW

Over the course of the past week, we learned about the determinants of demand (Tastes and preferences, Related goods, Income of consumers, Buyers, Expectations of future availability/prices). We learned about the price elasticity of demand and how that affects the demand curve -- inelastic goods (goods we buy no matter what, like a phone) and elastic goods (goods where the amount we buy greatly depends on the price, like an airhead). We learned about supply (the willingness and ability to produce a specific good at all possible prices) through an example of flip flops and the law of supply (as prices increase, quantity supplied increases. As prices decrease, quantity supplied decreases). We learned about the determinants of supply (Tech, Expectations, Number of producers, Other goods by company, Recourse costs, Gov intervention). Finally, on Friday, we learned about resumes, how to fill one out, and how to make it look and sound better than all other resumes out there.

In today's world, I would argue that computers are an inelastic good only because if the price of a computer drops from $600 to $350, people are still only likely to buy one.

I think we should not increase minimum wage to $15 per hour only because that means that jobs are less likely to hire people, meaning less jobs available, which increases the unemployment rate.