Are We Falling In The Same Slump As The Great Depression

Many people fear that our country's economy has still yet to recover and might even fall further into the slump that it is in now. Are we going to fall into a great depression similar to what was seen here in the 30's. Most likely not according to economists who wrote in "The Shadow of Depression" written by Robert J. Samuelson. According to these people our economic status is nearly as much of a problem as it was back then although if the country continues to be tight with their money we could see this depression last for longer than expected. Although its hard for citizens and companies to spend money at times when they know the dollar will fall short, it needs to be done to get money flowing back into the system to help revamp the economy. If people weren't so tight with their money and spent it wisely it could help to create more money flow to help us climb out of this depression. Another thing that is reassuring about our economic status is the fact that our country is a lot more developed than it was back in the 30's. We now have federal unemployment insurance that help many struggling families and it was non existent back in the 30's. The other role that is going to help revamp the system is the government which has tried to more quickly help with slumps in the economy than it used to. All in all we as a country can rise from this slump in our economy if we are willing to let a little more money go back into the economy to help get it on its feet again, because if we don't our economic future is uncertain.

Alcoholism in Teens

As a child my father and I had a very close relationship and would do about everything together. We have pictures of me and him working on his old white k10 chevy and I couldn't have been any older than 5 at that time. I was rocking a pair of cowboy boots and attempting to help him put the lug nuts back on the tire. We would go and spend time in the woods hunting for mushrooms or when we got a chance to fish we would. As a child I always wanted to grow up and be like him. Then he started hanging with parents of my younger siblings and they would drink on the weekend and his personality would change and sometimes so much I couldn't stand to be around him. It made me view him in a whole different way and we started to grow more distant and I started going to my mom for more things than I used to. Well after this went on for a few years he decided to cut back on his alcohol consumption along with most of his friends and we are starting to get our old relationship back, that Ive missed so dearly. This summer he is going to help be build ranch hand bumpers for my truck and repair the rocker panels, cab corners and doors to remove all the rust from my truck to help it look nicer. I hope that these go through because it will be some good bonding time for us before I have to move out to go to school and won't be able to see him everyday. The point I'm trying to make here is alcohol is the tool of the devil, and a bar is a pit stop on the way to hell as one of my dads friends always put it. I keep seeing more and more teenagers going out and getting wasted every weekend because they think its fun, or because they just want to say they got wasted. Whats the point of this? You don't remember a thing that happened over the weekend and probably won't remember much from your teenage years consequently. What memories are you going to have to look back onto when your older or what stories will you have to tell your kids? Oh when I was kid I went out and got wasted every weekend, what kind of story is that to tell your kids. You would think you'd want some interesting story to tell them such as some of the things that have occurred over my weekends where no alcohol has ever been involved such as going fishing in a farm pond with your friend and catching 5 pounders, or sitting around a bonfire with your closet friends or best of all setting your best friend on fire because everyone got a little to cocky one night. Kids these days need to understand that you don't need to drink to have fun, especially drinking so much you can't remember what happened. I wish people would start broadcasting this message more than the one that you have to drink because everyone does in their teenage years because its fun.

Portraying Nature the Wrong Way?

Are our current generations parents portraying the outdoors in the wrong way making kids think it is a bad place to go. Many kids haven't fully experienced nature but would prefer to be glued to a television screen inside somewhere. Although are these kids to blame? Many parents are very protective of their kids and preach to them about the dangers of being outdoors like pedophiles, rapist, and getting hurt. This makes the kids want to go outside less and less because of all the images that are being put into their head. I think my age group was the last to really experience what nature was, not as much as generations before me who could leave home in the morning as long as they were back by dinner. Now you can hardly leave the yard without the eyes of your parents on you. This limits the amount of things you can do but even then they are limited more because if they aren't safe then the child will be scolded. I like the example I've heard were parents preach for their kids to go climb trees but not to high because they could get hurt. I think parents need to relax a little so that kids will willing go outside. I've seen it with my family my brothers won't go outside unless forced compared to me who spends all my time outside. They have tons of free time but they use all of it to play video games and with what free time I do have I use it to do something outside, even if it involves hard labor i'd rather be outside doing that than stuck indoors. Its sad to see newer generations appreciate nature less and less because of the ideas that we are putting into their head.

Childhood Memroies

With the up and coming warming weather and precipitation in the forecast I can't help but think back onto my childhood and the things my father taught me. He would always say that we could start hunting for mushrooms as soon as it warmed up and we had enough moisture in the ground to allow them to pop up overnight. We would scramble through the woods looking high and low for them and some years we would finds 3 or 4 grocery bags full and others we would be lucky to fill one, but that wasn't what mattered now that I look back onto it. Ive now come to the realization that those are memories I will always hold with my dad and the campground that we belonged to were we would go about hunting for them. This wasn't the only thing he taught me about nature though, when camping we could spend hours on a little 10 foot john boat fishing our hearts away.
Children now a days don't get to experience all of this stuff with their parents because they are all so wrapped up in some electronic device what seems to be 24/7. I think parents need to start regulating the time children spend in front of a television, playing video games, or watching videos through their phone and take them outside to show them what they can do to entertain themselves. The way they act now they won't have those special memories like I do of my childhood with my father that I hold onto so closely. I guess since I will be leaving a little over a year for a different college it makes me look back onto my childhood and all my memories and then compare them to my brothers who are victim of the electronics era.
I feel parents should try to implement nature in our children's lives and show them how much stuff their is to do if they would venture away from the television and step outside. It can't be healthy for a child to sit in front of some electronic device for 6+ hours a day like my brothers do. I wish they would get up and go outside and do something but they have fallen victim to the era that never wants to go out and do anything that involves physical labor, so they'll rot their brains inside staring at a screen. Children need to experience the outdoors with their family like I have because their family isn't always going to be there, so it would leave them with some fond memories such as the ones I have.

Following Educational Funding

After reading the article in Arguement that was wrote by Mrs. McCabe I think many americans should also read this article. Our country is constantly talking about our kids growing need for education but how do we plan on supplying them top notch education if we are allowing companies and millionaires to get away from paying their fair share in taxes. She goes on to say some of the people she interviewed said they would see a company move into their town and get a ten year tax break and then when ten years was up for them to start paying taxes they would leave that facility and relocate. Not only does this leave many people without jobs it also decreases the amount of funding available to the school. This is then return cause county governments to raise the middle class's taxes in order to help provide for the school. If these companies werent given such a long tax break more revenue could be brought in for the school allowing them to maintain nicer facilities for our students to be educated in. I came from first hand experience of this, where my schools science lab could barely be called a science lab and prevented us from doing anything in it. The lack of the lab also prevents the high school from offering dual or AP credit biology and chemistry because they dont have the facilities to hold theses classes. New buisnesses arent the only ones to blame though, the average person pays $12 in taxes for every $100 they make, but if you make more than a million a year your are only taxed about $5 for every $100. How is this fair to tax the people with the most money less than those who might be struggling to get by. I feel that TEF needs to keep pushing foward as it had been to reform the coporate tax loopholes so that businesses and millionaires are taxed fairly compared to everyone else in this country. This would allow schools to maintain nicer facilities for the kids and faculuty to provide them with excellent education.

Should Business Owners be Allowed to Refuse Service?

The state of Arizona has caught a lot of attention over the past week with the new bill that was being thrown about in their capital building. This new law would allow business owners the right to refuse service to gays and lesbians. After making it through the Legislature it was vetoed by Arizona's governor. After it was vetoed many of the people holding protest signs outside the capital building changed the signs thanking the governor for what she had done.
After reviewing this article I partially agree with the state of Arizona on the fact that business owners should be allowed to refuse customers service if they please to. They should be able to have some line of defense against someone who they believe could potentially harm their company, or who they don't have agreeing viewpoints with. Without this being in place any company would have to let anybody in, now as a prospective business owner I'm not found of this idea. I'd like to have the comfort of being able to refuse a person service if they don't look like they can pay for it or they could cause harm to myself or my co-workers. Since this bill was vetoed I feel it could open up more opportunities for people who it wasn't attended for and could cause problems down the road. With that being said anybody could go into a store and buy whatever they like and can't be refused because of this law being vetoed.
I feel that this country's citizens are to worried about how everyone else thinks of them and we are trying to please everybody. In order to correct this mayhem I feel like we should tell the attention seekers, who do what they do for their 15 minutes in fame to sit down and find a job and stop trying to get everyones attention. I also feel we should stop catering to specific people, what we do for one group the next group is going to want the same treatment and eventually that could get costly. We need to realize that we can't be liked by everyone and still have a functioning country like we had only a few years ago. This country could be in trouble for future generations if it keeps on the path it is and this bill is a perfect example of the government trying to please every sexuality, race, and gender. People need to step up to the plate and realize that they can't be liked by all and accept that so this country can get its backbone back and be the great country that it once used to be, returning all patriotism to this country and allowing us to solve our own problems so we can go back to helping other countries with their problems.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/26/politics/arizona-brewer-bill/

Facebook Privacy

After reading the article in the book about the change in Facebook terms and services policy and how it muddied the water I realized that they are fully necessary for the full privacy of your information. You are the prime candidate to protect yourself from the bashful people in the world by not posting a status update with every new thing you find relevant. With any little bit of digging what is posted on the internet can be found by anyone not matter the privacy policy. This should worry students as if wanted by colleges they could check a students social website and see the vulgar photos of them that were posted or if they are constantly talking about getting trashed at a party. Many people worried about what Facebooks new terms meant, if it was just a legal fix, or if it had deeper meaning but primarily they aren't responsible for your posts. If you want to save yourself the embarrassment of having people find things that were supposed to be kept private keep them off of social websites. So next time you are thinking about updating your friends of what you're doing think is it really relevant for them to know and would I mind other people seeing it or would this be frowned upon by the workplace or college? Be smart about what you post online because within a few clicks anything can be found.