Fluent Essays

You should respond briefly through a single substantive paragraph to the questions based on the attached article. Thank you!!#4: More Savings, and More Problems.Do you believe that higher savings in America should be such a looming concern for the economy? (Please read the attached file Americans Are Saving More, and...)#5: Assessing the Population Bomb.What is your primary reason for favoring one of these two macro approaches over the other? (Please read the The Population Bomb Was a Dud;... for this question.)#6: The Case for Free Money.What is the primary impact upon the economy which you would cite related to this bold incomes policy? (Please read the attached file)#7: How to Fix the Great American Growth Machine.What seems to be Alan Greenspans thesis toward achieving sustained economic growth? (Please read the REVIEW --- The Great American...)#8: Consumption, Debt & Chinese Youth Culture.Does this trend appear quite similar to American consumption, or are their particular differences in your view? (Please read the Young Chinese Take On Debt... for this question.)#9: The Chinese State-Driven Growth Model.While the Chinese economy continues growth at least of ~ 6\%, is there a serious problem for their leaders in your view? (Please read the attached file) proquestdocuments_2020_01_14.pdf proquestdocuments_2020_01_14_2.pdf the_case_for_free_money.pdf proquestdocuments_2020_01_14_3.pdf proquestdocuments_2020_01_14_4.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview Americans Are Saving More, and That Isnt Necessarily Good; Rather than falling as usual during the long expansion, the personal-saving rate keeps drifting higher Kiernan, Paul . Wall Street Journal (Online) ; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]22 Sep 2019. ProQuest document link FULL TEXT From the 1980s through 2007, household saving followed a predictable pattern. It typically rose after a recession as people paid down debt and rebuilt balance sheets, then declined as they grew more optimistic—and spendthrift. That hasnt happened during the current expansion. The personal-saving rate, the portion of after-tax income that consumers dont spend, rose from 3.7\% in 2007, at the height of the housing bubble , to 6.5\% in 2010, the year after the recession ended. But since then, rather than falling, it has drifted up, to an average 8.2\% in the first seven months of 2019. That is higher than the average for any full year since 2012, when incomes spiked as companies pulled forward dividend and bonus payments to beat a tax increase. That is evidence to suggest that something structural has changed, and its made the saving rate kind of sticky at higher levels, said Tiffany Wilding, a U.S. economist at Pacific Investment Management Co. Saving, which is the slice of paychecks, dividends and other earnings that Americans sock away, was up 17\% in 2018 from the previous year, according to recently revised figures from the Commerce Department, beating consumer spendings 5.2\% and business investments 7.8\%. The timing is no coincidence, says Paul Ashworth, chief North American economist at Capital Economics. The tax cuts seem to have been saved. He notes the saving rate jumped by a full percentage point in January 2018, the month after President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law. Economists point to other factors as well, including greater caution among consumers scarred by the 2007-09 recession , aging baby boomers preparing for retirement and a widening gap between the rich (who save a lot) and the poor (who save little). Higher saving can be positive when it represents prudent behavior, for example preparation for retirement. It can also act as a cushion against recession. Rainy-day funds enable consumers—who account for two-thirds of economic output—to continue spending despite a job loss, reduced hours or slashed bonuses. But whether savings serve as a recession cushion depends in part on how they are distributed. Wealthier Americans are less likely than middle- and lower-income families to change their spending patterns after a windfall such as a tax cut or a setback such as a recession. If youre a billionaire, and you find $100 on the street, youre probably not going to rush off to Walmart to spend it, says Ian Shepherdson, founder of Pantheon Macroeconomics. But if youve got no money, and you find $100 on the street, you are going to rush off to spend it. While the latest saving data arent broken down by income, some economists say the recent rise is likely being driven by the wealthy. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Analytics, estimates that the wealthiest 10\% of Americans accounted for more than three-fourths of the increase in the saving rate since the tax cut. That cut increased after-tax incomes of the upper one-fifth of households—those making at least $149,400 a year—by 2.9\%, versus 1.6\% for the middle fifth and 0.4\% for the bottom fifth, according to the Tax Policy Center, a research group. PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 1 of 3 Joe Norflus, a retired investment banker in Essex Co., New Jersey, whose income consists mostly of dividends and interest, said he benefited from the laws lower tax rates and saw his net worth rise. But the earnings boost was fairly insignificant relative to his overall net worth, so he used it to increase his savings. The tax cut didnt impact in any way, shape, or form my spending habits, Mr. Norflus said. On the other hand, economists say lower taxes did appear to boost spending by lower- and middle-class families last year. One sign: Sales were up 11\% at discount retailers tracked by Redbook Research, compared with 3.4\% at department stores. Regardless of the cause, if saving outstrips investment opportunities for a long time, some economists say, it can hold down interest rates, inflation and economic growth. Such secular stagnation may leave less room to cut interest rates, making it harder for the Federal Reserve to boost growth during downturns. Rather than being a virtue, saving becomes a vice, said Gauti Eggertsson, an economist at Brown University. Mr. Ashworth said the data for a long time didnt back the argument that rising inequality would boost saving and weigh on growth. That case looks stronger now that revisions have raised the saving rate, he said. Write to Paul Kiernan at paul.kiernan@wsj.com Credit: By Paul Kiernan DETAILS Subject: Tax rates; Interest rates; Recessions; Tax cuts; Consumers; Propensity to save; Baby boomers; Retirement; Tax increases Location: United States--US New Jersey People: Trump, Donald J Company / organization: Name: Redbook; NAICS: 511120; Name: Moodys Investors Service Inc; NAICS: 522110, 523930, 561450; Name: Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center; NAICS: 541720; Name: Pacific Investment Management Co; NAICS: 523920; Name: Walmart Inc; NAICS: 452112, 452311, 454110; Name: Brown University; NAICS: 611310 Lexile score: 1560 L Publication title: Wall Street Journal (Online); New York, N.Y. Publication year: 2019 Publication date: Sep 22, 2019 column: The Outlook Section: Economy Publisher: Dow Jones &Company Inc Place of publication: New York, N.Y. Country of publication: United States, New York, N.Y. Publication subject: Business And Economics PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 2 of 3 Source type: Newspapers Language of publication: English Document type: News ProQuest document ID: 2294985814 Document URL: http: //edmonds.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/22949858 14?accountid=1626 Copyright: Copyright 2019 Dow Jones &Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Last updated: 2019-09-23 Database: eLibrary,US Newsstream Database copyright  2020 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions Contact ProQuest PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 3 of 3 The Population Bomb Was a Dud; Paul Ehrlich got it wrong because he never understood human potential. McGurn, William . Wall Street Journal (Online) ; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]30 Apr 2018: n/a. ProQuest document link FULL TEXT Hell is other people. These oft-misquoted words were written by Jean-Paul Sartre. But it would take a Stanford biologist, Paul Ehrlich, to elevate them into a full-fledged ethos that would be used to justify outrages inflicted on millions of innocent people--most of them weak, vulnerable and poor. Fifty years ago this month, Mr. Ehrlich published The Population Bomb. In it he portended global cataclysm-unless the world could be persuaded to stop producing so many . . . well . . . people. The book sketched out possible scenarios of the hell Mr. Ehrlich believed imminent: hundreds of millions dying from starvation, England disappearing by the year 2000, India doomed, the average Americans lifespan falling to 42 by 1980, and so on. Mr. Ehrlichs book sold three million copies, and his crabbed worldview became an unquestioned orthodoxy for the technocratic class that seems to welcome such scares as an opportunity to boss everyone else around. In this way the missionary fervor once directed toward Christianizing the globe found its late-20th-century expression as proselytizing for population control. Thus Robert McNamara, whose leadership would prove even more destructive at the World Bank than it had been in Vietnam, would declare overpopulation a graver threat than nuclear war-because the decisions to have babies or not were not in the exclusive control of a few governments but rather in the hands of literally hundreds of millions of individual parents. In his day Mr. Ehrlichs assertion about the limited carrying capacity of the Earth was settled science. Never mind that it is rooted in an absurdity: that when a calf is born a countrys wealth rises, but when a baby is born it goes down. Or that the record shows that when targeted peoples resist the prescription--dont have babies--things quickly turn coercive, from forced abortions in China to contraceptive injections given to black women in apartheidera South Africa. Enter Julian Lincoln Simon. Simon was a professor of business and economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1981, when this columnist first met him, Julian would smile and say the doom-and-gloomers had a false understanding of scarcity that led them to believe resources are fixed and limited. The evidence, by contrast, was that by almost any measure--life expectancy, infant mortality, caloric intake--things were getting better all the time. The reality, Julian liked to say, is that we live amid an epidemic of life. In 1981 he put his findings together in a book called The Ultimate Resource. It took straight aim at Mr. Ehrlich. In contrast to the misanthropic tone of The Population Bomb (its opening sentence reads, The battle to feed all humanity is over), Julian was optimistic, recognizing that human beings are more than just mouths to be fed. They also come with minds. Ultimately their clashing views led to a famous wager in 1980. If Mr. Ehrlich was right, prices for commodities would grow more expensive as they became scarcer. If Simon was right, they would become cheaper as humans found more cost-effective ways of extracting them or cheaper alternatives. Mr. Ehrlich picked the commodities-nickel, copper, chromium, tin and tungsten--but in 1990 lost the bet. The larger victory, however, was not about the price of tin. It was the idea that the finite supply of any given natural PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 1 of 3 resource is only one part of the equation. The other is human ingenuity, which adapts to circumstances and turns what were once luxuries into everyday amenities. Thats why Julian called the human mind The Ultimate Resource. And thats why it never runs out. Julian left us in 1998 but his spirit can be detected in any number of thinkers. Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist, is one. The economist Thomas Sowell is another. So is anyone who stands up to say: Give people free markets and property rights, and you will be astonished by how much they will improve their lot--and ours. Fifty years out, alas, Mr. Ehrlich remains as impervious to the evidence as ever. In an interview two months ago in the Guardian, Mr. Ehrlich decreed the collapse of civilization a near certainty in the next few decades. Which may be a good reminder that skepticism is in order whenever someone waves the flag of science to justify the latest antihuman nostrum. Because it turns out hell isnt other people after all. To the contrary, human beings constantly find new and creative ways to take from the earth, increase the bounty for everyone and expand the number of seats at the table of plenty. Which is one reason Paul Ehrlich is himself better off today than he was when he wrote his awful book-notwithstanding all those hundreds of millions of babies born in places like China and India against his wishes. Write to mcgurn@wsj.com. Credit: By William McGurn DETAILS Subject: Population; Books People: Ehrlich, Paul Sowell, Thomas Simon, Julian L Sartre, Jean-Paul (1905-1980) Lexile score: 1420 L Publication title: Wall Street Journal (Online); New York, N.Y. Pages: n/a Publication year: 2018 Publication date: Apr 30, 2018 column: Main Street Section: Opinion Publisher: Dow Jones &Company Inc Place of publication: New York, N.Y. Country of publication: United States, New York, N.Y. Publication subject: Business And Economics Source type: Newspapers Language of publication: English PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 2 of 3 Document type: Opinions, Commentary ProQuest document ID: 2032532828 Document URL: http://edmonds.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/20325 32828?accountid=1626 Copyright: (c) 2018 Dow Jones &Company, Inc. Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission. Last updated: 2020-01-03 Database: eLibrary,US Newsstream Database copyright  2020 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions Contact ProQuest PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 3 of 3 Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. REVIEW --- The Great American Growth Machine And How To Fix It --- The U.S. economy is losing its historic edge, argue Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge. A few key reforms are essential to keep it on top. Greenspan, Alan; Wooldridge, Adrian . Wall Street Journal , Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]13 Oct 2018: C.1. ProQuest document link FULL TEXT Imagine that a version of the World Economic Forum was held in Davos four centuries ago. From across the globe, the great and the good of 1618 gather in the Alpine village: Chinese scholars in their silk robes, British adventurers in their doublets and jerkins, Turkish civil servants in their turbans and caftans. They have come together to discuss the great question of who will dominate the centuries ahead. The Chinese point to their superb civil service and mighty navy. A Turk boasts that the Ottoman Empire is expanding westward and will soon hold Europe in the palm of its hand. A plucky Briton argues that his tiny country has broken with the corrupt, ossified continent and is developing dynamic new institutions, including a powerful parliament and a new sort of organization, the chartered corporation, which can trade all over the world. Yet in the entire discussion one region goes unmentioned: North America. Four hundred years ago, North America was little more than an empty space on the map -- an afterthought in educated minds and a sideshow in European great-power politics. The entire continent produced less wealth than the smallest German principality. Today, the United States has the most powerful economy in the world: With less than 5\% of the worlds population, it still accounts for almost a quarter of global GDP. America has the worlds highest standard of living apart from a handful of countries with small populations, such as Qatar and Norway. It also dominates the industries that are inventing the future -- intelligent robots, driverless cars, life-extending drugs. The fact that 15 of the worlds top 20 universities are based in the U.S., according to the QS World University Ranking, suggests that it is well-placed to dominate the ideas economy. The rise of the U.S. to economic greatness is an extraordinary story. But it is a story with a sting in the tail. Productivity growth in the U.S. has all but stalled in recent years. The number of new companies being created has reached a modern low. Geographical mobility has been in decline for three decades. Economists worry that Americas potential rate of growth -- the pace at which annual output can expand without pushing up inflation -- is also falling. Why did America become the worlds greatest economy? Why has it lost its momentum in recent years? And what light can history throw on the question of whether the U.S. can be as successful in the future as it was in the past? The key to Americas success lies in its unique toleration for creative destruction, the destabilizing force described by the economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. Creative destruction reallocates societys resources from less productive pursuits to more productive ones -- from spinning jennies to factories, for example, or from horseand-buggies to motorcars. A range of things, from geography to political culture, have contributed to this enduring preference for change over PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 1 of 5 stability. Consider the sheer size of the U.S., which has allowed it to suck in millions of immigrants and construct continent-spanning companies. It has also allowed the country to shift relatively easily from one industry to another. In Britain, railroads had to make strange loops to avoid ancient settlements. In America, they could carve a straight line from Nowhere-in-Particular to Nowhere at All, as the Times of London put it in 1874. The U.S. has sometimes paid a heavy price, both aesthetically and economically, for rapid development, but unlike its European peers, it has avoided chronic stagnation. There is also the fact that the U.S. was the first country to be born in the modern world of growth and perpetual change. The War of Independence began a year before the publication of the greatest work of free-market economics ever written, Adam Smiths The Wealth of Nations (1776). For most of recorded history, people had inhabited a society that was static and predictable. Smith advanced a vision of society in which the market transformed the pursuit of individual self-interest into the creation of universal progress. Many European countries took generations to come to terms with this insight (some still havent). America was born dynamic. But size and newness are not enough on their own, or else Brazil would be an economic colossus. The U.S. possessed two secret ingredients that turned it into a growth machine. The first is its entrepreneurial culture. Americans admire business people in the same way that the English admire gentlemen and the French admire intellectuals. Americans are more inclined to found companies than the people of other countries and are also better at turning small companies into giant ones. The U.S. was the first country to make it easy to create companies without going cap in hand to local bureaucrats who had a right to tell them what to do. This spirit of entrepreneurship was built into the countrys DNA. The U.S. was founded by settlers who wanted to escape from the restrictions of Europes ancient regime: Puritans who wanted to escape from the grip of established churches, younger sons who wanted to escape from the consequences of primogeniture, adventurers who wanted to escape from closed societies. A striking proportion of Americas entrepreneurial heroes have been immigrants or the children of immigrants. Alexander Graham Bell and Andrew Carnegie were born in Scotland. Andy Grove and Sergey Brin were born, respectively, in Hungary and the Soviet Union. The U.S. has also benefited enormously from its founding political structure. The Constitution, written in 1787 and ratified in 1788, did its best to constrain the ability of politicians to interfere in the economy. It limits the reach of the federal government by guaranteeing the rights of citizens, not least the right to property, and by dividing power among its branches and with the states. Though governmental powers to tax and regulate have grown enormously over the past century, they remain a world apart from the state control that has long prevailed among Americas chief rivals. The most remarkable period of creative destruction in U.S. history was the era from 1865 to 1900, when government confined itself to providing a stable environment for growth. Titans such as Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller built the worlds biggest and most efficient companies. Railway barons knitted a continent together into the worlds biggest single market. Though this great revolution was sometimes brutal, it laid the foundations of an era of mass prosperity. Carnegie and Rockefeller reduced the price of steel and oil by almost 90\%. R.H. Macy sold goods suitable for the millionaire at prices in reach of the millions. Henry Ford trumpeted the Model-T as ... Purchase answer to see full attachment