Examining Resources(1)

During the course of creating this blog I have found some helpful and interesting resources. I have also found that some resources are less useful than I had originally believed. Blogs and websites can provide useful information and an insider's view of the economics field. Websites have been the most helpful resources for me. They provide scholarly and accurate information. Most of the resources that I have used are updated daily with the most current information. The following is a list of my resources and a description of the type of information that they provide. These are not all of my resources, but they are the ones that differ most substantially from the others.

-Bloomberg
This website is constantly referenced by professionals in the economics, finance, and investing fields. Bloomberg is the leading provider of data and news. They provide current and historical financial data, market data, and pricing. One of the most useful resources that they provide is an economic calendar. This calendar announces when reports, indexes, and announcements are released. They also give links to all of the information on the calendar. The main function of this website is to provide news that is related to finance and the economy. This is a great tool for people who want to focus only on this type of news. Bloomberg is frequently used by professionals in the field. This is often the source where bloggers find information that fuels their discussions.

-CNN
CNN is another useful resource. They provide almost the same information as Bloomberg. CNN is a reliable news source. The only shortcoming of CNN is that they provide a wide variety of news. They cover everything from sports to weather. It is for this reason that economists do not use CNN as their primary source. The economic information that they provide is useful, but it is designed to appeal to a wide variety of viewers.

-Economist.com
I have found that this website is not as helpful as some of the others that I have referenced. The focus of economist.com seems to be more global than any of the others. From what I have read it appears that the content focuses on political issues. There is a lot of coverage of current events and the war in Iraq. This website is not intended for those who have extensively studied economics. The function of this site is mainly to provide commentary on social and political issues. Most bloggers would be unlikely to reference this site because it does not deliver very important news.

Blogs have provided a different type of information. Bloggers do not attempt to deliver the latest news. They realize that the large networks are capable of performing more quickly and more accurately. However, blogs do provide something that the news networks cannot compete with. Blogs allow many people to share their individual views with the whole world. The following are some of the blogs that I have linked to my blog as resources.

-Economist's View
This is the most interesting blog that I have read to date. This blog offers current economic issues and commentary on those issues. The content of this blog is relevant to the economics field. The two authors are economics professors, which gives a sense of credibility to everything that they post. The blog is academic and written in a professional manner. The authors appear to be in touch with their colleagues in the field of economics. They have a very long blog roll and many people have linked their own blogs to this one. Economist's view effectively uses portions of online resources and analyzes the information.

-Mises Economics Blog
I expected more economics related material from this blog than what I have seen. The title would suggest that economics is the primary topic of this blog. The reality is that only about 30 percent of the posts that I have read are related to economics. This blog does not report on the latest findings in the field. It appears that this blog is of a more personal nature than most others. The posts that are related to economics are engaging, but the rest of the posts are rants about the war and government. The content of this blog attempts to be academic, but I have a hard time believing everything that is posted. The most important purpose of this blog is to provoke thought. A few topics have caught my interest because of this blog.

Bruce Bartlett and Tyler Cowen on Inequality

Economist's View

If my real income does not fall, how am I hurt when Bill Gates makes another billion dollars? After all, the economic pie is not fixed. What he gets doesn’t come at my expense, so why should I or anyone else care? ...

• I have always thought about the subject in this way. I do not think that the rich making more money is contributing the poverty of others.
  
   - post by tbentson

If it were costless to play Robin Hood and take from the rich and give to the poor, it would be hard to oppose. But there are costs. We really don’t want the Gateses of the world sitting around clipping coupons. We want them out there thinking of new products and businesses to make themselves richer, because in the process they will improve the quality and lower the prices of goods and services we use, employ workers ..., and so on.

• I belive that there is a great cost to overtaxing the rich. The rich business owners such as Bill Gates greatly stimulate our economy. Every dollar that Bill Gates makes represents one dolllar that a consumer spent on a Microsoft product. That means that every person in the supply chain between Microsoft and the consumer made a profit. There are countless amounts of people that are employes by large corporations. If the rich were excessively taxed they may be forced to downsize their operations. Every copy of Microsoft Windows that is sold employes many people. There are programmers that develop the product, assembly line workers that create and package the procuct, and drivers that ship the product. Retailers of their product also depend on Microsoft for a portion of their income. Taxing the rich will not close the wealth gap in this country. It will lower the wealth of the rich and in turn lower the amount of wealth that they provide to their workers. Everybody will be less wealthy.
  
   - post by tbentson

Furthermore, more-educated groups show greater income inequality than less-educated groups. Uneducated people are more likely to be clustered in a tight range of relatively low incomes. But the educated will include a greater range of highly motivated breadwinners and relaxed bohemians, and a greater range of winning and losing investors. A result is a greater variety of incomes. Since the United States is growing older and also more educated, income inequality will naturally rise.

• This is a reasonable explanation for income inequality. The rich are not the ones to blame for this gap. They are simply people who made better decisions somewhere in their lives. I believe that some of their wealth is also due to luck.
  
   - post by tbentson

Validity of Online Resources(2)

Blogs are some of the most useful resources on the internet. They provide unfiltered information that comes from a diverse group of people. There is one blog in particular that is helpful in my study of economics. The blog that I am going to examine is Economist's View. This blog is based entirely on economics. It provides economic commentary on current issues. The blog is written by Mark Thoma and Tim Duy. They are both economics professors at the University of Oregon. As economics professors, they are both actively involved in their field. I trust the information that is presented on this blog because I trust the authors. They understand the traditional view of economics and all of the terms and history associated with the profession. Their daily jobs require that they stay informed of the latest breakthroughs in their profession. From what I have seen on their blog it looks like they post several times daily. It is clear that the authors devote much of their time to maintaining this blog. Their blog seems to be very popular. They have a technorati ranking of 3233.

I am very fond of this blog because it closely relates to my field of study.I am an economics student and this blog is written by economics professors. It focuses on current issues and the effects that they may have on the economy. This work is very scholarly. The two writers of this blog are college professors which would almost certainly make it academic. The posts on this blog are extremely detailed. They cite legitimate resources and provide all of the background information needed to understand each post. The posts are much longer than most of the other blogs that I have seen. Their audience seems to be people who already have some knowledge of how the economy works. It is aimed towards people who want to extensively study economics. I believe that this blog will be a great resource for feeding my blog. They discuss issues that are similar to those that I am planning on covering. This blog is updated daily and will be a great resource for me. If everything goes according to plan my blog will not differ much from theirs. I think that this blog is great and I would like to produce something similar.

The greatest aspect of this blog is that it avoids becoming stale. It is easy for economics to become boring when exchange rates and numerical figures are the sole topic of discussion. I am amazed that the authors of "Economist's View" have been able to add a personal touch to the field of economics. The post entitled "Is the High Vacancy Rate for Housing Worrisome?" is a great example of how the author relates the material to the reader.

The Census Bureau just released the data for fourth quarter of 2006. This showed the vacancy rate for owner occupied housing hitting 2.7 percent. This is up 50 percent from the 1.8 percent rate of two years ago.
This record vacancy rate is likely to mean considerably more downward pressure on house sale prices in the months ahead. It will likely mean downward pressure on rents as well, as some vacant units will eventually be put up for rent.

This information is presented in a matter that makes it useful to the reader. Most economists would report on this subject and discuss all of the numbers and technical aspects that are involved. The writers of this blog chose to discuss the effects of a high vacancy rate. The language used makes this blog useful to anyone that is interested in economics. Having some background knowledge might be useful, but it is not required in order to understand this blog.

How does the economy effect me?(3)

Most people do not have a great understanding of the economy and how it works. They do not know about the economy because they do not care about the economy. Economics is generally portrayed as a study of figures, graphs, and estimates. It is difficult for most people to develop an interest in a discipline that they cannot relate to and does not effect their lives. The reality is that everybody is effected by the economy and everybody contributes to the economy in some way. With this blog I plan to examine how the economy effects the daily lives of the citizens of this country. Almost every foreign policy, political move, or social issue has some kind of economic impact. I will try to comment on such issues and explain how they will effect people's lives. Exchange rates, employment rates, and the Consumer Price Index are difficult for most people to understand. It is sometimes difficult to see the relevance of these numbers. For example, low interest rates may increase home values and a change in exchange rates may cause inflation. I will try to explain these figures in detail and speculate what the numbers may represent.

There are many analysts in the economics field that like to speculate. That is one of the most interesting aspects of economics. Every action is open to speculation. There can be numerous unexpected events that result from one single event. This allows economists to make many different predictions. I will provide an alternative view and comment on the speculations of others.