CLASS 4

I’m back, so after 2 weeks of break we returned to classes and the topic of today lesson was economics! Not my favorite topic but I found the Great Depression quite interesting. There were different causes for the Wall Street Crash that led to the Great Depression I summarize them into 5:

·         Blind faith in the Bull Market driving up stock prices, the speculations of the price of the shares turned to be completely wrong causing the crashed of the stock market.

·         The president Hoover administration and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff that reduced imports and exports caused more damages in the economics and did not put an end to the depression.

·         The unequal distribution of wealth and income. In 1929, two hundred of the biggest corporations controlled 50% of the nation's corporate wealth so if just a few companies went under after the Crash, the whole economy would suffer.

·         Bad banking structure, the structure of these banks was bad so when the Crash happened most of these closed.

·         Lack of government regulation, the government did not intervene and when it intervened just made things worse.

Some consequences were:  Many businesses went bankrupt, Banks began to fail wiping out personal savings and further decreasing demand, the Government relief funds ran out and foreclosures increased along with homelessness, hunger, and crime.

Learning about the Great Depression make me understand that no matter how strong and how prepare the economics of a country is, with just committing an error it could all disappear within seconds.

CLASS 3

So I’m back! In this class we learned about the American Government and the Political Parties. This was a class with a lot of numbers and facts. But I understood that: the government was formed in 1789 and it laid out in the Constitution and that the United States was the world’s first modern national constitutional republic, oh and that is based on the principle of federalism.

Ok it comprises in 3 branches: legislative, executive and judiciary. Each has its own distinct responsibilities, but they can also partially limit the authority of the others through a complex system of checks and balances. The legislative branch is composed by the Congress which is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives (The number of representatives each state has in the House is based on each state's population) and the Senate (the number of senators from each state is two, regardless of population). They have the power to levy and collect taxes, declare war, raise and support armies, etc. The executive branch is represented by the President and vice-president, some of the powers they have are: in the case of the president, he can firm treats with foreign nations and the vice president is the President of Senate. The judicial branch is represented by the Supreme Court as the highest court in the federal court system, something curious about this branch is that the Justices are appointed for life by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and various lower or inferior courts and that the first congress subdivided the nation jurisdictionally into judicial districts and created federal courts for each district!

In the case of the political parties, America has two principal parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The Republican Party was found in 1854 and this it supports an American conservative platform. Some Republican presidents were Abraham Lincoln and George W. Bush. The Democratic Party is the oldest political party in the United States and among the oldest in the world, it currently positions itself left-of-center in American politics, supporting an American liberalism. Barack Obama is a democratic president.

So this is what I learned in today’s class. We have a two weeks break and a lot of hw! See you need class…

CLASS 2

So hello again, this class was interesting. Today we had our first presentation! The topic was Immigration. This class had lots of history but the conclusion was that many people from all over the world decided to move to America for the promise of a better future.

So our classmate explained us the immigration in 5 periods, the first one was the colonial period, the first wave of immigrants came from Europe (England, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, etc), some colonist sought adventure in America, others fled religious persecution, some were convicts transported from England jails, but as always most immigrants went looking for economy opportunities. As many could not afford the ticket to America they went as indentured servants (I really think this is interesting) such servant signed an indenture to work for a master for four to seven years to repay the cost of the ticket. Also blacks went to America but involuntarily as slaves. The second period started around 1820-1870, the new immigrants entered the United States from northern and Western Europe, but about a third were Irish, many of them seeking escape from the potato famine that struck Ireland in the mid 1840’s. Also Germans went to the united states searching for religious freedom, in this period the flood of immigrants began to alarm many native born Americans. During the third period more than 30 million European migrated to the United States because of this the congress passed the emergency quota act (1921) which restricted immigration to the United States, later on, the Congress passed the immigration Act of 1924 which limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted to the country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the united states. Asians were hardly discriminated and a law against Chinese immigration was passed.

In the fourth period the immigration and nationality Act of 1965 abolished the National Origins Formula that had been in place in the United States since the immigration Act of 1924. This Act changed the ethnic make of the United States by equalizing immigration policies, after the great depression a lot of immigrants from Latin America and Asia arrived to the United States. Chinese immigrants were welcome again when these two countries became allies during the World War II. Finally in the last period that is the contemporary, immigrants tend to be younger but after the attack in September 11, immigrants are less welcome, and even when less people is in favor of immigration, illegal immigration has increased. I can name lots of consequences of immigration but the principals for me are economical (not enough job) and social (racism and violence). So yes the second class topic was BIG but quite entertaining. See you next class!

CLASS 1

Ok so this cycle I’m studying U.S Panorama, in this class we are going to learn about America’s Political parties, Immigration, the great depression and other things.  Up until now this class has been really interesting, we read a lot but that’s not a problem for me I really enjoy reading that’s one of the reason I love this. Ok so the teacher suggested we create a blog and write what we learn each class and I find this way of evaluation quite awesome. So the first class we talked about America being a Melting pot or a salad bowl (each describes the multi-ethnicity of America). After checking each theory, the first one said that all the cultural aspects that one brings into are blended together or melted, to form a new culture and the identities of each original culture are extinguished to bring out a complete new mixture. The second one said that the newcomers bring different cultures, where each of these cultures is kept as an essential part to make a whole, therefore its original shape and characteristics are maintained. In my opinion America is a salad bowl because although immigrants work and make connection with other persons and respect their traditions and follow the rules of their society, when they return home they follow their traditions and live as they would live in their country. But there’s an anti-melting pot movement that brings up the differences between immigrants; they have their own segregation for exe. Black people live in an area and Peruvians in another one they have a separation even when they are both immigrants.  So that’s what I learned in the first class, we have a lot of hw for the next class, lots to read, so bye!