Wall Street

All of the horror movies have finally come true- the machines have taken over. Okay maybe not so dramatic. With the White House stating that no cyber attack was committed on the Wall Street computer systems on Thursday and people wonder what went wrong. As workers stood on the stock room floors and we unaware of what exactly was happening around them. How long will it take the government to figure out what went wrong? I hope not long because Americans have amazing imagination.

Vikings Stadium

Recently in my marketing class a group presented a project promoting the construction of the Vikings stadium. The current estimate of how much it would cost to build the new stadium would be around $953,916,000 according to football.ballparks.com. The Vikings are currently trying to get the government to support the construction and in turn pay for a majority of the stadium through tax increases. Arguments for both sides of the Vikings stadium have been heard. People have stated that the Viking stadium would offer employment to residence, draw people from across the country and keep the Vikings in Minnesota. People against the stadium have been against the thought of Minnesota residence paying for the stadium through taxes even if they do not watch football or attend football games. Personally I find that the argument should not be why we should have the stadium but what we could do with that money instead. Being strongly pro-education I think about how many teachers have been laid off and the disintegration of our educational systems and I wonder why we are even debating a stadium.

Abroad

Ask people what they want to do when they will retire and chances are that around half or more people will say travel the world. Well why wait until we retire to travel the world. With the increase of globalization cultures and ethnicity's are being pushed to mingle with each other. The ability for us to accept other culture and ethnicity's cannot only make us more understanding of each other and increase business opportunities. It has been shown that our minds develop most rapidly when we are young it also has been said that people are more open minded at a young age. So isn't it important that we experience these cultures young?

Jumping Forward

Someone once told me something along the lines of "You can't cross a ravine in a couple steps you just have to jump". At the time those words made sense but only in a literal way. Looking now at my future and my friends future alls I can see are a bunch of "ravines". They are the moment you send in your deposit for college. The day you graduate high school. The day you leave your family and move in to college and many more. The challenges never stop coming and no matter how slow and steady you wish to take it the event come at an alarming pace. There are so many things that me and my peers are about go through, times when we will fall and times when we will rise. Years and years we have been taught how to be strong, brave and be incredible people from the examples set by the people that surround us. Years we have worked hard and done hard work in effort of becoming who we want to be. So sing with hope, excitment and joy because we are the class of 2010 and we are ready to jump!

The Issues we are Facing

I was recently assigned a project to write about the key problems that affect my community. I was to get this information from a key community leader. The only problem was I didn’t know who to pick. After research it seemed to me as if almost anyone that left their house was in one way or another, a “community leader”. So when it came down to finally picking who I was going to focus my article on I chose Shelia Bourgoyne. Shelia is 43 years old, a mother and a student. She is also an active member of the community. When I was talking with her she said that the main three problems that the community is facing are vacant homes, an increasing homeless population and an education deficit.
The first issue she mentioned was vacant homes. She said that this is a concern to the community for many reasons. One of the concerns is who is going to take care of these homes? What happens if someone were to loot the house for copper pipes and the gas was still on? Another concern is that vacant houses also offer a place for illegal activity to take place which endangers the community.
The second issue that she discussed with me was the increasing amount of homeless individuals. This issue goes almost hand in hand with the increasing amount of vacant homes. As the amount of people that are homeless increase the resources that are available to those individual become harder to come by. Families must try and find ways to feed their children and provide a roof over their head after their house is foreclosed on. When it is hard for these families to meet their basic needs other important aspects of life such as gaining an education seem to lose importance.
The third issue that Shelia told me about was the educational deficit in our community. Not only has is there a money deficit in the educational system that will not be fixed for another six, seven years but a money deficit is causing an educational deficit. Teachers want raises, technology and resources such as books need to be updated and with a lack of money these needs are hard to meet. This leaves students with an education that is not nearly as good as they should be getting.
These issues are all present throughout the community and things are being done to try and make the problems diminish. Through programs such as CAER a community food shelf and fundraisers at local schools individuals all over the community are trying to come together and make our community and world a better place.

What Have You Learned?

On an optimistic note I think that the economic roller coaster that the US has been on has taught people a lot about themselves. People learn what they are willing to do to keep their pay, and keep their hours. You notice which friends are truly friends and which friends have other priorities. It also teaches people about how they deal with not getting what they want. Like I mentioned in my earlier post a lot of the jobs that are available right now are jobs that most people are not correctly qualified for either that be over qualified or under qualified. People are being forced to make decision whether to keep what they see as their pride by declining jobs under their ability and qualifications and risk financial ruins. People also face the problem of being under qualified and must struggle with the choice of whether to go back to school. Peoples patience and creativity are and have been tested the question is what have you learned?

Economy

I can’t think of anyone that has not been affected by the economic circumstances of our economy. From hours getting cut, pay getting docked and people getting fired the economy has taken its toll. Just an example my cousin will be graduation this summer with a bachelor’s degree in International business. He had hoped to get into a job of relatively high importance and deal directly with other countries. Unfortunately he has been unable to get the job that he would like and will be working as a second level manager at a local Target store. I think it is such a shame that people who are coming out of college with degrees are not able to find jobs that suits their major that they put so much money and effort into achieving.