A Dream for a Better World

The payment system in a country refers to the sum of means on which all parties that pay and accept currency and transfer of monetary value rely within the scope of a state’s economy. In the year 1999, 6500 billion times of payment, with total amount up to 22 billion dollars occurred among the government, enterprises and individuals. Personal payment, which occurred when individuals arranged payment to individuals, enterprises and the government happened 918 billion times, total amount of 43,000 billion dollars. In America, the traditional payment mainly include cash, personal check and official check which is issued by bank for individual use. Both casher’s check and certified check are official checks. In addition, postal remittances, traveler’s checks and food bonds are also considered as traditional payment. As one of the traditional payment, personal check ever played an important role in people’s daily life. By cashing, people could change personal checks into cash. However, when people want to cash personal checks, they have to show some certificate with photos. Most sellers often ask for more than two kinds of certificates at least. Obviously, personal checks sometimes could bring inconvenience to people, especially when some more convenient and easy payments appear in the market. According to an American Bankers Association report, a net of 23% customers plan to decrease their use of personal checks over the next two years. Actually, usage of personal checks is decreasing gradually year by year. Decreasing and vanishing of some traditional payment can be attributed to the new payments based on the rapid development of network technology since 1990.
At present, stored value card, debit card, smart card, pre-authorized payment and remote payment are the major payments in U.S.A. In fact, among all kinds of new payments, some are realized by the extension of traditional ones and they occur by means of electronic technology on the basis of people’s actual bank deposits. As for other kinds of new payment, they are nothing to do with back deposits but a kind of claims. Since these new payments have come into being, they are highly expected and at the same time considered as the typical payments for the “paperless economy” in the 21st century. According to some data, in the year 2000, if 1000 dollars was paid by internet, the cost was 1 cent, 8 cents by debit card, 27 cents by ATM and 107 cents by personal check. Since 1990, the usage of various new payments has increased. Correspondingly, some traditional payments gradually come out of people’s sight. Even so, the development of new payments could not go quite smoothly for nearly all new things have to undergo a hard beginning. From 1990 to 1999, those new payments still only took up less than 7% of total payments system in the country. At present, new payments on basis of network technology have entered into people’s daily life more and more. The government are also taking measures to help new payments work more smooth. Anyhow, new payments have been considered as dominant payments today and traditional ones, for example, personal check, will be remained in people’s memory.

At present, the American president Mr. Obama has announced in the White House that the government ought to establish special institution for the purpose of knowing more demand from middle class in the country and thus, solving their economic problems.
As we all know, America is a country mainly depending on middle class as the backbone, taking up 80% of the total population. At the same time, people in middle calls are also beneficiaries of the development of American economy. Since the summer of 2007, financial crisis has posed serious impact on the nations’ economic development. Actually, from the standpoint of middle class, economic recession occurred earlier. Income of middle class always could not come up with growth of cost of living. Expense on gas, food, medical care and education and so on is always going up. In such case, people could just save less and less money for retirement. As the real estate market has been involved into trouble, those who plan to live on the appreciation of houses started to feel hopeless. Recently, various articles have demonstrated that middle class in the country is vanishing and the wealth gap between rich and poor is widening. A recent report showed that in the year 2006, annual avenue of the richest people, taking up 1/5 of the total population equaled to 15 times of that of the poorest people, also taking 1/5 of the total population. A professor of economics said that two or three decades ago, middle class was the mainstream in U.S.A but in recent years, most economic benefit flew to rich people, especially to richer people among rich people. As for the phenomenon, the professor though that the result was caused by the government which tempted to please rich people by sacrificing poor people’s interest. 44-year-old David, with 12 years’ experience as well as academic degree of master lost his job when his company cut down the staff. He thought that he was able to find a job within three to four months. Unfortunately, employment companies asked for the degree of Doctor. At present, he was suffering from economic distress. Those lucky people who have jobs have to spend much more time working.
From the year 2000 to 2007, the productivity has increased by 20% while wage families’ income has decreased 2000 dollars every year. As the economy is deteriorating continually, people will face more serious trouble. Like many other countries, American young people are always told that university degree can help them find good jobs and access to middle class group. However, in the past 15 to 20 years, less and less salary pay could offered to those with good academic degree. Nowadays, possessing a stable job is a kind of extravagant hope for Americans. A large number of young people with university degree or even master degree could only obtain a short-term job without any welfare. Some expert pointed that the dilemma of middle class had showed hints in early times but it became worse and more obvious after the financial crisis. So what kind of measures will the government take?

Undoubtedly, internet is the greatest invention in the 20th century. As the internet develops so fast, people’s politics, economy, culture and daily life are closely related with internet. The whole world also displays different outlook. However, internet is also a double-edged sword. When it brings great convenience to human beings, it also causes many social problems and some people consider it as electric heroin. Many teenagers who are lack of the ability to control themselves are addicted into internet and games and some are even tempted by bad people and bad news from internet and finally commit crimes. Some news about teenagers’ crimes caused by internet often make people shocked.
So why are teenagers addicted into internet? First, internet can bring great convenience to people because people can buy things, study and communicate with others etc though internet. But it also provides violence and pornography which always initiate teenagers’ curiosity. Then they are easily misled. Second, teenagers group is a special group in the society. They are still growing up but not mature in both physiology and psychology. They start to pursue independence and self-awareness which they can find from internet. In addition, when they suffer from frustration, they consider the internet as the only one tool of abreaction and they will be addicted into internet over some time. Third, parents and teachers should be also responsible for teenagers’ indulging in the internet. Most parents also want kids to be more excellent people in future and they always try their best to give what kids need. Many parents have bought computers for children but they do not impose enough and proper monitoring on the computer use. Therefore, it is very easy for teenagers to be induced by bad news and bad people from internet. Some parents are very busy and they do not have enough time to communicate with kids who are very lonely so they can just depend on internet. In schools, teachers always pay more attention to students’ grades instead of their psychology. So some students who are not good at study always give up themselves and are addicted into internet.
What can we do for those teenagers who are addicted into internet? Firstly, government should formulate some laws to manage internet operation and teach students more about internet laws at school. Secondly, related department ought to enhance management for internet. Minor should be forbidden to enter the internet bar. Websites with negative news and pornography must be banned and some informal internet bars should be closed. Thirdly, some websites which are made for teenagers should be established for their study, communication with others, test and help for laws etc. Fourthly, schools should provide more moral education for students and help them set up right life value. In addition, teachers should lead students to use internet properly instead of forbidding them to make use of computers.
Teenagers are the backbone in future in the society and if they are just addicted into internet, maybe our society can not have a prospect future. Therefore, helping teenagers not indulge in internet is our obligatory responsibility.

As the economy develops rapidly, people also become more and more hypocrisy and cunning and it seems that all behaviors are related with interest. It is common that people produce counterfeit products to obtain high benefit and cheat consumers. But fake singles appearance also seems to be a kind of trend and fashion nowadays.
What is fake singles? Some people who have got married tell others that they are still single people for different purposes. Simply speaking, fake singles are liars because they do not tell people the truth. At present, two kinds of people are fake singles and they are celebrities and white-collar people. As for celebrities, they have many fans and if they openly acknowledge that they have got married, their fans may be envious and some bad accidents may occur. In addition, their private life maybe also badly disturbed by some journalists. Therefore, if they are fake singles for the above reasons, it is reasonable, isn’t it? However, some other super stars may have other purposes and tell people that they are fake singles. As for the fundamental reason, it is a puzzle for us and it is not necessary for us to know about it.
As for fake singles for white-collar people, it is very common in our life and some media often provide negative reports for people. Some people think that marriage is the privacy and they have the right to hide the marriage to get smooth career. A man, called Tom, was employed in a joint venture after times of interview and fierce competition but the company did not allow staff to get married within 3 years and colleagues could not fall in love. However, Tom loved the secretary in the company and they secretly got married. Unfortunately, their marriage was found out and both of them were fired. Then Tom worked in another company. Tom became the top staff in the company very soon because of his excellent ability. One day, his boss told him that a lady in the company was his daughter and he asked Tom to care about her. Next, he was often asked to go out for cinema and dance by the lady. Finally, Tom could not bear it and told the truth. The result was very obvious and he was fired again and his wife also misunderstood him so they divorced. Another man, Peter, worked in the enterprise sponsored by the government. Peter did not want the marriage to cause trouble for him so he did not tell his leader the truth and he even did not allow his wife to call him and send message to him during work hours. He also asked his wife not to tell others about the marriage in her company. Gradually, the boss of his wife gave more work and more salary to his wife. One day, he saw that his wife was sent home by the boss and they even kissed each other. In addition, the boss also bought a house for his wife. Therefore, their marriage ended secretly as it started.
As for fake singles, the government has formulated some laws towards it and if some cases occur terribly, involved people may be punished by laws. Therefore, we should clearly know the advantages and disadvantages when concealing the marriage. Maybe sometimes it is better for us to tell the truth.

Most of us accept the need for a more sustainable way to live, by reducing carbon emissions, developing renewable technology and increasing energy efficiency. But a growing band of experts think that these efforts to save the planet are doomed and futile as long as our economic system is built on the assumption of growth; that is, if we are serious about saving Earth, we must reshape our economy. To most economists, however, economic growth is as essential as the air we breathe. They see no limits to that growth.  In recent weeks it has become clear just how terrified governments are of anything that threatens growth, as they pour billions of public money into a failing financial system.  So the question is: how do we square Earth’s finite resources with the fact that as the economy grows, the amount of natural resources needed to sustain that activity must grow too?

Economic inequality is growing in the world’s richest countries, particularly in the United States. The gap between rich and poor has widened over the last 20 years in nearly all the countries studied.  The United States has the highest inequality and poverty rates in the organization after Mexico and Turkey, and the gap has increased rapidly since 2000.  France, meanwhile, has seen inequalities fall in the past 20 years as poorer workers are better paid.  Wealthy households are not only widening the gap with the poor, but in countries such as the United States, Canada and Germany, they are also leaving middle-income earners further behind.

A JP Morgan executive, after the company accepted a $25 billion capital injection courtesy of the United States government, said that the money will help them be a little bit more active on the acquisition side for some banks who are still struggling. He thinks there are going to be some great opportunities for them to grow in this environment, and he thinks they have an opportunity to use that $25 billion in that way.  Nowhere did he say about making loans to help the American economy. On the contrary, it’s starting to appear as if one of the Treasury’s key rationales for the recapitalization program, namely that it will cause banks to start lending again, is not what is truly going to happen.  It seems the Treasury wants banks to acquire each other and is injecting capital to force a new round of bank consolidations.  And, in an almost unnoticed move, it recently put in place a new tax break, worth billions to the banking industry, that has only one purpose: to encourage bank mergers.

Dictatorship or legitimate Revolutionary government. Cuba has been painted as either the villain or the victim since the day the US decided to join the losing side of the Cuban revolution. Like most governments in the world, the Cuban government has its failings, but does that justify the continuing embargo from the US. There are many countries that have terrible Human Rights records that the US does not have an embargo against. China is a prime example, there is no way the US would risk placing an embargo against them. So for me, the Cuban embargo is just the US being the local bully.

Have you seen those big smoke stacks blowing out pollution?  Did you know they make air filters for those smoke stacks?  Do you think any of them use it?  Why?  Don’t want to waste any money!  I mean why waste money that could go out for for bonuses just to save the environment.  I mean what help would it be if we did it and no one else did it?  Doesn’t everyone have to do it, to make a difference?  Is this the way businesses think?  Does everything have to be connected to the bottom line?  What about the public image? Can’t they say “Hey, we are a green – compliant company, we use air filters in smoke stacks thus reducing polution 90%, come buy from us”? 

There needs to be incentives for companies to be green-compliant.  How else will we survive?