Developing Economies

1. Why are some countries today much poorer than other countries? Are today's poor countries destined to always be poorer than today's rich countries? If so, explain why. If not, explain how today's poor countries can catch up or even pass today's rich countries.

Developing Economies

2. Some countries are considered to be so much richer because they were able to make many more technical advances than those that are considered to be poorer countries. I feel like these countries that are considered poorer than today's rich countries are destined to remain that way. Of course they will be able to close that gap and become not so poor, but it would be a very long battle for them to reach the levels of the richer countries because they are so behind right now. Any technical advances that those countries are able to make, most likely the richer countries will be growing just as fast.

Developing Economies

3. Poor countries have the disadvantage of not having the funding or resources to spend on luxuries, and sometimes necessities, like running water in the home, these sort of inadequacies highlight how poor countries need to use the monies, any monies received to take care of its' citizens and not on luxuries. Wealthier countries have the advantage of being able to capitalize on technology, modern conveniences, and monies for experiments/trials. Monies spent in poor countries are for what we consider Maslows Hierarchy of need-food, shelter, clothing. Wealthier countries can spend money on new cars, luxury homes, and vacations. Now in either country people can cross the wealth lines depending on their circumstance, but their is always a majority or minority in either situation. Poor countries will always remain poorer because of circumstance. But this could always improve or worsen depending on financial behaviors. In an article tha I read today, the author was quoted saying: "that wealthy nations can materially shape development in the poor world and that their efforts to do so should consist largely of providing resources to and trading opportunities for poor countries". (Bridsall et al, 2015). Poorer countries will always be a step behind. The two articles that i listed below were very interesting to read on the matter.

References:

Birdsall, N., Rodrik, D., Subramanian, A. (2015).How To Help Poor Countries. Retrieved from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2005-07-01/how-help-poor-countries

Rich and Poor Countries. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/rich_poor_countries.htm

Strategic Choices

4. Time to wrap up the concepts we have been discussing in class. Please select a firm whose stock is publicly traded on a U.S. stock exchange. What strategic changes has this firm made over the past 18 months to respond to changing macroeconomic conditions? Were those strategic changes successful? Could the firm have made additional or better strategic choices?

Caution Perfect Data

Watch the "Breaking the Wall of Economic Uncertainty: Data Mining" video.

5. One word of caution is to not wait to make a decision until you have 'perfect data' - because you will rarely, if ever have it. There is so much data available and more ways to dissect the data you do have that you can have 'analysis paralysis'. In cases like this, you keep waiting to have all the data, meanwhile the decision point may have passed. Also, in business, having the first to market is significant and if you wait too long, someone else may come along and take your market share. So, set the parameters for data collection and a deadline and stick to it!

Keeping up with the FED

6. Hopefully this class has brought to light the importance of looking and listening to the remarks of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Open Market Committee met on 26 & 27 July - please review the minutes from this meeting. Also, there will be plenty of business articles about the meeting and the minutes. As we briefly discussed earlier in class, review carefully the FOMC's press release (when it comes out) to see what it is saying explicitly and implicitly. This is not just important for this class but going forward for your personal and professional activities.

What do you see in the remarks not only in the FOMC press release? The link is below and for convenience, I also pasted it below. Feel free to highlight and/or cut and paste into your response.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomccalendars.htm