Last Friday´s journal

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/industry/char_industryrev3.shtml

The first thing sorry, because I'm late.

I am going to write the journal of last friday because Yolanda Abad forgot to write it.

Last friday, Paqui told us that she didn't want us to study of P.E in her class.

We spoke about the economic agents.

We learnt that the economic agents are the families, the companies, and the State(this is the public sector).

We saw that companies can be classified in different categories:

Depending on their size, they can be multinational and big companies, or medium, small and microenterprises. Paqui asked me about my father's enterprise and I told her that it is medium, because it has more than 50 workers.

We also saw that another classification can be depending on the owner, and they can be public or private.

An they are also divided into companies of the primary, secondary and tertiary sector, depending on the activity they do.

Paqui told us that we had to do the exercises about purchasing power, deficit, surplus, and about the economic agents, for next day, that is, for today.

I think that's all we did! If I'm there are things left, you can remind me. Thanks!

And, I repeat again, sorry, I shouldn't have been late.

Cooperatives and how to create a enterprise

Source: http://www.theanand.com/blog/index.php/entrepreneurship/one-trait-of-a-successful-entrepreneur/

Yesterday we studied the different types of companies, depending on their size, their owners and the economic activities they develop. But have you ever asked yourselves how to create an enterprise? You can learn how to do it on the following links:  

 - How to create a company 


United Kingdom
http://www.bizfive.com/articles/misc/private-limited-company-england/


USA
http://www.sba.gov/index.html


Spain
http://www.emprendedores.es/crear_una_empresa/crear_una_empresa


- How to create a cooperative: 


United Kingdom 
http://www.uk.coop/resources/documents/starting-co-operative


Spain
http://www.crear-empresas.com/cooptram.htm

And finally, here you have an example of a big cooperative: Grupo Mondragón, the owner of FAGOR and other enterprises. This big cooperative has more than 85,000 workers at present. You can read its story on the link below. The most interesting part refers to the wages workers receive (wage regulation): 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondrag%C3%B3n_Corporaci%C3%B3n_Cooperativa

More about purchasing power and salaries

Source: http://www.expatify.com/advice/countries-with-the-higest-taxes.html

The following are some interesting links that will provide your with more data about some of the new concepts we have studied today:

- This is a study of GfK, a market research company, about the differences of purchasing power in Europe. If you click on the map, you will have acces to a table of comparison of the purchasing power of the different European countries:

http://www.gfk-geomarketing.com/fileadmin/newsletter/pressrelease/purchasing_power_europe_2008_2009.html

- In this link you can find a chart of the minimum salary (wage) in different European countries:

http://www.fedee.com/minwage.html

- The last link is in Spanish. It´s a report of Adecco, a temporary work agency, about the average salaries in the European Union:

http://www.adecco.es/_data/NotasPrensa/pdf/197.pdf

Soviet Mercadona

Today in Social Sciences we talked about some of the problems of centrally planned economies. We mentioned how centrally planned economies do not meet the demands of consumers. We specifically mentioned the lack of consumer goods in these countries. This lack happens because resources that could be used for the production of consumer goods are diverted to the production of whatever the state decides is most important.

On this website you can take a look at photos from supermarkets in the U.S.S.R. You can observe many interesting things - the lines of people waiting to buy things, the empty shelves, the lack of brands on the products. It's very interesting.

http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2008/09/19/2054/

The pyramid of capitalist system

Remember the feudal pyramid we studied last year? In 1911 the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a U.S.A. labour union, released the illustration above. The poster was a critique of capitalism. You can read more information about this image on the following link: 

http://www.laborarts.org/collections/item.cfm?itemid=428

Socialist and centrally planned economies

In our last lesson we learned a very short definition of socialist economic system. In theory, the means of production belong to the people and they organize production through cooperative work. But this system hasn´t really been put into practice. In the so called socialist economies the means of production belonged to the State and economy was planned by a central organization, which decided on every aspect of production. This type of economy is called "centrally planned economy". Here you have a short Powerpoint presentation, prepared by Brian Coil, a Social Studies teacher of Templeton, Pennsylvania. In this presentation you can learn the problems centrally planned economies experienced. 

Difficulties with Centrally Planned Economies

View more presentations from Brian Coil.

In this cartoon you can observe one of the most common problems in the so defined socialist economic systems. Political leaders refused capitalism publicly, but they behaved as capitalists in private. 

Source: http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/37

After the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 the socialist economic system almost disappeared in the world. Here you have another cartoon about the countries where this system still "survives". 

Source: http://www.wku.edu/library/onlinexh/sanders/pages/world/communism.html

Capitalism in the cartoons

Some cartoons about how capitalism works:

Source: http://knol.google.com/k/artur-landerzon-barrera-garcia/democracia-y-capitalismo/ahpk7a5l7a4r/68#

Source: http://bifsniff.com/category/cartoons

Supply and demand

Here you have a very short presentation about the law of supply and demand, an important concept to understand how a free-market economy works. We will study this in depth next Friday:

Time banks

Source: Banco de tiempo de Pinoso (Alicante)

Last Friday we talked about a different type of banks: time banks. They don´t work with money, but with the abilities and the will to help of their members. Every member offers an hour of his/her time and their help in the activities they are skilled. In exchange, they receive help in the way they prefer. There are a lot of possibilities: you can offer to clean the house of someone and receive a weaving lesson or you can offer an hour of babysitting and get a guitar lesson in exchange ... It´s similar to barter, but people don´t exchange material things. They exchange their time.

Here you have some links, where you will find more information about time banks:

- The story of time banks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Banking

- Time banking in the United Kingdom:

http://timebank.org.uk/

- Time banking in the U.S.A:

http://www.timebanks.org/

- Time banks in Spain. The closest to Campo de Criptana is in Herencia:

http://www.sindinero.org/blog/archives/2229