Speak Clearly
Your Young Financial Portrait Consumption Costs Entertain the brain I got into college, now what?
Choosing intelligent consumption decisions every day.
My name is Marisella Colon I am an eternal student and future entrepreneur. I wish to help others achieve their financial endeavors in moments when all others say, "No, that is not possible", I want to be there to say, "Yes it absolutely is and here are the tools you will need to get there"
While life is not all about the mean green, it is essential for our overall health to assess our need in getting financially fit.
Join me as I too climb the metaphorical mountain all the way to the summit of financial health. Along the way I'll provide you not only viable research, but insightful social, economic, and financial truths.
The Federal Government is rolling out a new disease coding system called ICD-10, designed to control the cost of treatment of diseases and injuries. The system is facing major push back from doctors across the country who complain that the it’s not just unwieldy but completely ridiculous….
Government Spending in the Crisis
Written by Paul Krugman
Mostly a note to myself. Not long ago, the usual suspects were going on and on about how government spending had soared under Obama, pointing to spending as a share of GDP. Some of us tried to point out that this bump represented two temporary factors: 1. GDP was depressed thanks to the crisis, so the spending share was correspondingly elevated 2. Emergency aid programs, notably unemployment benefits, were up because of the crisis. The implication of this argument was that the government spending share would decline as the economy recovered.
Conservatives were, of course, having none of it — Obama was permanently enlarging the government to European size. So, how’s it going?
In the figure below the blue line shows government spending at all levels as a share of GDP; the red line shows the share of potential GDP — what we’d be producing at normal employment — as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office; it’s lower than the first line because the economy is still operating well below capacity.
“An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.” - Buddha
Share ur favorite Buddha Quotes and Wisdom with this App! http://bit.ly/rOmzxn
For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And along the way, lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.
(Source: reddit.com, via integrativephilosophy)
GDP why this TLA is Good for Thee!
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) refers to an aggragate measure of economic activity for a given country and period of time (usually quarterly in U.S.) In the U.S. the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) which is under the U.S. Department of Commerce is a source for this data.
I know you have all heard this term used over, and over again, and I fear sounding like my old Intermediate Macro textbook. Soo…lets make this as applicable and straight forward as possible. GDP can be approached 3 ways:
- Product approach
- Expenditure approach
- Income approach
Awesome! but you really do not need to know this, what you do need is to know the meaning of the following variables:
Consumption (C), Investment(I), Government expenditures (G), Net exports (NX)
Welcome this is CIGNX!!!
our GDP= C + I +G + NX
(UNDER THE EXPENDITURE APPROACH) we will use this b/c it is my favorite and this is my blog. Actually, I do find it is easier to explain.
So without going in too deep it works like any other basic algebraic expression, Consumption being the heaviest variable of them all. This GDP is used as a key indicator as too a countries economic performance and with so much chaos in the economic facet the globe it is good to know what they mean when they say GDP, percentage of GDP etc..
The following link is directly from Google Public Data (AMAZING), it is updated constantly and gives you a graph of all data. You can chart it by industry and region, which is pretty high tech. This particular chart graphs GDP in terms of Taxes
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=a7jenngfc4um7_&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=taxes_on_production_and_imports&hl=en&dl=en
Here is my real reason for bringing up GDP in this weeks Economic series, I created this blog to create awareness about intelligent consumption on all levels. If consumption is the largest variable in the equation that quantifies and symbolizes our performance as a nation, I think it is viable to say that a relative amount of importance should be placed on it. While we sit around and shop away and let idea of buyers remorse (cognitive dissonance), linger in the outer shells of neuro-oblivion, let us not forget the US Debt is fast approaching 16 Trillion dollars!!
Be well,
Marisella Colon
Soo funny
I could’ve read this and skipped past my entire degree.
(Source: archangel-bonding)
The Climb to Happy
We shift in and out of our actions trying to interpret what was then and what is today, I think we can learn so much from letting go of regret and really searching for what is our authenticity. If we all learned a better way of separating intrinsic and extrinsic goals we would be far better adept at living a purposeful existence.
When I say extrinsic I propose you look at all of those external factors that we are exposed to that we are told determine and define our happiness. In economics we say that a consumer’s level of happiness can be measured not only in the things that they are willing to give up (opportunity cost) but also how this affect our levels of happiness. I’ve observed these curves and I notice that they measure mostly tangible consumer goods and how this equates to a certain level of happiness shown by the indifference curve that shows how elastic and inelastic we are to these combinations. Economists have it down to a science.
I do not want to get lost in economic jargon to make my point, but this concept in economics is important because even in our University halls we are taught extrinsic happiness. I started blogging about consumerism because I knew the negative effect it had on me personally and on other women and men in my generation. I am not advocating that we should be poor and live in huts in some remote place, on the contrary I advocate for insightful lifestyles that take into consideration our humanism.
What I advocate is that we be intrinsically happy, that we create a mindfulness of the other people we share the world with and that we become aware that this world is not just for “I”. I guarantee you that you are the happiest when you feel you are helping others on your walk through life. Building a hyper-sensitive awareness of what makes us, is by far one of the most fundamental acts of existence we can engage in. It is truly wasteful to live this life empty and on a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure without understanding that suffering is a predetermining element of life.
It is easy to walk around here in America and see that we are the most affluent nation in the world, have you ever thought at what cost this has come? I think there is a conjunct loss of culture that comes with mass consumption, and while we sit here and regurgitate the sorrows of recessionary pressures we lose sight of what has truly happened. Let us not become lost in the adversity but grow in the opportunity because that moment when we realize strife can be taken down with contrasting optimism, we raise a degree in humanity, a plateau is built for others to climb aboard.
Gen-Y Our Labor Force

There are moments we can all relate to in college where the illustrious notion of graduating and entering the workforce elated us all. Perhaps our perception of placement in this work force differed between the orthodox and unorthodox, but as many of my fellow Gen-Y’ers can probably see now, we are the new exception.
Our generation is a broad spectrum of what seems to be one of the most well prepared and gun-ho bunch to hit the labor force. Our generation is easily typecasted as an Ipod bearing, Starbucks toting and Facebook loving cast. What is interesting is that we are also one of the youngest generations to put the proverbial sock in the mouth of those who doubt our generations characteristic ability to prevail against adversity.
Take a moment to think about a few of the individuals who sending shock-waves of change in the fields that matter, you will find the millennials have it figured out.
Millennials (Gen-Y’ers) lead a new demographic of overachievers and multi-taskers, ready to go and already accustomed to a expansive set of roles. What sets us apart is now a factual and backed set of characteristics, we are independent and now rely on a tech savvy that allows us to have at our disposal information that has led us into a new intellectual era. Our social interaction via various social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has lead us to create a sort of selectivity of interaction based on interest or cause.
On the not so great area of the spectrum we have been credited with becoming emotionally insensitive and socially awkward due to overuse of our gadgets. I personally do not disagree completely with this, but I know that anything in excess can never be too good.
How do we fare with other generations? well lets just say that we have a real understanding of transcendence and our roles in relations to others. We are a generation that expects more from life, as a society we have realized globalization. This in turn has given us a new hyper breed of a generation, that expects more from its life map than college, a 9-5, traditional institutions like marriage and finally a retirement.
Overall to we bring the new funk to the workplace, we defy the act of stereotyping of the older generations by being anything but what we seem. Of course we have done a fabulous job of using our strengths to unify and continue to grow. We are far more specialized and have an ability to climb the workplace latter faster than past generations, this thought should stay with us always. We should be motivated by our ability to overcome the common hurdles of the past and our creation of a whole new set of rules about the conquest of our goals.
As Consumers we are fascinating to watch:
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/generation-y-statistics/
http://www.socialnomics.net/2009/08/11/statistics-show-social-media-is-bigger-than-you-think/
PDF with Stats about Gen-Y:
http://www.metlife.com/assets/cao/mmi/publications/Profiles/mmi-gen-y-demographic-profile.pdf
Entrepreneur, A.K.A The happy businessmen
The tittle of this post albeit arguable, I can surely say that any self-made entrepreneur may agree that the greatest asset of entrepreneurship is personal freedom. The ability to create not only your own schedule but, more than important your own independent vision that moves you and drives you to create your own endeavors. While creating your own business is no easy feat, it gets even harder when you realize that all assessed risk is also yours to assume.
So lets get to it what molds today’s entrepreneur? Well besides independence, it is multi-directional mobility that comes from the creation of your own to-dos and calendar. Have you ever worked somewhere where the companies vision clouded what you believed was right? how about believable?
I think it is important for all of those who wish to pursue the entrepreneur track to understand the insurmountable amount of effort required, and the necessity of a will to constantly educated yourself beyond a B.A. or MBA. I have spoken to a few management and technology consultants lately and have identified an overwhelmingly consensual type of energy. Much of these peoples energy resonate waves of hope and innovation, sparked by the advent of facilitated technologies.
These technologies when used to max efficacy will allow us all to transmute from business people once glued only to the prospect of of success as a minimal player in the behemothic dominated corporate landscape. While these corporation do help shape our economic landscape as a nation, without becoming too political what has the influence of these firm-like players created in our socio-economic dynamic? It is the entrepreneur that has been our generations business savant, the entrepreneur leads a life of troughs and peaks, cycling through waves of consumer-supplier interaction.
Entrepreneurs are people of many facets, they do not believe in constraining their individual avidity. If you itch for more than the geometrical enclosure (cubical) of the 9-5, and the gross horrors that can sometimes accompany that clime up the corporate hierarchy I encourage you to ride your own wave. While the ride is insanely turbulent at times, the intangible fringe benefits of not settling for less and more are totally worth it. Perhaps we should not forget that fear is our worst enemy, but it is no insurmountable.
This week I want to Focus on some basic economics, for the prospective entrepreneur. Tomorrow I will have a great post on gross domestic product GDP, how its calculated, and why its important as a business minded individual to know this calculation (or model).
Be well.
Marisella C. Colon
