Poverty in the United States

As any other country the United States has passed through economic crisis, but has also being improved. However, getting out of the crisis was not an easy task. Now, poverty has been reduced, but back then it was worse. The United States’ development occurred because of many factors that must be considered. The crisis that arrived in this country brought many issues, which were difficult to overcome. The biggest one was poverty. As everyone know, poverty is about not having enough money to meet basic needs including food, clothing and shelter.  However, poverty can vary considerably depending on the situation. For instance, feeling poor in Canada is different from living in poverty in Russia or Zimbabwe.

One of the effects that poverty causes is the increment of unemployment. During the crisis, the US economy was not offering enough jobs and the labor market appeared to be failing. The way to quantify this is to look at the age employment ratio, which is between 25 and 54 year-olds. In difficult economic times, the ration of employment doesn’t let people know that some people have stopped looking for work. By that measure, the U.S. economy is having severe trouble, the amount of all 25 to 54 year old people who hold jobs was almost 5% lower than it was in December 2007, for men and women.

Similar problems brought the economy down and poverty was increasing. Through some research, it was found that in 2010, the poverty threshold was $22,314 for a family of four. “The percentage of people in deep poverty was 13.5 percent of all Blacks and 10.9 percent of all Hispanics, compared to 5.8 percent of Asians and 4.3 percent of Whites.”

Poverty affects more on children, because they are the following generations that sadly have to follow the low economy that their parents have. “U.S. Census data reveals that from 2009 to 2010, the total number of children under age 18 living in poverty increased to 16.4 million from 15.5 million. Child poverty rose from 20.7 percent in 2009, to 22 percent in 2010, and this is the highest it has ever been since 1993.”

The effects of child poverty:

·         Poverty has a particularly adverse effect on the academic outcomes of children, especially during early childhood.

·         Chronic stress associated with living in poverty

·         Greater risk of behavioral and emotional problems

·         Depression, marital distress and exhibit harsher parenting behaviors

·         Unsafe neighborhoods may expose low-income children to violence

·         Low birth weight

·         Poor nutrition

·         Exposure to environmental contaminants

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, it has been estimated that in 2009, there were 656,129 people who experienced homelessness in the United States on a given night. In addition, it is estimated that about 2.3 to 3.5 million Americans experience homelessness at least once a year. Poverty can arrive in any home, doesn’t matter what, if we don’t know how to operate our economy. Homelessness affects people of all ages, places, occupations, and nationalities.

Despite the several definitions we can find in order to define poverty, there is one thing we can be sure about; poverty is a complex societal issue. No matter the way poverty is defined, it can be agreed that it is an issue that requires everyone’s attention.  It is important that all members of our society work together to provide the opportunities for everyone, so we can finally be closer to reach the full potential our country can have. We should never forget that it helps all of us to help one another.

Working for the Government

Companies that work for the government pass through previous scoring. They have to meet some strict requirements the government ask. Some of these requirements are: the document scoring for the company, and a brief physic model of the product the government wants. That’s the brief procedure before choosing the winning company that the government will grant the contract in order to work for it.

Benefits about working for the government:

ü  When signing a contract with the government, this contract assures its production in the short or long term.

ü  It also assure the payment from the bills.

ü  It gives experience to the company in the way of how the product should be correctly made.

ü  If the company have been accepted, when other tenders come, there’s a high probability that this company will be chosen again.

ü  It helps to budget projects with the payment of bills that are already assured.

ü  It helps to the scoring and quality of the products for a possible export.

A public tender or a competitive bidding is the process of awarding a public call which stakeholders participate freely, presenting analysis and proposals for allocation of the purchase of goods, leases and services to one or more persons. The procedure to win a public tender is a little difficult for those companies that are just starting because competition exists. Nevertheless, they can win if requirements are correctly presented.

Procedure to win a government tender:

1.       The government throws a tender in general.

2.       It schedules a date for a presentation of all companies that are competing depending on the entity or ministry.

3.       The companies, interested in that type of tender, get ready for it.

4.       The day of presentation, the companies give their documents indicating the price they’re offering (those prices vary depending on the company), and the physical model of the product for the tender.

5.       Then, it evaluates all the documents and gives a score to each company.

6.       The winning company, five days passed after the evaluation, may sign the contract only if none of the companies oppose to the results, but this happens very rarely.

7.       The government choses the best company that gathers all the requirements and score in price and model.

Once a company has won the tender, it finally enjoys all the benefits when working for the government. The contract lasts usually a year or more, which is good for the company since it will receive a high amount of money from the government. This contract assures the company that it will be paid no matter what.

Textile Business: Supply, Demand, and Price

In order to produce the product consumers want, the owners of their company need to make sure there is a balance in their business. They must be informed of the prices of the raw material needed for production of the good and the price they will sell it, the types of product to produce and also the quantity of each according to the demand. These factors are valuable information for all companies that look for success. They all try to reach the equilibrium point where the demand equals the supply, otherwise the problems would be surplus or shortage. An efficient procedure on working must be done, in order to get owners and customers happy.

According to the Cotton Council of America, China, India, and the United States are the three largest cotton producers. Cotton prices can change based on weather conditions, changes in supply and demand. And if prices changes, they affect farmers, spinners, manufacturers, and retailers. For example Arizona reduced its production of cotton due to freezing weather in late 2012 and this affected people in this business. They had to increase their cotton prices because of the scarcity of supply and the increase of demand. This benefited farmers, but not textile companies. These companies had to look for available supply with the lowest price as possible while they’re in competition.

This also benefited workers in the production of cotton by pushing the labor costs up. Workers started to receive higher wages because of the increase of cotton price and also because workers noticed the industry was improving so they asked for higher salaries. This also happened in Arizona, its labor costs went up from $27.43 in 2009 to $28.01 in 2011. This shows how demand can influence the price.

Because of the high cotton prices, retailers had a complicated decision to make. They had to decide what their selling prices would be. If they increase their price, buyers would not purchase as before as when it was cheap, which will make their production unworthy. But if they decrease their prices, buyers would purchase more than before, since the product is cheaper, which will make the retailers lose money. So the solution for the retailers is purchasing less expensive garments from manufactures and cut down on their choice. After a while, if the cotton prices are still high, then retailers have to raise the prices of their products. That’s what happened in Arizona.

Free Enterprise and Government Control

From the 90's, the American government had a direct involvement in the textile industry through its economic policies. Because of the tendency of the high standard of living of the American citizen, salaries were extremely higher than any other emerging country in the textile industry. This is the main reason the United States began to close the major part of the textile industry, including the fact that they could not compete with foreign industries.

                The problem is when the government intervenes in this field. However, the fault is not only the government´s, but also the executives´. Some ask for more government policies for some reasons: they want total guarantee so their business will succeed and others because they want more relief or benefits from the government when competing with other businesses. So, the government took advantage of this request and brought some regulations to order to have control on this industry. Unfortunately these regulations caused many disadvantages. For example, the government limits competition between textile businesses, which leads those national companies to lose the competition against foreign companies. For starters, in the United States the labor costs, raw material costs are higher, and more efficient machinery are limited due to the great high standard of living a government provides to an American. That´s why it´s so hard for an American firm to be successful, since they don´t have enough utility nor a decent gain from the production of materials and services.

It´s just inconvenient for Americans to pay high wages that the government requires. And the worse thing, it´s to know that the money from these paid wages by the Americans are being used by the government to reduce the raw material costs of foreign businesses, where the foreign firms end up winning competition.

Another regulation is the antitrust laws. They don´t let textile companies to improve their methods of producing nor creating new products. The failure of these companies are also because foreign textile firms are free to buy cotton in any market at a lower price than an American firm does.

In conclusion, the government role can affect dramatically the whole future of the textile industry in a country. Its regulations are established in order to benefit citizens but it also can cause huge problems to the companies, like a total failure in this field. So, notably it is better for this industry not to have too much involvement from the government. It would be beneficial for the executives to have a free enterprise in order to have total freedom when producing a good or service and selling it to gain as much as possible. In other words, a country working based on the term laissez faire would be the best choice because it´s when businessmen are totally free to create wealth and to improve the growth of their business.

Intro

My name is Azbel Ricse. In my first post I want to talk a little about myself. I took a career placement test recently and it told me that I should be a business owner and a fashion designer. I agreed with those results. Because my parents have a textile Company, where they import and export different types of clothing, I would also like to be involved in that business area. On the other hand, I like art since I was a child, any type related to design. During my summer break, I had the chance to decide what kind of designing I like the most. I had many options like graphic design, interior design, fashion design, computer art design, etc. Finally, I chose fashion design because it will perfectly fit in the area of business and similar to my parents’ job. I’m the kind of person who likes to put all the effort on everything I do. Whenever I set a goal, I like to accomplish it in the best way. I consider myself responsible and hardworking. Apart from that, I also like to physically exercise. Volleyball is my favorite sport, I can spend hours even days playing it. Whenever I exercise, stress goes away and I feel relaxed. Another thing that I like to do is drawing, I like to see something and then draw it exactly from what I see. I have many sketchbooks, which reminds me important events from my past.

This blog is going to be about anything related to the field of business. Specifically, textile business such as important companies growing economically, the way they did it, how the free enterprise and the government regulation take place in that area, what materials are needed, demand, price, money, stocks, how this types of business might succeed or fail, and last but not least international issues. I think it´s interesting to know more about how the economy works in a common field such as business. Everything must be considered: constant negotiation with other companies, materials used, amount of products produced, amount gained, etc. And if it´s a textile company, there are specialized designers hired to offer the best quality of new fashion styles so the company´s owner can sell as much as he cans and negotiate with other colleagues. I´m very excited to talk about this topic in my blog because it´s very interesting and helps to understand the importance of the economy´s role in every field.