School systems in communism, socialism, and capitalism differ and relate in a number of ways. In a communistic school they provide equal rights to every student and equal pay to every district depending on their needs. The "higher authority" determines the path and the classes of the students, so even though a child may want to pursue a career in a field that isn't their strong point they don't have that choice. In a capitalistic system their schools are almost entirely based off of competition and personal wealth. If you are born into money you have great opportunities to get into a nice school and college and connections in the wealthy business world. If you are born into a poor family you can work yourself up to pay for schooling, but it is a ton of dedication to hard work. You are most likely to be put into the labor force still, since you don't have the background or connections to get the high office jobs. In a socialistic school community you get equal opportunity to go to school like a communistic system, but you also have a chance of getting into a private school like a capitalistic system.

Raising minimum wage by almost doubling what it is now seems ridiculous to me. It would barely affect big corporations, but it would almost wipe out the idea of small business and teenagers getting jobs. "Attempts to simply mandate that businesses pay more, through increased minimum wages or living wage laws, as well as attempts to mandate employee benefits like health insurance, primarily result in fewer jobs. (Source D)" College students would be screwed over because they wouldn't be able to get a job before college and it would be very difficult to get a job in college. "Most Republicans will oppose it, on the grounds that higher labor costs will lead to higher unemployment. (Source C)” Looking at my future I wouldn't see a problem with raising the minimum wage a dollar or two, but trying to double it basically cancels any job I would like to acquire in the near future. "Mall employers, farmers, lots of occupations are exempt from the minimum wage. The last time we raised the minimum wage the percentage earning less than the minimum wage rose to 4.2 percent of the wage and salary workers - three million. (Source B)"I vote for not raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars from seven fifty an hour. "Doing something that will raise unemployment isn't going to help poverty. People who can't get work at 5.15 an hour aren't going to find work at 7.25 an hour. (Source B)" "Indeed, evidence of employment losses goes all the way back to 1938 and first federally imposed minimum wage. The U.S. Department of Labor concluded that that first 25-cent minimum wage resulted in the loss of 30,000 to 50,000 jobs, or 10 to 13 percent of the 300,000 workers affected by the increase. (Source A)"



Source A- http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/15/house-defeats-minimum-wage-increase/
Source B- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5626506
Source C- http://thegazette.com/daily-conversations/whats-the-best-argument-for-or-against-raising-the-federal-minimum-wage/
Source D- http://www.cato.org/blog/raising-minimum-wage-not-answer

A stock is a partial ownership of a company or corporation where you invest x amount of dollars and depending on the company's performance you can gain or lose money from your investment. With stocks you help the company pay for their costs and in turn you put faith in them that you will not only get your investment money back, but gain a profit. At the end of a year the company gets their annual gross profit and generally they will divide that profit among their shareholders, and depending on how much stock you invested, that determines what percentage of profit you are liable to (known as a dividend). In a trade you buy any number of stocks for a short amount of time planning that they are going to rise in value. It's basically a short term investment. Usually people buy a trade before a catalyst, which is an event that will generally increase the stocks value, and then they sell afterwards gaining a profit.

$.16 per cup
Variables: weather, mood of people walking by, number of people walking by
Constant: price of lemons, sugar, cups, and ice cubes
Perishables: ice cubes, lemons, sugar
Out of this game I got that I am never buying or going to try to maintain a lemonade stand. When I am old and have kids I will let them try it, but I'm not going to encourage it for a future career. Don't put future students through this torture.

Megan and I are having troubles with our model this month. We are both working to get it done, at the most, by the end of December. We will most likely not have a full metal working product by the end of the semester. We are having to overcome the trouble with money, time, and blueprints. Our time feels too limited to be able to go out and buy the product during the period and neither one of us exactly has the money to do that, but this is an obstacle we can overcome through planning and begging for money from the parents. Our blueprints are somewhat up in the air in the sense that we have the major idea but not the details all pinpointed and organized.

What is my salary?
Gross: $215,000
Net: $172,000
       20% income tax from federal (Jersey) none figured from state.
       No social security found that is provided by the company.
       Retirement would come out of the pocket after being paid.
Sources websites:
http://www.mondaq.com/x/264922/tax+authorities/UK+Crown+dependencies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey
My phone for the salary :)

Blog summaries
Accomplishing the September goal was not a horribly difficult job, but was made worse through volleyball and missing a lot of precious time.
A) The September goal was accomplished because of future ideas Megan was hoping to accomplish that we grabbed onto and stuck with.
B) Decisions, decisions, decisions
      1) We were FINALLY able to make a decision because of a little outside help and the narrowing of topics that were more interesting or not so much so.
      2) Our problem being resolved helped us to move on to the next stage of drawing and designing.
      3) This issue has not come up again so far. A few times we doubted the idea, but we have decided to stick it through and make it the best one yet.
C) The end of November goal is a little bit tricky to accomplish. We hope to have the assembly/model complete in a 3-d visual. We have talked to Mrs. Laplante about the idea behind what this model needs to accomplish and she have us very insightful ideas. Now we need to put these ideas into shapes and contraptions that work together to do what we want it to do. Basically we will use tubing, a syringe and the brace to come up with a design to serve our purpose. (I don't want to give too much of this awesome contraption away just yet.)
D) Our end of December goal is have worked out the glitches and hiccups to make this invention as efficient and light and consistent as possible.

Black jack
I have to confess I got beginners luck. I bet one chip the first time out and then I slowly increased one at a time for each new hand. In the second to last hand I bet ten chips and beat the dealer earning ten more chips. Riley and Noah were a great help throughout the game letting me know when I had a blackjack and when to stay. After a while I figured out the basics and was able to play for myself for the most part. It was not a very confusing game once you figured out the bare bones of it. I did well in my profits earning 34 chips in the end to win after the big three earners bet it all and every single one of them lost.

I bought the apple stock as an investment. I bought this because it has a strong five year graph with a steady increase. So far this stock has done good for me, but my fault was buying only one stock. I will not being selling this stock for at least another month, but considering this class only goes for a semester I will try to pinpoint the highest earnings in December and sell it then.
I also bought the under armor stock as a trade. So far it is not working out too well for me as it keeps decreasing. When the stock changes and is five dollars above what I bought it for, then I will sell it. I didn't entirely understand what to do when I first bought it, so i have held for a long time as far as a trade goes. When the holidays hit and their prices increase, the amount will be just right and I will sell it for a profit.

Trade vs. Investment
"A dividend is a payment made by a corporation to its shareholders, usually as a distribution of profits."(Wikipedia encyclopedia). When a company makes a profit they have a choice of using that money to further the company and/or divide it among their shareholders. Investors are generally the ones who benefit greatly from this distribution of profits. A traders quick and untrustworthy commitment is not usually rewarded by a company at their end of year profits. Stock increases are especially good for traders because they can then sell and gain a profit. It is always good for investors, but it isn't as important in the moment as it is in the long run. When a stock decreases it is good for the trader to buy, but it is not good if the trader already bought the stock because then they are losing money and have to wait for it to go back up. A decreasing stock is never good for investors, but it still doesn't matter to them as much in the moment as it does in the long run. "2. a person or thing that causes a change"(the free dictionary). Catalysts are events that cause change. This mostly includes holidays, new products, competition rising or falling, etc. Trade is effected because they have to do their homework, and know when good things are about to come or go. They need to realize when their stock is about to decline, or incline, in a significant manner. In investments you need to invest wisely in a company that can ride out these events, or if they can't, you need to buy or sell so you can still turn a profit. Short selling is another trade  consisting of when there is a bet that the market is going to go down. This is a very risky business and I believe that traders would be more greatly inclined to attempt this than an investor. Mr. Kapptie talked of an 80% failure rate for this type of work. Not very many people are willing to risk gambling the market with their money involved.

Classroom stock market
At the door I became slightly nervous when Mr. Kapptie told us to put down our backpacks and coats. After the brief overview I went to the back door and waited anxiously for the door to open. When it did there was an immediate blast of incoherent noise and then came the wave of heat. Walking in I couldn't see anything at first because it was dark except for the screens showing crowds of people shouting with pen and papers in their hands. After my eyes adjusted I noticed candy and paper strewn about the room. Immediately I bent down and snatched up as much as I could and put it in one spot before it was all gone. As soon as I had collected as much as possible I noticed the writing on the board. I went over to read it and I realized that I was in our very own classroom stock market. The numbers didn't really make any sense to me, so I was reluctant to sell or buy anything. After a while I started to get the feel of it and began to make trades and got more aggressive with my buying and selling power. My biggest mistake though was not reading a paper that said the jolly rancher chews were going to gain profit. I was ignorant in that and therefore I didn't gain any money or value out of that deal. I did sell nerds for a profit even with the major split at the end. Overall it felt very hectic and rather chaotic. My final value was not very significant comparatively, but I didn't bomb it in the scale of things either. When the lights came on I felt very relieved that it was finally over. I enjoyed the experience, but I don't think I could handle the pressure and the chaos involved with this line of work.

Megan and I are investigating a realistic way to have a brace incorporated with patches that will inject steroids, or in some other way, heal an injury or sore spot that is bothering the recipient. During the month of September there has mostly been an investigation of; is there is a product out there like it, and what do we want this product to accomplish. By the end of October we hope to create a model including the patch and/or the brace to give us an idea of what this is all going to look like.

Life after high school

After high school I plan to go to a four to six year college that does not yet have a name. For job options I'm looking for a career in a couple of different fields. I'm thinking about being a marine biologists and helping take care of animals. I want to improve habitats, supply(food, water, shelter), health, and overall life longevity of species who need protection from becoming extinct. I'm also looking into careers that have to do with math and chemistry. Those options have not yet presented themselves in titles or labels.
 Payments will be made by getting into an internship position which will pay for school, and I will get a manageable job somewhere to pay for future expenses and daily things like gas.
My dream vehicle is a 2012 Chevrolet Colorado 3/4 ton crew cab. The average price is around 25 or 26 thousand.
I would like to live in Manhattan for school. The average rent would be about $320.
I have learned that I need to marry a rich man and have some extreme luck when interviewing for colleges and jobs. I think I need a more grounded idea somewhere in the near future.

http://www.mns.com/manhattan_rental_market_report

http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Chevrolet_Colorado/