Book portfolio Q3

A year without made in China. By: Sara Bongiorni


This book was about Sara and her family's New years resolution that was to band all of Chinas goods from their house for a whole year, this challenge was to see if they could live with buying goods from other countries.

At some point in time every country has to depend on each other, whether they like it or not; because every one wants to survive. For example, we needed the French during the battle of Yorktown to win, with out them we would have lost. Have you ever noticed that like everything in our houses is made in China? and also a majority of the things that people enjoy most are made in China...

Our country of America, it also depends on china a lot, just like every other country for their goods and services. When Sara's DVD player broke the parts for it were all made in China, and according to their resolution they're not able to buy the parts that they need to fix her DVD player. But when the holidays came around it was a hassle because come to find out a majority of all the toys, decorations, costumes and all that fun stuff seemed to come from China. And a lot of the simple things that people need like shoues and clothes, pretty much all of it comes from China... But after all this Sara's family survive their resolution that they made. They learn that America needs China to live.


To be honest, i really dont think i could do what Sara's family did. i mean i have a problem changing my ways of eating. what makes you think that im able to buy goods that are not made in China. if i want get something im going to buy it, Why? because 1 its cute. or 2 because i like it & i love to be different. Like what Sara said America lives off of China to survive, and i personally think its very true..

In life, every one will always have to do something they are not going to like and or even do it with people they dont like, but im pretty sure people will do it because we all want to survive. So in conclusion every county depends on one another becasue its a necessity to survive. For example, for every war or bad think that has gone on in history a country has always either allied with a different country to win or survive. wether the other country has money, supplies thats needed, goods, or even troops; we can never do anything on our own!

Planet Money

"Bailing out banks, one toxic asset at a time"

This article is about two men named Albert and Raj that go through towns, or villages, and buy houses that are in foreclosure or "underwater." houses that are "underwater" mean that the house is worth less than the mortgage for the house. The article also talks about how this process works. It works like this:

1. Banks give out mortgages to people who have stopped paying.

2. Then to get rid of the mortgages that the people don't pay they sell them for discounts to large investment funds like Hedge Funds. Banks sell mortgages thousands at a time to investment funds.

3. Most of the mortgages investment funds don't like to keep so they make the price higher than what they bought them for and sell them to people like Albert and Raj.

some information:
1. Hedge Funds can buy mortgages for $.30 of a dollar so if the bank sold it for $100,000 they get it for $30,000. Then sell them again for about $.40 on a dollar.

2. People like Albert and Raj won't even know if there is someone living in the house or not before they buy their mortgages. They just care about whether the home is in foreclosure, how high the interest rate is on the home, the value of the home, what the neighborhood is like (even though they have no intentions on living there), and if the home has a for sale sign by the driveway or on the front lawn.

Is this evil?
This article connects to what I know about the Great Depression because during the early state of the Great Depression it was the stocks that had dropped and people lost a lot of money. In the Article that I have read I had an understanding that if I wanted relate it to the Great Depression by replacing the stock market with mortgage investments and that when the stock market was rising in sales, before the Great Depression, it would be considered as right now in our country where people are buying mortgages of houses that are going into foreclosure and making money. Today in our country this business of buying mortgages of houses going into foreclosure hasn't hit a depression because of all the thousands of houses going into foreclosure but I would definitely say that the people that live in the houses going into foreclosure are going through a Great Depression.






Bailing out Banks