o receive your points per week, make 3 total posts each week relevant to the assigned readings or class material. You can either ask questions or respond to questions that have been asked. Whatever you are feeling up to that week.
The platform grades your posts using Curiosity Points which will determine your overall score for the assignments. Each week is worth a total of 12 points. You’ll receive 3 points for each of your posts and a tiered system for the average curiosity score for the week. If it is between 70% and 79% you will earn 1 point. If it is between 80% and 89% you will earn 2 points. If it is above 90% you will earn 3 points.
Some important Packback notes:
You only get these tiered points if you make all 3 posts. If you make less than 3 points you will not earn any tiered points.
Everything in your post must be related to your post. You cannot add in ‘fluff’ to get more points. This includes photos that have nothing to do with your post or formatting.
If your average curiosity score for the week is below 50% you will earn a zero for that week.
Any moderated posts do not count towards your score. Posts will get moderated if they are plagiarized, have too many grammar errors, are not related to economics, or are against community standards.
Your curiosity score is based on your thoughtfulness and how well you structure/write your posts. I will highlight some of my favorite questions during Tuesday’s Virtual Study Session. There will be a total of 14 Packback Assignments and your 2 lowest will be dropped. Each of these Packback Assignments is worth 1% towards your final grade making this category worth 12% of your total grade in this class.
links for the readings this week:
https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/12/14/a-brief-history-of-u-s-inflation-since-1775/
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/theres-deflationbut-youre-likely-not-seeing-lower-prices.html
https://groundworkcollaborative.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/The-Costs-of-Being-Poor-Groundwork-Collaborative.pdf
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-consumer-prices-fall-ahead-of-lunar-new-year-holiday-11612935373
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/surprisingly-awesome/39h28b
examples written:
Do you believe the current form inflation we are seeing is transitory?
The Federal Reserve Board or commonly known as “The Fed” is a central financial system that acts as a national banking system for the entirety of the United States. They have been publishing next-year core inflation forecasts every year since 2007. These projections give an insight to how the Fed feels about the current state of the economy. If they predict core inflation will be higher (above standard 2%) than it is a sign that interest rates will increase. This means that the national average interest rate of borrowing money will be increased, so people spend less which will hopefully decrease inflation.
In the current state of the economy, the inflation rates are higher than anticipated due to a number of different factors. These range from COVID-19 supply issues to overall confidence in economy to labor shortages. The Fed’s March statement on the inflation rate is that it is merely a transitory form of inflation that will pass in due time. Their current actions of decreasing the amount of buying bonds implies that they want to raise the interest rate which might help the inflation issue.
Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/fed-officials-see-transitory-inflation-lasting-quite-a-while-11632389401?mod=searchresults_pos17&page=1
Will United States and European economies continue to be slowed by the delta variant or will they increase due to the prior knowledge from handling the previous pandemic?
This month, manufacturing and service industries have seen slower growth in activity due to the concern of the delta variant. The index measuring U.S. business activities, provided by surveys of purchasing managers, fell from 55.4 to 54.5 from August to September, which was the lowest level in a year. Since the Delta variant has been picking up since the summer in the US, plenty of businesses noticed the slower rise despite the higher cost for supplies and pay for workers.
If the delta variant is slowing down the economies now, will it continue to slow them down like it did in March 2020? Or will our previous experience and knowledge keep the economy afloat and things will be handled differently?
