Current+Events+Home

Current Events Page

Welcome! From time to time, we will explore current events. This page will be used to collect and organize our information and thoughts.

=Process:= I will post a general theme. Together we will identify questions we want to answer. Individually we will collect articles and information. If necessary, you will post information to your personal current events page. Your personal page will be a scratch pad, or draft area. Our scribe for the day will then copy and paste and organize to this page, the master class page. Remember: __//Only one person at a time may edit and save changes to this master class page, or data gets lost!//__

= = Current Amanda Current David Current Emmy current Geoffrey Current Ivanna Current John Current Laura Current Lili Current Melissa Current Noah Current Rachel Current Tim Current Will Current Zeke = = = = = = = = =Content:=

=**__What should a high school student know about the current financial crisis?__**=

Hello, A few people wanted to know when video of Jonathan Gruber's presentation on the current economic crisis would be posted to the website. It is now posted. There are several ways to find the video, but the best is to go to our site's Media Gallery (https://www.bcdschool.org/podium/default.aspx?t=52560). Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. Thanks, Ben

Bank Failures Federal Bail Outs of wall street Federal legisslations pending Currency Devaluation Stock market down Housing Market loans that people could not pay back packaging of loans and reselling. Taxes going up prices of gas going up AIG Insurance can't pay back all of loans Lehman brothers one financially secure, other doing crazy stuff; wnet into bank rupcy, gov't wouldn't bail out somebody ought part of their stuff. THe crash of Fannie May and Freddie Mac Names of people: Secretary of the Treasury -- Henry Paulson chairman of the federal reserve -- Ben Bernacke

In a two hour double block as a class you will: 1. Identify important questions. 2. Search for news articles and web sources that point us towards answers. 3. Collect possible sources, using your individual Current Events pages as a working space. 4. Collaborate with teammates, comparing the resources and answers you find. 5. Arrange questions, sources and and answers on your group page. 6. Provide a narrative structure so that another high school student who tours the class page can begin to identify key issues associated with the crisis. 7. Read the final, combined project and participate in the discussion forum associated with it.

How will we find stuff out?
NOW: Find a newspaper article or two. Read them. Post their links to your wiki space for current events, above After the link, write your questions and observations.

Mortgage Crisis:
Background from This American Life 1 hour http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355

Shorter version form NPR / All Things Considered 13 minutes http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90327686

Work on Thursday 9/25 1. Listened to NPR short version. 2. Talked about it 3. Mini lecture from Albritton: How indivdiual loans are bundled and sold, and the implications for the current crisis: who holds the risk: 4. Divided up: 1) pdresent results of npr report & mini lecutre 2) figure out what president said 3) skim classmates results and post most interesting questions.

Groups, as you finish, post your work below: Homework: Complete and post the results of your inquiry below here on this main page. Use your individual page as working / editing space.

5 Best Questions on the Wiki 1. Emmy-. Will the bail-out plan work? Isn't that just transferring the problem from the companies to the government? 2. Ivanna- What does that mean, there have been 26 investigations for these four companies? 3. David- How can an investment in one singular company help the entire stock market? 4. Noah- **What does this have to say about the value of the U.S. Dollar? **  **5. Zeke- How can Congress judge what will happen to the economy when this is not their expertise?

Rachel, Noah and Ivanna's Top 9 Questions on the Wiki: **  1. How did the financial crisis start, is this another great depression?  2. What steps are most likely to solve the immediate crisis?  3. How can the long term cost to taxpayers be minimized?  4. How can Congress judge what will happen when this is not their expertise?  5. What does this have to say about the value of the U.S. Dollar?  6. How can an investment in one singular company help the entire stock market? <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial"> 7. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">What does this mean for other insurance companies who are on Wall Street? <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial"> 8. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">If people do not buy houses then how does that affect the economy? <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial"> 9. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Isn't that just transferring the problem from the companies to the government? <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"> This is a link to a website that tells us about President Bush's speech on 9/24/08: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080925/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown;_ylt=AlP8lhKMP8JP1slIonUrXW6s0NUE (Click on the videos to the left to hear more!)