September 20th, 2013

Students,

Today we had our introduction into Economics!

This is portion of Unit 3 is very dense in vocabulary so I am going to dedicate part of this post to defining some important terms that you will see on tests. Lets start with types of economy;

Socialist economy- In a socialist economy the public shares ownership in businesses. everyone is looking out for everyone. Some examples include; Norway, Sweden, and France.

Communist Economy- also known as a Command economy in this system the government maintains sole ownership of industry, and dictates jobs, prices, and pay. Ex, N. Korea.

Capitalist Economy- Also known as free enterprise is a system where ownership of industry is privatized and competition is supposed to keep the market in check. Ex. United States of America

Traditional Economy- This is a barter system economy. people often trade goods for other goods with no established currency. they also practice subsistence agriculture which is farming enough goods for yourself and your family but not producing any crops to sell.

Next lets move on to Economic activities;

Primary - Direct use of natural resources. i.e. drilling for oil, growing wheat, mining coal.

Secondary- Creating something with those natural resources i.e. turning oil into gas, or wheat into flour.

Tertiary- Selling goods i.e. selling gas at a gas station, or selling bread at a Bakery

Quaternary - This is research and development, or building a better mouse trap as some say.


Finally all of these terms can be assigned to two different types of countries...

Developing - this is a country who is struggling to emerge onto the global stage. they are generally stuck with low incomes, high mortality rates, and use traditional economies. These can be found in South America and the congo in Africa as well as some other areas around the world.

Developed - Like America, Japan, or European countries, are countries with high levels of success. Booming economies, good health care making for longer lives, and generally function on one of the other economies (communist, socialist, or capitalist)

Today was essentially an introduction of this vocabulary...

Looking Forward- we will be filling out and further refining our ideas of developing Vs. developed countries. so if you would like to plan ahead for Monday do some research into what it means to belong to each of these categories.

AP STUDENTS:  World map poster projects are due on Monday!!!!!!!!!!!!

Documents: http://imgur.com/a/NWby3