The Economic struggle in the U.S.

America has always been known as the land of opportunity. Where the working man could come to make a living and provide for his family. Except providing for a family during these hard economic times almost seems impossible due to the fact that the successful people in our society control all the wealth. The way George Carlin views things, the successful people continue to succeed while those less fortunate continue to struggle. Carlin suggests that our school systems are messed up because the government doesn't want us to be informed so they purposely leave them the way they are. Thats a scary thought to me. The people in our country that we trust to make laws in our land would rather make money than pass a law that would help public school systems. It almost seems like those on the top don't want those on the bottom to succeed. That children are born into a world that is set up for them to fail. For example we are recovering from a recession because of banks tricking people into taking out bigger loans or bigger mortgages than they can chew. The banks then immediately sell the debt to other companies knowing that the people who took out the loan most likely won't be able to pay it back. So when the person can't pay off it's debt then the only person who doesn't lose is the bank. The big dog. This shows how the little guy is always screwed over in our economy and the big guy has tons of money and is still getting more. The idea of distributing the wealth is often considered a socialist view but maybe a little socialism in a capitalist economy might be a good thing. Just by reversing the economic standard that we put big companies before the people we can have a more socialist capitalism   economy where the rich are heavily taxed and the poor are slightly taxed giving them more money in their pocket each month. If our economy doesn't change the poorer will continue to get poorer, our banks will continue to become more wealthy and the 99% will be continually forgotten.
Thats why I would like to make the distribution of wealth one of my main focuses in my fieldwork project. I want to see what decisions successful people make in their lifetimes that poor people do not make. Im going to ask why the people on the top are on the top and why it is so hard for those on the bottom to move up in economic prestige. I am also curious to learn more about the common presumption that poor people are poor because they messed up somewhere in their lives. My subjects will be some local homeless people in Arcata and I hope to find some local business owners that will be willing to talk to me. Are the people that control this country really more better off in the long run than those of us in the middle class? Some would argue yes, that the people on the top are more successful therefore better off. But what defines success? To some individuals making it through the day is a success. To some eating twice a day is a success. So thats why in my project I hope to try to find a correlation between wealth, economic power, and success.

Anthro 104 First Blog Post

Hello fellow Anthro students and welcome to my blog. Since this is my first post I thought it was only right to provide you guys with a little background information about me. My birth name is Zachery Stankovich Alfers but I'm currently in the process of changing it and getting one of my last names dropped. Its just too confusing. I was born in San Diego and lived there for 11 years. I sternly believe that SD is the best place in the U.S. After I graduated from grade school my dad and I moved to Costa Rica where we stayed for two years. Being the only "gringos" in the whole town was definitely something that took some time to get used to. Especially when your 11 trying to make friends but the other kids have no idea what your saying. It got easier though when school started. I went to a private school that was taught in english but we had spanish class everyday for an hour where you got minus points for every bit of english you spoke. After a couple months in that class my spanish skills improved and was able to eventually communicate with my neighbors. After our two year vacation we decided to move back to the States. My Dad got a job offer in the bay area so thats where I stayed for 8th grade and all of my high school career. I lived on a little island called Alameda which is about a 5 minute car ride from Oakland and about 15 minutes from San Francisco. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the Bay but ever since Junior year I just couldn't wait to get to college.

Now I'm here, studying what I want to study and leaving all that high school drama behind me. Im in the Economics group. I choose this group because it is the most relevant to my major which is business.  While I was thinking about my major and what I wanted to do with my life after school I decided I didn't want to waste another four years learning about things I was never going to remember. I began looking for a major that was hirable out of college and something that was interesting to me. Through my research I found that Business is the third most hirable major. Growing up I always had little side businesses where I would sell airheads and honey buns out of my back pack. My dad would take me to Costco and I would load up on all kinds of goodies. I remember getting busted by my P.E. teacher in 8th grade for doing this. He took me to the principle and she tried to explain to me why I shouldn't do that and helped me calculate my profit. I was making a 300% profit on every box of honey buns I sold. I mean, that sounds pretty good if you ask me. So Business was always something that I was interested in so after doing my research the decision for my major became easy. I was going to study Business Administration and legally start my own business where I could make 300% profits and not be scolded. Plus, Ive been told I look good in a tie.