International Trade

You might not have notice, but international trade accounts for many things you consume and use every day. Foods ,technologies, clothes, books, instruments, furniture, etc., the exchange of goods and services between countries has make it possible for people to acquire different goods and services all around the world.So the next time you wanted some Cambodian tobacco, Albanian footwear, or maybe some Mexican marijuana, you maybe able to find it in the area near you (I'm just kidding about the marijuana, don't do drugs!).

So international trade sounds cool, isn't it? To be able to purchase things originates from differnt parts of the worlds to me is just amazing. But international trade does have some negative sides. An article from fte.org said:

"Trade issues occasionally dominate and are a continuing theme of the international scene: the global market, sweatshops, child labor, trade deficits, the euro, sanctions, tariffs, embargoes, and the EU, NAFTA, WTO – the seemingly endless alphabet of interest groups, treaties, organizations, and trade agreements."

We see that there is a wide variety of issues relating to international trade, from markets to labors to currency values and even to world organizations. What makes this an issues is that many countries in the world depend on trades to operate (either through import or export). So when an event affects the flow of international trade, that creates issues. And it is a big issues nevertheless.

With many problems that can affect international trade, one would think that someone need to do something to prevent it, right? Well that's what the organizations mentioned above are for. EU (European Union), USTR (United States Trade Representative), and WTO (World Trade Organization) are organizations dedicated to regulates international trades between nations. They aim to promote a free movement of people, goods, services, and capitals while also to maintain regulations on trade.

One well-known example of an organization that is dedicated to international trade is the WTO. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. With only 640 staffs but an overwhelming 160 member states, it's amazing how WTO can provides a framework for negotiating and formalizing trade agreements and a dispute resolution process based on WTO's agreement

There are many good benefits that WTO brings like promotes world peace, disputes are handles constructively, trade raises income... But with an organization this famous there's bound to be some bad side to it. People are saying that WTO develop dispute (by allowing countries to sue each other), own way too much power,and is not shy to enforce its power on those who goes against it.

And exactly how can they use it? The answer is sanction. Major worldwide organizations like the UN sometimes use sanction to economically punish a country for various reasons. It can be describe as a sort of carrot-and-stick approach to dealing with international trade and politics. Although this is use to put on pressure to a country's economy with an attempt to solve disputes, sometimes these sanction can cause even bigger problems. I only remember one time in history where a sanction can cause big problems. After WWI, Germany was heavily punished economically. And you know what is the result of that? WWII. So sanction may not be such a good thing at all.

It is true that there are still many problems regarding international trades. Problems that not even international organizations an fully solve. Trade imbalances, competitive advantages, embargoes, tariffs...these are just some of many issues that international trade is facing. Currently there's no way to solve these issues regarding each and every countries in the world because the economy is different between countries and is always changing. But the good new is that while organizations maintain the condition of international trade, many individuals have been studying ways to solve these economic problems. 

So if you are thinking about pursuing a career in economics, study hard and start thinking about problems regarding trade and may be one day you'll be able to solve international trade issues. And for everyone else, lets hope that one day, issues regarding international trades will be solve and it will bring prosperity and happiness to our society.

What is international trade?: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/03/112503.asp
Problems of international trade: http://www.preservearticles.com/2012022923898/what-are-the-problems-or-difficulties-in-international-trade.html
In depth international trade: http://www.fte.org/teacher-resources/lesson-plans/tradelessons/
Benefits of WTO: http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/10ben_e/10b00_e.htm#10benefit_menu
Bad side to WTO:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/globalism-destroys-america-10-reasons-why-the-world-trade-organization-is-bad-for-the-united-states-economy
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/dark-side-of-the-wto.asp
Sanction: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/10/economic-sanctions.asp

Health Care

Everybody wants to live forever. But unfortunately science can't make that happen YET. So for now we're just trying to live as long as we could. And why would we want to prolong our life? To be with your family and friends? To experience all walks of life? To avoid death as long as possible? Well, those are a few of many many reasons why humans would want to have a long life. But the question is how? *hint: the answer is somewhere in the title.

Health care is a very important factor in determining how long a person can live. For anyone who doesn't know what it is, health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in human beings. So the idea is that life expectancy of a person is determine by what kind of health care he or she is receiving from the government. So the better the health care system of a country is, the longer the people can live.

Thankfully, my friend Thien have created a Prezi presentation about the types of health care systems in the world and issues that they are having. That means less words you'll have to read. Yay Thien!!!


Although there are many problems relating to a country's health care system, I primarily focus on three things: the quality, the cost, and the waiting time. These three factors determine how good a health care system is.

Living in Vietnam, a developing country, i got to witness how quality, cost, and waiting time heavily affect my country's health care system. Unlicensed doctors, careless procedures, high cost, shocking amount of patients... there are many factors that are dragging Vietnam's health care system down. And it's not like this is a new thing. Poor health care system have been around for years, but the government still haven't been able to solve this problem yet. Mainly it's because of lack of funds, facilities, trained professionals, and conscience of people.

So how can issues regarding health care system be solve? For one thing, the government need to work on improving their health care system, increasing the quality while also making it available for everyone. But this isn't just a one side thing. The people have to help too. I have seen how misbehaving individuals can affect the quality of health care of hospitals and therefore making it hard for medical treatments to be make. So people have to improve the way they are behaving so that it would not affect the health care procedures of medical centers.

Solving health care problems is not easy. But if the government and the people all working together to improve the country's health care system, it would result in a huge benefit not only for our lives, but also the lives of society's future generations.

Drugs

I think we can all agreed that too much of something is never a good idea. Especially something as addicted as drugs. A drug is, in the broadest of terms, a chemical substance that has known biological effects on humans or other animals (except for foods). If consume with the right amount, drugs can be use for treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of diseases.

Believe it or not, cocaine can be use for medical purposes (meth too).

But wait a minute, isn't that the same as medicine? Well yes and no. From a chemistry point of view, the two are basically the same thing. However, our society and the law have create a clear distinction between the two. The differences between medicines and drugs are:
1. Medicines are safe to use as their toxicities are negligible. Drugs on the other hand can have serious side effects once consume.
2. Medicines don't cause addiction. Drugs do.

Don't get addicted to drugs. Think about your love ones.

If they have side effects and can cause addiction, why would someone use drugs? It's usually because of curiosity, peer pressure, or the feelings that drugs can bring. Those feelings were created because some drugs can affect the central nervous system and they can really mess up your senses and thinking. Alcohol, nicotine (in cigarettes), and caffeine are the most widely consumed psychotropic drugs worldwide.

Commonly known drugs (looks like breakfast to me)

Believe it or not, drugs were discovered by humans a long time ago. Ever since the beginning of civilization, humans have discovered many organic substances that can provide them with sensational feelings by consuming them. Examples of this are blue lotus, pythia gases...

Ancient drugs (some are still available today)

If people have been doing this for millenniums, why is it that governments all around the world are working on preventing the use of drugs now? It's simple. Nowadays drugs have much more extreme effects than those used by the Egyptians and Greeks. Even something as widely known and use as marijuana have serious long term effects. Also, as I've mentioned above, drugs are addicted. So excessive use of drugs can turn you into an addict, and that's no good for society. So now you know why governments are trying to prevent people from abusing drugs. So you, your family and friends, and the society can avoid the consequences that drugs can bring.

A song about drugs by non other than Eminem

Cocaine and meth use for medical purpose: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/22/why-we-need-medical-meth-cocaine.html
Difference between medicine and drug: http://www.differencebetween.net/language/words-language/difference-between-drug-and-medicine/
Top 10 drugs and their effects: http://listverse.com/2007/09/27/top-10-drugs-and-their-effects/
Ancient drugs: http://animalnewyork.com/2012/12-drugs-from-ancient-cultures-and-where-to-get-them/
Effects of marijuana: http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/marijuana/short-and-long-term-effects.html

Technology (and science, too)

Nowadays, technologies are parts of our every day life. Everywhere we go, we can see how technologies are all around us, teaching us, guiding us, and helping us with everything we do. One can imagine how different our lives would be without technologies. So today, I'm here to talk about how science and technology have change our lives.

Technologies are all around us

You may know what "science" and "technology" are, but do you truly understand what they really stands for? No? That's why I'm here to help you. To make it simple, science is "the body of knowledge itself, of the type that can be rationally explained and reliably applied." This means that science is any knowledge that can be rationally explained through experiments. And "technology" is simply something that is created based on the application of scientific knowledge.

Now that we've done with that, let's get to the fun stuffs. Did you know that ,according to a Japanese poll in 2000, instant noodles was considered "Japan's best invention of the 20th century?" This was because after WWII, Japanese people were struggling with their lives. Many people wanted to eat just 1 bowl of ramen. And by witnessing a long line of people just waiting to get some noodles, the Japanese inventor Momofuku Ando thought "peace will come to the world when people have enough to eat." Thanks to Ando and his amazing invention, many people are now escaping starvation.

Looking at this makes me hungry

Instant noodle is only one of the many inventions that science and technology have produced. And just like any other inventions, instant noodle was created to help people with their lives. And that's what science and technology is all about: to gain a deeper understanding about things around you and to improve the life of humanity.

But sadly, this is not always the case. With science and technology improving everyday, the risks that those knowledge can be used for evil purposes increase. From cyber criminals, wars, spies, to bio weapons and nuclear power, we are no longer safe, even in our very own home. It's true that science and technology have improve our lives in so many different ways, our lives would have never be this good without them. But the danger they bring also making our lives more dangerous than ever before.

Technology can be a two-edge sword

So what can we, as a society, can do to help protect ourselves and other people from the risk that science and technology being used in ways that can detriment our ways of living? Well, for big problems like nuclear power and bio weapons, there's not really much we can do but to show our support or disagreement. But for problems that are closely related to our lives, like increasing dependence to technology or cyber bullies, we as individuals can help fixed those problems for the betterment of society. Each problems will have its own solution, and if we can join together to help fixed problems relating to misused of science and technology, our lives will certainly get better.

Piracy

Many of us have committed piracy once or twice in our lives. No, not the Pirates of The Caribbeans kind of piracy (though, we will also talked about that subject in this blog). What I mean is intellectual piracy, or copyright infringement.

Do you care about copyright?

The Pirate Bay, Mediafire, Megaupload... these are some among the many websites that allows people to upload files and share them with the world. This means that anyone with access to these pages can download the files and use them as they may. Sometimes this is okay because those files maybe free or personal. But most of the times, people used these sites to upload copyrights contents so that everyone can use it. This means that contents that you normally have to pay to get access to are now free for everyone.

AKA: Their Hell, Our Heaven

I know some of you might think "So? This is awesome, right?" Well to you guys it may be very cool to get all these free stuffs (who doesn't like free stuffs?). But to the people who spent their time, hard work, and money to created these files, this is not something to laugh about. Watching files that you spent days, months, years to make is now being distributed everywhere for free without your permission is rather heart-breaking.

Right in the adulthood

Copyright infringement has been a huge problems for media industries for decades. Companies that produce games, musics, films, programs... are struggling with the fact that people are getting these companies' products for free from the Internet. This results in a huge lost in their revenue because a majority of users don't pay for the files. Now you may think it's awesome to get these stuffs for free but for these companies, intellectual piracy can lead them to bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy = Game Over

So how can we solve this problem? First of all, I must say we're extremely fortunate that this isn't the 18th century and we're not committing actual piracy. Why? Because back then, committing piracy means you'll end up in jail at the very least. There are also hanging, decapitation, dancing the hempen jig, and the absolute worst is being lock in a steel cage and hang in the air until your flesh rotted (which takes about 2 years). The most twisted part is that people enjoy coming to see your death like it's some kind of sport event. Nowadays, the worst intellectual piracy can get is jail and pay for compensation. No rotted flesh!

Who knew so many people came to see someone die?

Also worth mentioning is that copyright infringement happens on the Internet, which makes it harder to find the culprit. Some might say "there should be a law against online piracy". That maybe true, but it's too complicated to create a law that can protects major businesses while not harming the small ones. It's because we haven't define content that is needed to be protect from piracy. Is taking a quote from a Facebook post piracy? Is taking a portion of a video clip violated copyrights? How about an image on Google?

Netflix believes it's the solution to online piracy

It's true that online piracy is very difficult to deal with. But in my opinion, there's nothing that humans can't do. We just need to put our minds and our resources (lots and lots of resources) together and figure out a way to protect companies and industries from online piracy. It may take years, thousands of people, and millions of dollars. But i believe that if people are strong enough to work together toward a common goal (in this case preventing online piracy) ,with the right amount of time and resources, we can achieve the impossible and once again bring back the fairness to businesses all around the world.

Here are some links about solutions to piracy that you may find interested:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2012/01/17/how-to-fix-online-piracy/
http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2009/apr/07/france-solution-online-piracy

Income Inequality

When it comes to unfair things in our life, one thing stood out: income inequality. Money is an important factor in our daily life because without money, we can't pay for food, water, electricity, etc. So if money is so important to our lives, shouldn't it be distributed equally among human. If everyone have the same amount of income, wouldn't that means everyone will live a happy life?

That maybe true in theory, but in reality, things aren't always how we want them to be. Statistics shown that out of the 7 billion people on Earth, the richest 1% is holding 43% of world wealth, while the bottom 80%of people only have 6% of the world wealth. So what is happening here? Why do the minorities have so much money while the majorities have almost nothing?

More astounding facts: 200 years ago, rich countries were only 3 times richer than poor countries. Today, that number rise to 85 times. So why is there such a huge gap in the income between poor and rich people? To understand this, we can take the US for example.

US currently has the most unequal advanced economy in the world.United State's economy is so unequal, it even has its own Wiki page talking about it. In 2013, 75.4% of the nation's wealth is in the hands of 10% of the population. From wealth accumulation rigged for the rich, manipulation of tax, tax rate decrease, stock market domination by the riches, to numerous consumer debts, the rich just keep getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer.

That's not all, as many scams have been created by the richest to hide the fact that the minority of people in US is holding the majority of the nation's wealth. One of those scam is the "we should all cheer for stock market". Mainstream media has made this seems like a chance for poor people to become richer by investing in stock market. But the truth is: 60% of US population only own 0.2% of all wealth outside of home. Some organization even claimed that income inequality remain steady since the wealth of the top 1% decrease from 1983 to 2007 because of "democratization of stock ownership. What many people didn't know is that while the wealth of the top 1% decreased, the top other 5% increase by 20%, and the poorest 80% decrease by almost 20%.

So how can we fix America? Based on theatlantic.com, "The most potent way to get more wealth to the poor and middle-class is to get these people to save more of their income, and to invest in assets with higher average rates of return." And to do this, first we have to change America's culture of saving. Rich people have lots of money, so they usually save them, and in time the saving become huge. The poor, on the other hand, don't have that much money for savings.What the website propose is financial education is a must in public school to change American's way of thinking.

The change of US wealth distribution from 2007-2009

In addition, we can help the middle class invest in stock to raise their wealth. Teaching people how to manage their stock investments is a great way to help people avoid losing their wealth. Tips and tricks about what to do, what to not do, and what to avoid doing are great in helping people make the right decision in stock investing. By doing so, we can change the wealth distribution in society so it will shift more to the other poor and middle class. In turn, these solutions can help closing the gap between the rich and the poor and make unfair distribution of wealth fairer.

World Organization

There are many worldwide organizations in the world that are striving to solve current world problems. Even though each organization have its own missions and methods, one thing in common is that they all try to improve the life of humanity.

Today, I'm going to introduced to you 2 worldwide organizations that are dedicated to advancing technology, IEEE and AAAS. These two organizations may not be the same, but they both strive for a common goal, that is to improve technological innovations for the benefit of all people.

IEEE (stands for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is the world's largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. 

The IEEE was the combination of two different societies, AIEE and IRE. AIEE was created in 1884 by a small group of electrical professions with the aim to aid professionals in their efforts to apply innovation for the betterment of humanity. IRE was created in 1912 after the creation of radio. Unlike the AIEE, which focused on electrical power and its ability, IRE devoted to radio and electronics.

Both societies grew in the 20th century, but IRE became the larger group in 1957. On January 1st 1963, the two societies combined to formed the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer.

IEEE's goal is to be essential to the global technical community and to technical professionals everywhere, and be universally recognized for the contributions of technology and of technical professionals in improving global conditions.

AAAS(stands for American Association for the Advancement of Science) is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of all people. It's the world's largest and most prestigious science society and is the publisher of the well-known scientific journal Science.

Formed in 1848 as a national scientific society, AAAS became the first permanent organization formed to promote the development of science and engineering at a national level and to represents the interests of all its disciplines. 

The AAAS seeks to "advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people." 

The question now is why did I choose these 2 when there are many different organizations out there? Well the main reason is because I'm having an upcoming presentation about Science and Technology. And since these two organizations both want to advance technology and innovation for the benefit of humanity, it seems fit to use them for this blog and possibly my presentation in the future. If the presentation went well, I going to upload that file here so everyone can see. Wish me luck!