Reaction to Interview Project

At first, I was really confused as to how this project was going to turn out. After the project was over, I was think it was a great learning experience and I really enjoyed it. In the classroom, it is important to teach the importance and rules of economics, but it is another thing to actually go out and interview those who have had experience in the world of economics. I learned a great deal from the questions Joseph and Ken answered, from economics today and in the past. Each story related to something we had talked about in our class. After reviewing the results, you can see many differences and similarities, in the different generations, and how economics has personally played a big role in everyone’s life. Joseph, being the oldest member of my family, really gave me an idea of how different life was back then from his wages and learning what products he has seen drastically change over his lifetime.

Interviewing Ken, my dad, was also very informational because comparing his data to Joseph’s; some events were not far off. Lastly, I liked the idea of interviewing myself, because it was a time of reflection on my life. Everything that I had experienced in my life and then relating it to economics was a very different way of learning. I really liked this project a lot, because it was a way of learning economics not in the classroom, but in history and in my family. This project is an example of economics in everyone’s daily lives plays a big role and in my family it has played a big role. However, as it was everyone in my family, we share a lot of the same beliefs and experiences, so it would definitely be interesting to see the other classmates results as well, to compare the answers to theirs.  

Interview Project

Dr. Joseph DiPietro (My Nonno)

Male, 81 Years of age

	strongly disagree		disagree	neutral	agree	strongly agree
The government should regulate the economy	X
Politics has a major influence on the economy					X
Everyone should take an economics class in high school					X
The drinking age should be lowered to 18		X
The government bailouts worked	X
The United States should have a higher minimum wage		X
In 6 months the economy will be better than today		X
I am well informed about economic news						X
The recession personally affected me				X

 

 

Asking him these eight questions, I found out:

1.      Charlotte, North Carolina is a city that has changed the most in Joseph’s lifetime, for the better. In the past few years, he has noticed a high increase in businesses and an enormous influx of people from numerous states. Detroit, Michigan is a city in his lifetime that has changed the most negatively. From the great city he knew it was growing up, he has seen the city go to poor management, with a worthless city council in place.

2.      Ronald Regan was the president with the biggest positive impact on the economy in Joseph’s opinion. This was because as president, he did not interfere with the private sector.

3.      Joseph’s first memory of a major economic event impacting his life was the tax cut during George W. Bush. As for the economic impact on his lifetime, were the Bush Administration tax cuts.

4.      Joseph has made many tradeoffs in his lifetime. One distinct tradeoff he remembers where after a few unfortunate years financially, he had to greatly reduce charitable donations. After providing for over five children in Africa to go to school, he had to make a tradeoff to provide for his own grandchildren to go to school, because my uncle could not afford to do so for his children.

5.      Joseph gets his economic news today by watching Fox News, internet, and reading many business magazines such as Barron’s. The way he has received news has changed greatly, with the television news and news on the internet. He was always a fan of reading the paper and would always order Barron’s, but television and internet he admits has made getting the news faster, and easier.

6.      Joseph is big into shopping around and saving money that way. Before buying one item, he will go to three different stores to make sure he is getting the lowest price. However, he will not hesitate to substitute the name brand, with the store brand. Being a chemist, he says he knows the ingredients on the label and always tells me that Listerine and the store brand are the same mouthwash, just in different bottles.

7.      A service that has changed the most in Joseph’s life was medical and dental services. Not only due to the expenses from increased inflation, but the technology has changed into brilliant machinery. He had cancer in 1962 and survived with heavy treatment. His cancer returned in 1980 and even in the span of 18 years, he witnessed technology change before his eyes of the equipment they used.

8.      Joseph puts very little money in the bank. Due to the embarrassingly low interest rates, he has shifted his money into purchase of equities and bonds. This he states, increases your money hundreds of times more than just sitting in the bank.  (Always re-invest dividends!)

Two open ended questions:

1.      Joseph’s personal best year was in 2007. Not only the company he started ten years before that was more profitable than ever, but in the stock market provided high gains as well. He also reports that the economy was doing very well.

2.      Joseph’s wage at his first job was .75. He made this while attending school at University of Pennsylvania working as an apprentice for a printing company.

 

 

 

Kenneth R Arnold (My Dad):

Male, 49 Years of age

		strongly disagree	disagree	neutral	agree	strongly agree
The government should regulate the economy					X
Politics has a major influence on the economy					X
Everyone should take an economics class in high school					X
The drinking age should be lowered to 18	X
The government bailouts worked			X
The United States should have a higher minimum wage			X
In 6 months the economy will be better than today					X
I am well informed about economic news				X
The recession personally affected me						X

Asking him these eight questions, I found out:

1.      The city that has changed for Ken the most positively is Charlotte, North Carolina. It is a “booming area” filling up with all kinds of businesses. A city that has changed the most in a negative way is Hartford, Connecticut. The city has a reputation of poor planning, with no attractions to draw people or businesses in. He has worked for United Healthcare in Hartford for 13 years and says the city has done nothing, but go downhill.

2.      The president whom had the biggest positive impact on the economy was George H. W. Bush. During his presidency, he applied many changes to the tax laws. Tax incentives reduced the tax structure, and encouraged a lot of businesses to invest in the economy.

3.      Ken’s first memory of a major economic event that impacted his life and the event that had the biggest impact on his life both occurred with the event Black Thursday. This was a major market crash in 1988 in October, when the market was down thousands of points. Ken said that he would never forget that day because he was in a class for his masters in Finance, when the teacher walked in and did something very strange. “I was in my economics class that I had to take for my master’s degree, when my professor walked in and did something I will never forget. He picked up our economics book after walking in and said ‘Forget everything I ever taught you’ and threw his book out the five story window and walked out on us.” Ken said that was an unforgettably sad day and hurt him very much financially with his investments and so this makes for also the biggest economic event in his lifetime as well.

4.      Ken has had to make many tradeoffs in his lifetime. He used to own a timeshare in Aruba, but as my sister entered her first year in college, he had to sell it, because he needed money at the time to put her through college.

5.      Ken gets his economic news by reading the paper such as The Wall Street Journal, watching the news, looking news up online, and listening to the radio while commuting to work every morning. He said that the way he has obtained news has changed drastically, being able to find out any economic news on the internet instantly.

6.      By dealing with rising prices, Ken has resulted into buying in bulk. He likes to shop around at BJ’s Wholesale and Costco, buying in bulk and that way his purchases are not as frequent and saves money, rather than going into the store and buying individual items. An example of this would be deodorant. By buying one at the store it can be up to $3.50 but at a wholesale market, a package of three will cost $6.00.

7.      Computers are the product that has changed the most in Ken’s lifetime. He went from using an IBM punch card and a main frame that took forever to type a sentence, to using handheld mobile tablets at work. Voice activated and touch screen, compared to using punch cards where each card you inserted was a different word.

8.      Handling savings, Ken has definitely been more conscious of making budgets. Each month he prepares a monthly budget of what he will spend, and what he will save. He also uses his 401 K to plan retirement, and invests 10% each month of his paycheck in his company’s stock because for every dollar he invests, the company matches his amount.

 

Two open ended questions:

1.      The price of gas for his first car was $1.25. He remembers filling up his Red Ford Zephyr with four gallons of gas.

2.      I asked Ken what his biggest mistake in college. He replied “Definitely not studying or applying myself as much as I could have. Not that I would party that much, but instead of sitting in the library or doing homework inside, I chose to play pickup games of all kinds. It is a shame because there are so many resources at every college, that students need to take advantage of.”

 

Kenneth J Arnold (Me):

Male, 19 Years of age

 

	strongly disagree	disagree	neutral	agree	strongly agree
The government should regulate the economy		X
Politics has a major influence on the economy				X
Everyone should take an economics class in high school				X
The drinking age should be lowered to 18	X
The government bailouts worked	X
The United States should have a higher minimum wage			X
In 6 months the economy will be better than today				X
I am well informed about economic news				X
The recession personally affected me			X

Eight questions I asked myself:

1.      A city that has changed in my life the most positively, would be Charlotte, North Carolina. My family and I were going to move there ten years ago to be closer to my grandparents, but my parents decided not to. We had looked at houses, enormous sizes, for unbelievably cheap prices. My Grandparents bought a house there twelve years ago, and today the value of their real estate is already up 10%. Also visiting often, I have seen so many businesses move there, which promises more opportunity. A city that has changed negatively for me is Hartford, Connecticut. I have been there many times over the past twelve years living in Connecticut, and it was gone downhill. Nothing to do no new businesses that show promising signs, just really under poor management.

2.      The president with biggest positive impact on the economy to me would have to be William J. Clinton. During this time period I didn’t know exactly what was going on because I was young, but I know the economy was doing well. My parents and I were taking vacations very often to numerous places a year and I never overheard my parents struggling financially, and ever since after his term.

3.      The first major economic event that impacted my life was Hurricane Katrina. This was a terrible time for the economy and people as a whole. New Orleans was underwater for weeks, and this hurricane costed the economy billions. Gas prices rose greatly as I would notice from when my mom would fill up the gas tank. An economic event that had the biggest in my life was the Iraq War. When 9/11 occurred I was in second grade and I remember everyone crying. After finding out what happened, my mom told me that our country was going to war and it was after this moment that for years to come, this costly war used trillions of tax dollars and always was a topic with my parents.

4.      A major tradeoff that I had to make in my life would be selling my car to help pay for school. I was so excited buying my car sophomore year, and came senior year summertime, I was informed that I had to “chip in” to help pay tuition. It was a sad tradeoff, but one that had to be made.

5.      I get my economic news today online, watching the news, and also by reading magazines such as Barron’s. This has not changed much for me because I only would watch television with my parents to get the news. As I grew older, however, I began utilizing the resources I had around me to get the news.

6.      I deal with rising prices by getting the cheapest brand there is. This isn’t always the smartest move I have learned in my shopping experiences. Instead of buying name brand Band-Aids or mouthwash, I buy the cheaper store brand because they are basically the same thing. Doing this for food does not work, however, because store brand target oatmeal is absolutely disgusting and should not be sold in competition with Quaker Oats.

7.      A product that has drastically changed the most over my lifetime is the mobile phone. I remember the first mobile phone I saw was a Motorola phone that resembled a brick, with no screen and a lengthy antenna. All it could do was dial and answer. Now phones have thousands of features and possibilities, where the entire phone, is just one big touch screen. Definitely changed for the better!

8.      I handle saving by putting my money in stocks and funds. I always used to deposit my money in the bank when I was little, and watch my money grow by doing nothing at all! Unfortunately, earning ten cents a year is not a way to save or keep up with the rate of inflation and so I became more aware of putting my money into the market re-investing dividends so in a few years it will grow way more than interest would ever make.

Two open ended questions:

1.      My question to myself was what is my biggest regret of high school. My biggest regret was not applying myself one bit. Going to a high school of 2,500 kids, my main focus for the week was what I was doing the upcoming weekend and how we were getting our “stuff” past our parents. My school offered twelve AP classes and had over 30 clubs. I did not take one AP class or join one club. Senior year was scary because the laid back, carefree lifestyle was coming to the end, and now I had to decide my future. If I applied myself like I do now I could have easily been in the top ten students of my grade, but I am glad I have learned from my mistake.

                      

2.     Another question I asked myself is what got me into the field of Finance and Economics I chose today. The answer to this would be my Nonno. Ever since I can remember all he would talk about is how important it is to invest your money and watch it grow. In my junior year of high school, is when I started investing. At first it was a gamble, looking up news updates and putting a grand into whatever penny stock I thought was a winner. In one minute I made $3,000 and down the road I lost all that I gained. Since then I have chosen stable stocks with high dividends to re-invest and hope to work for an investment firm, where afterwards I can open up my out financial management business and help others money grow.