4\7\08 Reflective questions

1. The prime rate is the is the current cost of borrowing money on loan, typically a conventional home mortgage. It has dropped recently because of the continueing financial crisis in the U.S. The Fed. controls the discount rate (the rate banks pay to borrow money from the US gov.) and they continue to drop the discount rate in order to aleveat the pressure on the financial industry. The industry is in such trouble because they gave loans out to people who couldn't afford them, aswell as ARM loans that adjust incrimentally to the current prime rate. The result has been hundreds of thousands of forclosed homes.

2. The Olympics are in Beijing China this summer. China produces great wealth for countries all over the world because of cheap labor(labor that's illegal in other countries). Since 1949 the current Chinese gov. has beaten on the Tibettan people in every way possible because of their religous beliefs. Now human rights activists around the world are demanding a boucot of the Chinese Olympics because of the most recent bout of violence inTibet. The most visible form of protest is the running of the Olympic flame around the world, people everywhere are protesting the torch, and the games because of China's lack of human rights.

3. The Columbian trade agreement has met resistance because of the "fallout" of employement in the U.S. resulting in lost jobs because of other similar agreements with other countries.

4. The 'green zone' in Iraq refers to a 'safe zone' in Bagdad. It is where all of the Iraq Interem Gov. works and lives. If there were ever anything that someone could point to and say that the war isn't going to work, it is the fact that five years into the war they still require such a zone and secondly that it isn't really safe.

5. Pope Benedict XVI is coming to America after three years as Pope. Harayyy.