GPHC 2019-2020

 One conflict that comes to mind is the one between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, which was a region between the two states that housed ethnic Armenians. Tensions were high as of last year when a 44 day war between the two states cropped up, however the contradiction manifested between the two states have been around since the early 20th century, starting with ethnic division creating latent levels of attitudes and assumptions, then came the Russian Empire in which the states lost internal sovereignty and combined with the underlying latent attitudes escalated to more violent manifest behaviors such as the Armenian Genocide. After this came Soviet era and from there both states gained independence and due to the unsolved raw tensions the two states went into all out warfare in the 90's and picked back up in September of 2020 with the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh. This started with a skirmish that ended up being a surprise attack from Azerbaijan on the 27th of ...

The Chinese government has been tracking and persecuting members of Muslim minority groups. The government of China has arrested hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and imprisoned them in “indoctrination camps” under the guise of “anti-terrorism”. China has implemented sweeping surveillance and monitoring of Uighurs using facial recognition technology and genetic testing. The US government has denounced the program, though President Trump has indicated his acceptance or apathy towards China and these obvious human rights and UCHR violations.  The Chinese tech giant Alibaba, has provided support or cooperation with Chinese government in their efforts to persecute Uighurs. Alibaba maintains worldwide and expansive reach into all aspects of digital commerce on a scale that makes them possibly the only legitimate peer of Amazon.  Although Alibaba is a China-based giant corporation, their stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange and owed by many significant international investo...

 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/republicans-discover-dangers-selling-bunk-their-constituents/617197/ This article from The Atlantic draws the parallels between the lead up to, and the aftermath of the 1860 and the 2020 US presidential elections.  The divisions between modern day Americans and the two political parties are similarly as divided as back in the 1850’s leading up to the election of 1860 in which Abraham Lincoln (a Republican) was elected, much to the outrage of the US South; As described in the article the fiery speeches in the US Congress and toxic political rhetoric and conspiracy theories that were prevalent in the lead up to the 1860 election, which can also be said about the harsh divisions in the current 2020 political climate. In some ways, electing Obama president in 2008 helped improve race relations on some levels, or at least it opened up more dialogue about several important topics that had been ignored or downplayed for too long; i...

 Some of the most populated cities in the US are at serious risk from rising temperatures. For example, Miami, Houston, and Phoenix, all cities closer to the equator, and at high risk of unmanageable temperatures in the future. A new data set from the Rhodium Group states that climate change will target the southern third of the country, reducing its economic value by 8%. These problems compounded may change migration from an option into a necessity. The main problems will be heatwaves and flooding, primarily flooding, as that quite literally destroys houses. This is a major issue due to the first point I mentioned, the cities there are extremely populated, with Houston and Phoenix holding the fourth and fifth highest population in the whole US respectively. The devastation caused by this will be incredible. It won't just stop at housing though, migration may change due to other reasons, as climate change shrinks the zones where we can efficiently grow food. The map will be much mo...

 Parts of the US Becoming Uninhabitable Due to Climate Change https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-change-will-make-parts-of-the-u-s-uninhabitable-americans-are-still-moving-there       I found this article to be extremely interesting and informative, in the main article it mentions the divide in ideas on where to live touching on how younger generations think more about this topic due to the advancement and progression of climate change in the not distant future. According to the article within the main article the majority of the southeast and really just the southern United States (even parts of the midwest) as a  whole will become uninhabitable by what looks like 2050 due to not only rising temperatures (Maricopa county in Arizona is expected to have an avg. temperature of 95 degrees and above for around half the year) and sea levels re-sculpting landscapes but also what they're calling a "wet bulb" were the intense humidity wi...

Jorge Larach 5/20/20 GPHC Donald Trump Impeachment Retrospective Blog https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50732900 The impeachment process is something that many people commonly mistake as simply the president is kicked out of office and someone else becomes acting president.. As defined by the article I chose, linked below, impeachment is a process that allows government officials to hold other government officials accountable for possible offences they may have committed while in office. After one is impeached, they are then required to go to trial in the Senate in order to ultimately decide whether they are guilty or innocent. Trump was accused of seeking help from the Ukranian government in order to get himself re-elected as well as obstructing congress, who was investigating him at the time. Regarding Ukraine, there were a couple of unlawful allegations. The first was that he allegedly held back millions of dollars worth of military aid to Ukraine and also put fo...

This article mainly focuses on the United States and how it languishes behind in child flourishing. There are many very apparent reasons for this, but I'm not here to restate my Extended Essay, I'm here to talk about Norway. Norway ranks in the top three in this measure of child flourishing, but it also ranks as very unsustainable. Something that must be understood in the modern day is climate change and our current lifestyle. The consumer economy and the affluence of western nations has created an issue with our sustainability. Lavish lifestyles, easily obtainable luxury goods, excess of meats in our diet, reliance on automobiles, all of these things are a sign of wealth. Children reliably thrive in these environments, after all, the best measure of longevity is a combination of weight and wealth, but their futures are not secure. These lifestyles are supported by the natural resources and labor of developing nations, and unless we return to a directly imperialist and oppressi...

What was the terribly powerful financial instrument used to create society's financial depressions and wealth?...Thats right, the stock market! Created by Dutch monopoly in spice trade, the West India Trade Co. during the 1600's. Now, who invented the very first stock market bubble?... A Scottish man by the name of John Law, child of a wealthy goldsmith and heir to a vast estate, but how did he create a stock market bubble? His story in England where Law murders a man in a duel over a woman.Then of course John is sentenced to death, but wait- plot twist- John escapes from prison, god knows how, and finds himself in nowhere other than Amsterdam. Which lucky for him happens to also be home of the spice trade monopoly: West India Trading Co. The Dutch concept of the company gave John an idea he saw how the company would trade stocks created through supply and demand making the company's shareholders extremely rich. Our main character John, inspired by this concept relocated to...

Jorge Larach Global Politics 5/20/20 Hey, Check This Out! Blog  https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-wild-animals-wales-goats-barcelona-boars-brazil-turtles/2020/04/14/30057b2c-7a71-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html I read the article “As Humans stay indoors, wild animals take back what was once theirs”. As I was reading it, I considered a moral dilemma. I realized just how much we were oppressing nearly every animal’s “right to roam”. Humanity finally leaves, and they are returning to what they considered to be their territory. I realized we aren’t exactly coexisting with nature, we are dominating it. Reading the part about the turtles seeing artificial light on the beach and in their efforts to get to it, they die, I felt revolted. It’s not exactly “humans vs nature” though, either. If you think about it, humanity came from nature. But seeing these creatures returning to what was once theirs, I couldn’t help but think maybe it would be better...

Jorge Larach 5/20/20 GPHC Coronavirus and issues of Development and Power  I read two articles:  Why Rich Countries must Protect Developing Nations from Coronavirus Pandemic How is the United Nations responding to the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) / COVID-19 outbreak? Despite this assignment being due weeks ago, I still compared what these articles are talking about to today and processed the timeline provided in the second article (chronologically), as well as considered what the call to action of the first article was referring to. I think the first article provides a persuasive, fact-supported argument as to why higher-income countries should divert some of their attention to poorer countries, not just for the well being of those countries, but for theirs as well. It argues that if poorer countries are not given the support they need, monetary or otherwise, then not only will those countries be hit substantially harder than richer ones, but it will like...

  The coronavirus has caused many things including, a worldwide pandemic, a stay home order, many deaths, but also a major drop in the economy and in stocks. For example, the S&P 500 dropped 4.34% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 3.79%. Although the stock market’s stress has been building for a while, the stress that was put on it at the beginning of the pandemic caused the stress to spill over, resulting in the 2020 Stock Market Crash. One main cause of this drop was the drop in oil prices. This drop in oil prices has hurt Houstonians and has caused many investors to rethink where they are investing their money and instead invest in other assets.    The Dow stocks were hit very hard by the stock market crash of 2020. It has been said that it is one of the worst days that the Dow stocks have seen in history, being compared to Black Friday in 1929. The Dow stocks beat the 1929 Black Friday freefall of 12.82% with a 12.93% freefall. The Dow stocks dropped from 29,219 p...

What I have found interesting about insurance is its apparent cyclical nature. From the first life insurance policies all the way to investment in the real estate markets, insurance always seems to run out of luck. In every strategy mentioned in the video, there has always been a slowdown, a collapse, or an exploit., from the failure of Japan’s welfare state to Chilean inequality to the 2008 housing crisis. We appear to have insurance cycles, whenever we try to mitigate risk and bring about more financial security, something always happens to ruin it whether by greed, diminishing returns, or economic collapse. It seems that we take risks by mitigating risk and then we must also take risk to mitigate that risk. In reality, risk does not appear to go down, it appears to simply be delayed or it disproportionately affect a certain part of the population. Another commonality in all of these types of insurance is that it always excludes the poorest. From Japan’s Burakumin to blue collar Ame...

The Dow Jones this year has been a roller coaster. In fact, if you look at the year thus far, it even looks like one. A steady rise, a quick fall, and a stagnation by mid-April. To solidify the roller coaster metaphor, the Dow Jones Industrial Average Coaster had a fast drop that was completely and utterly horrifying and then plateaued at the end with little excitement, leaving one with a feeling of disappointment and wasted money. A lot of wasted money. This has been very similar to the New York stock Exchange Composite Index, which is good because the Dow Jones is often used in place of the Composite Index. The economy has adjusted to the change and some companies are now seeing profits again. However, because of the sharp decline in the blue collar work and a sharp uptick in the unemployment, this will likely have a damaging effect on small business as companies with the capital required to adjust to quarantine easily out-compete small businesses, thus worsening the issue...

This article has been my favorite all year. The author brings up a topic I’ve observed when talking with friends and family, that being the desire for a more de-individualist more social society opposed to an individualist society- which is sort of what we have now with quarantine, people are by themselves more than usual and some aren’t enjoying it as much as they thought they would, because they are now realizing how much their life was centered around that connection. This is the complete opposite of the romanticised video game ideal: the individualist group with a dark backstory taking down a fascist regime.  Now with all the job loss and well, reality, people who may have fantasized about this in the past are now realizing ,maybe this isn’t as enjoyable as it sounds the reason being many are feeling very powerless about the whole situation whereas in video games you typically have this super-human esque main character who happens to take initiative to complete a mission and a...

Fashion Revolution’s Fashion Transparency Index shows how companies in the fashion industry are mass producing with environmental and social sensitivity and awareness, and being open about it. Especially with times changing and the defense for our environment on the rise, this index has really help ed keep companies in check. It has also helped shed light on some of the companies that need improvement. The average score of all 250 companies analyzed is a sad 23%. While it is better than last year, (which was 21%) 23% is still a very low number. Many athletic wear companies that were getting heat in the 90s are up to 70%, while certain luxury companies are below 40%.  This number means that many of these luxury clothing brands are not disclosing their manufacturing policies and commitments. Some companies choose to not disclose for the purpose of a negative effect on consumers. There are 10 brands that even scored a 0 on the index this past year. With the dr...

All the way back in 2018 the Trump Administration did away with the Obama Administration’s National Security Council which was in place to protect the US from situations such as this current COVID-19 crisis. The Council had many professionals that could’ve helped alert the US public about COVID-19 once the information was received by US intelligence that there was a highly contagious virus in China in November 2019. Instead of the Administration immediately taking action to try and prevent the arrival of COVID-19 in the US they decided to downplay the whole situation calling it a “hoax” in a campaign rally in late February which can be seen as an abuse of power. Thus resulting in a rapid spread of the virus throughout the US. Then attempted to cover up his administration’s negligence by blaming China for giving the US the virus, however they did not notify WHO about the possible pandemic when they first started showing cases; but China should not be blamed for the US government's...

Video Games and Individual Power I really enjoyed this article. I think the most important point he makes is that video game narratives are almost always driven by the player character, who often has supernatural strength. Especially in games where the player is up against a vast and powerful organization, like an evil government or criminal gang, it is usually a one versus all situation. This sort of gameplay fulfils our fantasies of power, and to tell the truth, is a whole lot of fun. But in reality, change is rarely driven by one person, but by large groups of people standing together. To be fair, many games over the years have been able to reflect the power of collective action. Real time strategy games pit huge armies against each other, civilization games deal with the affairs of world countries. At the end of the day, nonetheless, the player as an individual is in control; even if they are commanding an entire army, it is one person calling all of the shots. This is a fu...

From the beginning of time, humans have been pack animals who care for each other. Insurance is an extension of this: we all pay in so that whoever is in need can be taken care of. As Nial Ferguson points out, the more people are in on this sort of system, the better it works. But he later makes the interesting claim that insurance removes people’s incentives to work, using the example of stagflation in Japan in the nineteen-seventies. According to Ferguson, the reason for stagflation in Japan was that the social safety net (a form of nationwide insurance) was so strong that people stopped feeling the need to work! I disagree with this claim. Firstly I will discuss the argument in general, and then I will talk about the example he gave. The argument is that if a social safety net is in place that prevents people from starving, going without medical care, or dying by various other forms, people will lack incentives, and will therefore stay home. Distilled further: without the threat...

Izabella Curtis Mr. Roddy GPHC 29 April 2020 Insurance Blog Throughout the video what I found most interesting is car insurance. Actually all types of insurance are super interesting because of what is considered a key factor. Car insurance uses really interesting factors such as driving record, age, marital status, home location, the cars made, and the cars model. I understand the driving record and what type of car you have but I don't understand what age and marital status has to do with your car insurance. Car insurance relies on your driving record because if you have gotten into many accidents or have had many tickets it shows you are not a responsible driver and you will have high insurance because you are more likely to get into an accident. Age is a factor because there are many studies that show that teen drivers are irresponsible and easily distracted. Also Just being a new driver is a risk factor from the start. Married drivers are seen as more financially stable and s...