Fairtrade in the World

Hey guys!
Today we were talking about Fair Trade and its products at school. The following statistic shows some facts about this organisation.
source: https://www.thestudentsunion.co.uk/news/article/TheSUatUWE/14-things-you-did-notknow-about-Fairtrade/

Thanksgiving & Black Friday

Hey Guys!

Some days ago, I was watching a YouTube-video titled “The story of Thanksgiving” and it talks about how Thanksgiving has originated. I thought you might be interested in this blog because Thanksgiving took place last Thursday and Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving was a very hot topic this year.

This holiday has a long history, which started in 1620 when the Pilgrims arrived and settled in the state of Massachusetts. Their first winter in America was hard to survive. They arrived too late to farm the land, so they starved. Half of the colony died from disease. The following spring the local tribe of Native Americans taught them how to grow cornand other crops. In the autumn of 1621 the Pilgrims got a rich harvest of corn, beans, pumpkin and other vegetables. The first Thanksgiving was held 1621 and was a three-day feast.Of course,  they praised the Lord, and thanked him for all the food he gave them. This is how the festivity got started.

Now Thanksgiving is an official holiday in the United States and it is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. The day after this feast is called Black Friday and it is the beginning of the country’s Christmas shopping season. Black Friday is generally perceived to be one of the largest major American holiday shopping days for the retail industry, and is the day that most retailers become profitable for the year

Thank you for reading this blog!

Bye

Can Donald come up trumps?

I have recently been reading an article titled “Can Donald come up trumps?” in an edition of Business Spotlight of January 2017 and it talks about the effects of the Trump presidency.

I thought you might be interested in this text because we all know who Donald Trump is and his ideas.

Basically, what it says is that since Donald Trump is the head of the United States the economics have changed. Ian McMaster, who is the author pointed out some facts what Mr. Trump thinks about monetary and fiscal policy, “Trumponomics” and “Trumpflation”. Serious pessimists use those words if they talk about Economics and Inflation in the US.

First of all, the author mentioned that it may come as a shock to half of Americans and most Europeans, but just because Donald Trump suggests something doesn’t necessarily mean that it is wrong.

Following Trump’s election, the stock market in America rose. It is also said that there was a rise in the interest rates on US government bonds. But the other side of the same coin is that there also was a fall in such bonds. The reason for this reaction is the President’s promise of a huge increase in government spending to improve the country’s ageing infrastructure. What shocked me was that he wants a large cut in taxes, including those paid by companies. The author explains that such a fiscal boost would tend to increase demand, employment and inflation, what Ian McMaster calls “Trumpflation”. And this means that investors want the Fed, which is the US central bank to raise its interest rates more quickly.

But aren’t higher interest rates good news? In a way, yes, but higher interest rates will also cause a further rise in the Dollar. An important point which is mentioned is that Donald Trump will soon discover that running the economy is not as easy as making campaign promises.

I think that not everything what Trump says is wrong. In my opinion the way he tries to run the entire world is not okay.

What do you think about Donald Trump and his ideas on monetary policy?

Cultures and Clichés

Hey guys,

I have just been reading the article "FAT-FREE and HAPPY" some days ago at school. The text talks about Amercian clichés and the truth. This article includes lots of facts about Amercia you might not know.
There is one statement: America has no culture. But this is definately false. In Boston culture is alive and well. Massachusetts' largest city is a very nice place with fantastic museums and two of the world's most famous universities, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institue of Technology. The articles' author mentions that few clichés are true. Everything is bigger in the USA: the shopping malls, the women and the glasses of Coca-Cola. The Amercian also wear some unusual clothes which are not part of our culture. It takes a lot of time to understand this country, especially because of the big amount of contradictions.

So what is your opinion about this country and which clichés do you think are true? Tell me.

Simon

Ice Breaker

Hey guys!
This week is the first week after the summer holidays. As every year, our holidays were too short in my opinion. Well, let me explain the main topic of this blog. In our first English lesson we have been talking about Ice Breaker Questions. You will probably not know what this means - Icebreakers are an effective way to start a conversation and get to know someone. Now I will mention 6 phrases which I prefer:

• Do you have a goal which you want to accomplish during your lifetime?
        I want to have an own family.

• If you could visit any place in the world, where would you choose to go and why?
        In my opinion Finland has one of the most beautiful landscapes in Europe. So I would want to
        go there.

• Are you a morning or a night person?
        I am definately a night person. In the morning my brain doesn't work.

• If you could have an endless supply of any food, what would you get?
        My favourite food is Viennease Cutlet. I could eat it almost every day, if I had the possibility.

 • Which season do you like most?
        Winter is my favourite season, because I love doing some winter sports like skiing.

• Do you want to have a tattoo?
        I will never want a tattoo, beacause I think that it won't fit to me. 


 I hope you liked my posting.
 Bye

Valentine's Day

Hey guys,

As you know, every 14th of February there is Valentine's Day. In Austria it is usual to give little gifts to our girlfriends, mothers, grandmothers, and so on. But there are a lot of companies which really love Valentine's Day because they get huge profits only for one special day. The most of them sell greeting cards, sweets, and so on.

The company which loves this day most is "Limited Brands Inc.". They include a lot of smaller companies like Victoria Secrets which is well-known for underwear. They have a turnover of 10,12 Billions of Dollars - only because of one day. This is crazy!

I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day like American people because I think that we should love special people on every day.

My Christmas Holidays

Dear Naresh,

First of all you should know that we already had our Christmas holidays in Austria. I decided to let you know about them.

The first day in the holiday was Christmas. At the beginning of this day I was only sleeping because I went clubbing the day before. At Christmas Eve me and my family we ate a lot of traditional Austrian food - cooked by my mum. When it was about 8 p.m. we went to our Christmas tree in the living room. By the way, a Christmas tree is a part of celebrating Christmas in Austria. It was decorated really by my sister and it looked extremly nice. Of course I got a lot of gifts for example a piano which I wanted to have the entire life.
A few days later we went skiing to Schladming in Styria. But the weather was really bad. It was snowing all the time so you could definately not see anything and it was extremely cold at the top of the mountain. Me and my friends were happy when we went back home and nobody wasn't injured.
I celebrated the last day of the year 2016 with my best friends in Perg. We shot a lot of rockets and we also were outside in the garden exactly at midnight so we could see the fireworks in Perg.
The rest of the holidays in 2017 were a little bit boring because I was ill.

I hope I could give you enough information about my Christmas holidays.

Bye!