Manifesto

Alejandro Giraldo S.

Ms. Sierra

Mr. Patterson

April 28, 2014

Manifesto

A home is usually defined as a place where an individual spends most of his or her time. For me, that place has been Colegio Panamericano. My interactions with those here have helped transform me into the young man I am today. A man who values good qualities in life, hard work and passion for reaching goals. A man who likes doing things with honesty and commitment.

As a man who's learned and gained so much from this school, it is my obligation to my new found knowledge and share with the rest of the world. It’s the way to show the impact the school has caused me and the responsibility I feel of transmitting all the good things to the new generation. It’s the opportunity to show how grateful I am with the school for teaching me this much in just the beginning of my life. Of a life that would be guide by the values and teachings the school and its staff taught me with patience and dedication.

All this process of learning wouldn’t be possible without the help an unconditional support of my parents, teachers and classmates. What I am today is a result of the shaping this entire people made in my life. Is not a product made in one, two or three years, but it’s

a product made in a whole life process that it about to end. Not my life of my learning

process are the one who are going to end, it’s my school life. The life that makes me the person I am.

Even though the senior year is a moment wished by everyone, that comes by with happiness and joys, it has a sad ending. The sad ending it given by the emotions that touch my soul for leaving the school. It is not living the school, its leaving our home. The place where I grew as persons and lived the experiences that helped me understand the meaning of life. Saying bye to the teachers that where by my side to helped me when I needed.  To end this chapter in my life it’s very important to thank all the important people who did part of the orientation and structuring of me as the one I am today.

I thank each and every one of those who took part in my process of growth and learning. Especially my parents who with their support have helped me realize my dreams and be the person I am today. I also thank my teachers who with dedication and commitment they have brought knowledge and fundamentals to deal with the new stage in life that is about to begin. A stage in the one I am going to survive using the tools brought from school.

In this stage I would be the example of the new generations that need help and people to guide them. An what would be better that guiding them to a directions better than mine? I have the responsibility of analyzing what I can do to make kids better than I am. Looking what is good and what is not useful during my learning process with make me just teach what would make the new generation a better generation.

After all what I have seen in the time I have lived I can join my goals into main goal. For my future I want to be the reflection of what Colegio Panamericano can form, the people the produce as an institution focused on building great people dedicated in making good to the society. People like me, that its goal it’s to be successful in everything I do no matter what it is. Doing thing with the heart, not just doing things for obligation.

As life has taught me and my teacher too, things are achieve with hard work, commitment and dedications. In other words those are the main keys to success. This is not a demotivate, but it something remarkable to say, there’s no shortcut to success. If you want something you need to work for it, and work really hard. So what I have clear in life is that I will do everything with discipline. 

             

Lightbulb Conspiracy

Lightbulb conspiracy is a documental that talks about the planned obsolescence. Planned obsolocence is an economic system in which things are created to be obsolete in few time. What this system wants is to make people by each time a new product is out. People is not obligated to be part of the planned obsolescence but their will of being update with what is new in the market makes them buy everything that's new. As a result of the planned obsolocence the society has entered in a consumerism culture in which all what matters is buying the newest things. In the film we can see how the lightbulb cartel created lightbulbs that are designed to just last few hours. Companies created thier products to last few time in order to clients need to buy more and more.

As the companies of the lightbulb cartel decreased the hours of usage of lightbulbs the produstion increased. As the people need to invest more in their products the companies need to produce more in otprder to sell as the demand needs. Sub developed countries are strongly affected with this economic system. Companies an people who is part of the planned obsolescence need to get rid of their old products. This products are taken and deposited at third world countries with try to get some valuable material from the wastes. Now companies think in how they can do to engage people with the newest products. 

The next picture is a photo of how Apple forced people to chage their devices because their charger was not compatible with new devices. 

   Credits: New York Times. 

Four Horsemen

The Four Horsemen is a film the questions the system we have created and give ways to improve the issues. After analyzing empire, they figure out that most of them have things in common. Everything is like a cycle that begins and end. The thing is that all empire have kind of the same stages on the cycle. This is a strong argument that the film uses to explain the decadence that the American Empire is suffering. Comparing to ancient empire the American Empire has go through all the stages before the empires end. What we can conclude of this is that the time for the American Empire is coming. There are many issues as the television that get away people from reality. This is a great way to make an empire collapse thanks to the lack of important information in peoples knowledge. Sports are compared of sort of the same as the distractions that existed in ancient empires before declining.

The American Empire collapse with be the automatically rising of problems to the world. It would be a devastating events that would have impact in every corner and edge of the universe. Economics with go down as so everything else until a new cycle begin. A new cycle begin when a new empire rises success. The value of contemplating this event with high probability of occurring is just the benefit of having the idea that this will occur in mind. It is impossible to stop the decadence of an empire because it is part of the cycle that all empires go by. The only thing we can do is rising a new empire so that things do not go too bad when the American Empire accomplish the cycle.

Credits: Four Horsemen documentary.

Fractional Reserve

In the documentary ZEITGEIST, we saw how the money in the United States is created. The money is created from debts, if there is no debt there is no money. The government asks for money to the federal reserve, the federal reserve gives them the paper stamped ans the government designates the value and starts circulating it. The money of the country is evaluated in the amount of gold a country has. The fractional reserve banking is a system where banks keep a percentage of the money and lend the rest to a company or individual and charge them an interest in order to gain money. The amount of money that is printed and in circulation in the US is only 3 percent of all the money that they have in circulation. The number we see of money in an account is not in the bank, that money is being lend to others. The money in does not exist, it is just a number and we never own it, it is just a loan.  

 The bank must hold an amount of cash known as a "reserve requirement" and this is controlled by a central bank, and loan out to another person so the bank by charging interest on loans of that money.  

    Photo credits: Alejandro Giraldo S. 

Colombian Monetary System

The Colombian monetary system is controlled by an autonomus entity that is related to the goverment and directed by a president and a board of directors. They are the ones who created the money in order to have control about it. One of the main purpose of the Banco Central de Colombia is to have the inflation rate low.  According to administration of the inter nation reserves the Banco Central de Colombia, Al Banco de la República le corresponde administrar las reservas internacionales del país incluyendo el manejo, inversión, depósito de custodia y disposición de los activos de reserve. " (Banco de la Republica, 2013). Its responsibility is to have a stable economy staying focus on the low inflation rate. The Colombian monetary system used to be bases in the gold standar  but in the reform of the constitution in 1991 some aspects change. Today the Colombian monetary system is not based on the gold standard. 


The Colombian monetary system and the Federal Reserve in the United States is similar in the aspect that it works separated of the government. There main objective is to have a stable economy. The federal reserve wants to have a low inflation rate an a low unemployment rate, but this is impossible according to the fisher equation. This equation says that if the inflation goes down the unemployment goes up and vise verse. So there is a paradox in the objective of the federal reserve purpose. 

"Qué Hacemos." Banco De La República (Banco Central De Colombia). N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2014. 
 



 

Brazil Favela

Rio police entered a favela near Rio de Janeiro months before the great football event that Brazil with host this summer. Around 1000 police, 14 armored vehicles and 4 helicopters made part of the operation. The main purpose is to improve the security and to clean the place. Police seized large quantities of drugs and weapons that were hidden near a school. This operation would help to improve the security of the place making it safer for the football event that arrives this summer to the country. Media said the residents of the place are very irritated with the presence of the police and journalists in the area.

Link:  http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2014/03/rio-police-storm-favela-dawn-operation-2014330135441289596.html

MLA: "Rio Police Storm Favela in Dawn Operation." - Americas. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014. 

It is very important that Brazil is worried for the security in their country. Hosting a large amount of people is not an easy task and that would make people talk a lot about the country. Is very important that people feel save during the event so all the comments made are of positive things about the country. Police should make a great job in order to remarkably improve the security of the country. 

 

    Photo credits to: The Australian. 

Food Inc.

The Food Inc documentary shows the truth about how food is manipulated since the crops. There are many things that we never pay attention to, but if we really what to know how dangerous food is we should see this documentary and pay attention to the ingredients food has. The market of food is manipulated by a few number of companies that only focus on their benefits and not on the harm the food cause to people. It is really sad to see how the economic interest of others ended in producing food of highly bad food.

The document Food Inc, Race and The Economic Hit Man relate because they have in common that only the few people with power and influence want to feed they attractions. Companies as Monsanto, that patent things to make people only use what they want them to use are they responsible of destroying the food quality. The affected population is the one with lower economic power, they need to eat with less money which makes them buy an consume bad quality food that will harm their bodies. This is a great issue that is there is not opposition to it, people with end up eating machine made food that will have a negative impact on the society. What worth more, your health or factories benefits?

Credits to: PRWatch.