Current Macroeconomic Situations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Current Macroeconomic Situations - Essay Example In the first quarter of this year the US economy has grown only by 1.8% whereas in the previous quarter it grew by 3.1% (Bangalore, 2011). As far as unemployment rate is concerned, it was at 9.1% in the month of August, 2011. There is hardly any improvement when compared to the data of previous months. According to a report that is recently published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at present, almost 14 million people are unemployed in the country (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011). What is more important is that in August the US economy could not create any ‘net new’ jobs. In July almost 85000 jobs were created but it is much lower than the expected figure 1,17,000 (BBC, 2011). It is found that Afro-Americans are mainly unemployed (16.7%) followed by the Hispanics (11.3%). There are many experts who believe that such a situation is actually the signal of the fact that US economy is preparing to get into another recession in the near future. In August it was found tha t the probability of recession in US was one fourth. A more dangerous report came in when Wall Street Journal published the result of a survey in September. According to this study, economists now believe that the chance of US economy sliding into another recession within next one year is now stands at 1-in-3 (Zappe, 2011). Inflation, in US is not a big concern. However, in 2010 inflation rate was 1.6% which is quite high as compared to previous year’s figure (-0.3%) (Central Intelligence Agency, n.d.). In August, 2011 inflation rate was found to be at 3.8%. The consumer price index has increased by 0.4% in that month (Trading Economics, n.d.). The current economic situation in US can be viewed as the failure of fiscal and monitory policies that are adopted by the government. Considering the facts like GDP growth is affected, jobs are not getting created and consumer confidence on US economy

Explain the true-justified-belief theory of knowledge. Then make up Essay

Explain the true-justified-belief theory of knowledge. Then make up your own Gettier case and explain why it is counter-example to the analysis - Essay Example It is the efforts that would be needed for people to have knowledge. Knowledge and belief are used differently in philosophical terms. The connection between knowledge and belief is that belief is a belief is considered to be knowledge if the belief held is true and if the believer has a reasonable justification to believe it is true. According to the famous scholar Plato, knowledge can, therefore, be defined to mean Justified True Belief (JTB) also known as knowledge theory. There are three terms â€Å"truth†, â€Å"belief†, and â€Å"justification† which are very pronounced in the knowledge theory. In epistemology, belief denotes faith. It is concerned with what we believe such as traditional held believes. This includes the truth and everything we believe to be right from our cognitive point of view. What a person belief of something as true or not is not a necessity for a belief. One my belief something which is wrong but that will not disregard the belief from being true. The belief held by such a person was a mistaken belief but not that the belief was wrong. This brings the concept of truth. These conditions of truth, belief and justification must be taken together to be sufficient for JTB. The justified True Belief was strongly held in the world of philosophy but not until Gettier came in and questioned the knowledge that was held for thousands of years. In his argument, Gettier claimed that the knowledge held by someone may be justified and true, yet fail to count as knowledge. This was known as Gettier problem. Suppose I stumble on Mary, a class mate driving license which is written that she comes from Chicago. Having seen that legal document, I’m justified to belief that Mary comes from Chicago. Suppose I infer from the above case and say that someone in my class comes from Chicago. Now, Mary driving license turns to be a fake one. It seems that what I believed was wrong which even makes my second belief to be wrong. Unknown to me, I may have