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Will the U.S. Ever Get a Budget?

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Ethan Shenker On October 1, 2025, the United States federal government shut down.  It would not reopen for 43 days. When President Trump signed the funding bill on November 12, it brought an end to the longest government shutdown in American history, the 11th one to result in federal employees being furloughed, and by a significant margin the most damaging. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center over 670,000 federal employees were furloughed, while roughly 730,000 continued to work without pay, their wages deferred to some future date that was, for weeks, entirely uncertain. Federal courts began suspending operations. Food assistance for tens of millions of Americans was frozen or delayed. And in the skies above the United States, something quietly alarming began to unfold.  Air traffic controllers, federal employees (and therefore unpaid), began calling out. Over one weekend alone, more than 16,700 flights across the country experienced delays, and over 2,200 were cancelle...
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The Gold Standard: Why Get Rid of It?

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Lila Carter I often question the rationale behind abandoning the Gold Standard. Would backing currency with a tangible asset resolve economic challenges and eliminate inflation? Would basing a nation's wealth on its gold reserves simplify economic analysis? This line of inquiry emerged during a class discussion on economic indicators. Initially, the gold standard appeared to offer a perfect solution: gold is tangible, retains value, and provides a stable anchor for currency. However, further analysis revealed complexities beyond this initial impression.  Prior to 1971, when President Richard Nixon ended the convertibility of the US dollar to gold and fundamentally altered global monetary policy, the world operated under the Gold Standard. In this system, currency values were directly linked to a fixed quantity of gold. A dollar could be exchanged for a specific amount of gold, which provided a nominal anchor for price levels. Although the currency itself resembled a standa...
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Are all Monopolies Bad?

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  Are all Monopolies Bad?  Afra Azim Some people believe that monopoly power is not a good thing. It can lead to exploitative behaviours within the business and the market, such as unfair prices, fewer choices  for consumers and even power affecting other sectors of the economy e.g. lobbyists. However, some monopolies are not inherently bad. They can  actually be  beneficial to consumers, providing that thei r interests also support the consumers. This blog post will define monopolies and list the benefits and examples of them that  benefit  the economy.   A monopoly is defined as a sole company that holds most of the market share. They produce majority of that specific good/service  in that market and is allowed to charge any price they want  as long as  it is within the demand curve. The barriers to entry are  very high  due to the monopoly having access to economies of scale e.g. cheaper materials and resources. Because...
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My Experience Studying BUS208 Microeconomics for Managers

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  By Afra Azim BUS208 Microeconomics for Managers was a module I choose to study  as one of my options in my second year.  This blog will focus on my experience during the past 12 weeks of studying this subject and my strategies of learning I applied for revision. Additionally, I will reflect upon  how the module was laid out and m y overall experience. I would like to thank  the lecturer  for giving me this opportunity to make this blog and for his excellence in teaching this subject and organising the module effectively.    For context,  I have done economics in the past during A levels and during one of my modules in first year, however we went more into depth into certain parts of microeconomics  rather than going broadly. I feel like my  previous  knowledge has helped, but this subject focused more on applying our knowledge rather than just memorising key concepts.    Firstly, I will talk about how I have re...
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