Journal Prompt 30 November 2018

What is the most interesting thing you have learned about the Civil War?  What do you want to learn more about? Why does this conflict matter so much for the United States? Explain.

The most interesting thing I have learned about the civil war was about how incompetent the Union was at the beginning. It was fascinating to find out that the North believe that it would be a quick war and anyone that thought it would take a long time were thought to be crazy, like Sherman. A topic that I want to learn more about is how the destruction of Georgia in Sherman’s march to the sea affected the end of the civil war. This conflict matters so much because of the transition of how the rights and government go together. Before the civil war rights were usually there to protect the people from the government. After the civil war, however, The government starts to protect the people’s rights.

Efolio Prompt 9 November 2018 (APUSH)

From the material we have looked at from 1815 to 1850, what is the most significant in creating the conditions for the coming Civil War?  Does it teach us any lessons we can use in America today?  What if we don’t learn from the past?  Explain.

I believe the most important condition that leads to the Civil War was the ignoring on the issue of slavery and focusing on land expansion. I believe this because every time we started to expand our country, AKA Manifest Destiny, we run into the problem of having an even number of slave and free states. This is seen when President Polk decided to expand westward and claimed Texas as a territory of the US. Texas then wanted to join the union, but if they joined there would be an uneven amount of slave and free states. This then causes further conflict because in order to get an even amount of territories we ended up going to war with Mexico for California. This teaches us the lesson not to push away big, controversial issues and if we do ignore issues bad things will happen. An example of this is 9/11. The US government didn’t want to deal with the growing threat of terrorism in the middle east until it was too late and the Taliban attacked us on American soil.

The Card Game

 

The Card Game

1. “[I was] able to grow faster. And we were also making our product, from a competitiveness point of view, more attractive to this segment of the credit card market … who never paid their entire bill in full. They paid always installment payment. So when the credit card came, … some people pay off their entire bill in one check every month, just like the American Express.”
   1. They were only able to grow so rapidly because that they had competitors.
      1. This means if they tried this business in a time when there was no competition it would not succeed
   2. It was a gamble for each person they decided to give a card to
2. “Or in full, yeah. … And if we do so, then we will be attracting the profitable segment of the credit card industry.”
   1. They were purposely going after “risky” people or people in poverty
   2. They did this by tracking people’s credit
      1. Done by seeing what they bought with frequent buy cards and rewards cards.
3. We were charging 21.9 percent interest.
   1. This is interesting because the interest rate is huge
      1. If the person was not in debt the company would have lost a lot of money
      2. If the person would be in debt they would be in debt for a long time

 

“Thinking of the MVPS Ethical Decision Maker mindset, reflect on the ethics of the tactics that Providian Financial employed to increase credit card users.”

 

I do believe that the Providian Company was in the wrong for some of the tactics that they did, but they were also ethical. The reason why I think that they are wrong for something is the way they hid their bylaws and clauses. They were just required by law to show their laws in some way. They did do this, but they purposely made it as complicated as possible in order to confuse the client and make them give up on searching. This is seen on the envelope that the Providian Company gives to their client when they are about to enter the contract. In the video, the old CEO shows that an asterisk on the front of the letter leads to a completely different document which has many clauses and it is in a very small text. I also think it was not very ethical how they purposely looked for and sent the letters to impoverished neighborhoods. They did this by checking people’s credit score and how often they make irresponsible purchases.

 

I do believe however that they, the Providian Company, were not completely in the wrong. The Providian Company was revolutionary and completely changed the game of credit card companies. The insane Interest rates that they offered, 21.9%, could have been used for the benefit of the client if they did not go into debt. It was just because most of the people went into debt and the rate worked against them that it made the Providian Company so much money. Also on the point of sending letters about their cards to impoverished areas. The way that they found the areas may not have been completely ethical but the advertising was. They plainly stated what would happen if they switched. They would offer the people a deal for 0% interest in switching over to their card for a limited amount of time. The “risky” clients would just read the 0% and switch over, but it clearly states this will only happen for an extended period of time. So the fault of the increased rate seemly coming out of nowhere is actually on the customer.