The American Economic System: What are its Goals?

Society has goals that it tries to fulfill through its public policies. While some controversy exists, most Americans are likely to agree that a list of the nation's economic goals should include the following.

Full employment. There should be a job for everyone ready, willing and able to work.

Economic growth. Increasing the output of goods and services. With more and better goods and services available, everyone's living standard is likely to improve.

Price stability. There have been times when prices in general increased or decreased at a rapid rate. Such times of inflation and deflation are likely to create hardships for many sectors of the economy. Price stability refers to times during which prices remain constant.

Economic freedom. We should all have a high degree of freedom to choose how we will earn our livings and how we will spend our money.

Economic security. Foe whatever reason, physical handicaps, old age, accidental injury, or the like. There are those among us who are unable to earn their own way. Economic security means that somehow those who are unable to care for themselves fully will be proved for.

Equity. It is the quality of being fair or impartial. As an economic goal, it means that the economic system ought to offer all its citizens equal opportunities to achieve their ambitions.

Efficiency. It is a measure of how much we get for what we use. As a national goal, economic efficiency refers to the entire economy's ability to get the most out of its limited resources.

( For part II ) Some more Information about Marketing

Marketing means finding out what people want, than producing it and offering it to them. It is both a specific activity which needs to be carried out as a vital stage in the development of a new product, and a continuous process that is an integral part of everyday management activity.

In a manufacturing company, the marketing department pinpoints a new product that could be successfully developed and introduced. The research and development department designs it, then the production departments makes it, the publicity department promotes it, and the sales department sells it.

In reality, you know probably all of these departments, and several others too. This is good you can bypass all the problems of communication between the different departments. At the same time, it may be helpful to think consciously which hat you are wearing at any one moment, so as not to confuse marketing with other related activities.

What marketing is:

- being customer-oriented, taking the market as the starting point;

- integrating a number of different functions, such as planning which courses other services to market, designing and packaging them, deciding on the price structure, promoting and presenting them in various ways, following up;

- developing a strategy that concentrates effort on meeting the stated aims of the organization, so that effort is focused and not wasted.

What marketing is not:

- getting your name known (this is publicity);

- preparing specific courses on demand (course design);

- getting people to buy your courses (sales);

- going to nice places in the hope of making useful contacts (junketing).