Dollar Data; No. 201; A Matter of Choice

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. . . . . . . . . . . Are you under 26 years of age? If so, your age group makes up more than half the people in the world. If you're a teenager, your age group makes up about one-fourth of the population in the United States. So as far as the numbers go, you're very important.

You're also very important to our national economy. A teenage market is one that is wooed by a growing number of manufacturers, retailers, and advertisers. And for good reason. Did you know that teenage girls buy over 20% of all women's clothes? Or that teens buy 90% of all non-album records? You spend over $1 billion a year for records alone. This doesn't even include the expensive audio equipment, tapes, and cassettes. Marketing experts report that the average teen spends approximately $50 a year on records. How does this compare with your record purchases? What would your record collection be worth if you were to add it all up? The cosmetic industry certainly has reason to be happy with the youth market. 17 magazine surveys show that 13 million teenage girls who count for only 12% of the population spend 500 million a year on cosmetics.

That comes to almost one-fourth of all women's beauty expenditures. Teenagers buy close to half of all cameras sold. And when you're not making your own movies, you're probably attending them because teens also buy 50% of all movie admission tickets. Young people revived an ailing industry, the movies, with the invention of television, the adult pastime of going out to the movies declined. TV kept married adults at home for entertainment. Movie houses did empty until young filmmakers with low budgets began to offer movies that expressed the attitudes of young people and your lifestyle. Teenagers buy 20% of all cars sold and 9% of all new cars.

You also exert a tremendous pressure on the way your parents spend. Automobile manufacturers are convinced that you have a great deal of influence on the cars your parents buy because many of you have a driver's license and do use the family car. According to some estimates, this teen influence spending amounts to some $30 billion annually. So whether you're spending your own money in the marketplace or influencing your parents' expenditures, you can see the impact you have on the economy. You're constantly making consumer choices. Some of your choices require a large outlay of cash and hopefully you investigate and shop carefully before buying. Other less expensive choices are made daily with little thought given to the expenditure or the value of the goods obtained. The largest weekly expenditure in the average teenagers budget goes for food. This of course is a boom for the soft drink and snack food industry.

And yet even though a large percentage of your money is spent on food and you do have plentiful nutritious food to choose from, recent studies on nutrition indicate that teenagers are the worst fed members of the American family. Poor nutrition is not confined to low income families as might be expected. It's often just a matter of choice. Many of your choices are influenced by advertising, whether it be advertisements in magazines, newspapers, radio, or TV. It has been said that you're exposed to 1,500 advertisements daily. Are you aware of the techniques used to influence you to buy a certain product? Sometimes advertisements can persuade you to buy things you didn't even know you wanted. They might even cause you to want things you didn't know were available. After you have decided that you want something and you choose to buy it, there's another decision to make.

Will you pay cash or will you charge it? You usually pay for your purchases through one of these sources, allowances, earnings, and credit. Because of inflation, you may have experienced a shrinking of the first two sources, allowance and earnings. But teens are finding it easier to get credit. Whether banks and retailers extend credit to young adults varies from state to state and from store to store. Some credit grantors require that parents already have an account at the store and agree to your account. Accounts may be limited to $50 or $100. Waying the credit card advantages of convenience and instant satisfaction of wants. With the possible perils of high interest rates and mounting debts may help you choose between cash or charge. Mobility means that you're on the move by different means of transportation.

The bicycle is a good example of how your choices affect the market. Only a few years ago, you rarely saw anyone over 11 years old riding a bicycle. There was just no consumer demand for adopt bicycles and so few were manufactured. Then the fare began and bikes were the end method of transportation. Manufacturers and retailers could not keep up with a consumer demand for bikes and so production was stepped up until the supply of bicycles could meet the demand for them. So you influence the production of goods or services when you choose to buy them or refuse to buy them. The decision to buy a bicycle is your means of transportation has several consumer implications. It's economical and easy to maintain. It's good exercise, healthy and it's also non polluting.

Your choices in the marketplace affect not only the economy and your lifestyle, but the quality of life of others and our environment. Thank you. Our advanced technology has given us so many new products and conveniences to choose for.

But our no return for a waste style of living is varying us in the mountains of litter and garbage. We all think of ourselves as consumers of products, but even more so we are producers. Producers of more and more waste products that we discharge into the air, water and land around us. Where they do not disappear but last forever in one form or another. Every year we throw away 80 billion cans, 38 billion bottles, 40 million tons of paper and cartons, 180 million old tires, 21 million major household appliances, 7 million junked automobiles.

The dumps overflow. Some cities now spend more on garbage disposal than on their police and fire departments combined. Garbage abandoned and open dumps attracts rats and reduces surrounding neighborhoods to slums. The garbage that we still burn in old style incinerators pollutes the air with harmful smoke gases and ash. The cost of trash disposal could double in the next generation unless among other solutions ways are found to reduce waste, either by recycling or reducing solid packaging. Advanced technology often lowers manufacturing costs so rapidly that it may become less expensive to replace something than it is to repair or reuse it. And so cheaper throw away products are built. But many times throw away or extra packaging increases the price that you pay for product. And yet you are willing to pay this extra price for little extra convenience.

For example the cost of this soft drink varies with the size of the container and the method of packaging. Based on the prices in an average grocery store, if boarding cans this drink cost approximately 40 cents for 32 ounces or 1 quart. This is 15 cents more than the same amount of the same drink in returnable 16 ounce bottles. This drink may be purchased in these 28 ounce no return bottles. The cost here is approximately 38 cents a quart which is 13 cents more than the same amount of soda in returnable 16 ounce bottles. So it would seem that most consumers would buy the more economical size returnable bottles. But this is not the case. The popularity of the no return bombs and cans is increasing. Because of this trend with soft drinks and many other throw away items, environmentalists believe that recycling is necessary for our survival. Recycling means the recovery and reuse of solid waste to create new products.

The aluminum steel, glass and soft drink industries spend millions in advertising to promote recycling and have opened hundreds of centers where people may bring their empty containers. Even so only about 1-40 of the cans and 1-70 of the bottles made last year were collected and recycled. It's evident that we need more and better recycling centers. But there's a much simpler suggestion to promote reuse. Buy beverages in returnable containers and then take the empty containers back. After all it is your choice. Bottling companies are subject to the demands of retailers and retailers are subject to the demands of the consumer. Every time you spend money it's kind of like an election. Each time you as a consumer make a purchase it's almost as if you mark a ballot indicating that you favor the production of the goods you buy.

These are called economic votes. And we have already shown how important your economic votes are to the national economy. Some people seem to think that one person's purchases matter very little in the whole scheme of things. But in this speed it up get realistic preparation of a simple meal for two. You can easily see some of the effect one person's economic votes have only economy and on our environment. Thank you. Thank you.

One of the most talked about economic subjects today in the average household is the rising cost of food. And there's no denying that food prices have gone up. But the farmer's share of that food dollar has gone down for years.

So what are some of the reasons for this constant increase in the grocery bill? You're looking at some of them right now. The major reason for increased prices is your preference for convenience foods. Consumers are demanding ready to heat, ready to eat time-saver foods with built-in made service. Grocery bills are higher because 25 cents of every dollar spent in the grocery store. For non-food and throwaway items such as paper towels. Frozen food sales have gone up 70% in the last five years. There are individually wrapped products that can be picked up quickly or thrown into lunch boxes. A man-made product that consists of water, sugar, natural and artificial flavors, citric acid, a scuba gasket, artificial color, sodium bins away and potassium sorbet is called orange drink.

And sales will approximately 39 cents a quart. An equal volume of real orange juice sales for 29 cents a quart or 10 cents less. Which would you choose the man-made or the real thing? What has happened to food? It's becoming more artificial because manufacturers feel that in order to stay in business they must sell more novel and complex foods with a longer shelf life and greater profits. As food becomes more inventive, more processing is required. More additives must be used and these mixtures that must stand up to months of storage become more complex. Will artificial and highly processed mixtures eventually exclude food in the marketplace? That depends on how you choose to cast your economic votes. It has been estimated that the average home maker opens 1700 packages a year.

And that the average family in the United States spends at least $200 of a uni budget just for the package, which is eventually thrown away. Consumers and environmentalists alike are questioning our excessive consumption and waste. Has out throw away society already thrown away a part of itself and destroyed some of the quality of life that it's always tried to preserve and hasn't been a matter of choice. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Hello. Today we're going to practice the letters A, D, G, C and O. See if you can find one of these letters hidden in the picture. Of course, this is a picture of an L. Watch as it disappears. Look at the eyes. This will give you a clue.

Finding the next picture, another one of these letters, this one may be a little bit more difficult, so look very carefully as the picture of this one will be appearing. Look at the body of this one. This will be your clue. And of course, this is the letter C. To begin our practice of these letters, we're going to start with the oval that starts at the top line, comes around to the left, touches the base line and closes, continues around retracing to the count of 8, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Remember that this oval starts at the top line and comes down toward the base line to the left. Check your writing position, make sure your feet are flat on the floor, that you're sitting tall, and that you're facing your desks squarely.

Pick up your pencil, make sure you're holding it about an inch from the point, and make sure your paper is in the correct position, and hold the top of it with your other hand. Alright, now let's try writing this oval on your paper. Ready? Right. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Since these letters are not a full space tall, we need to practice this oval again, starting at the guideline, going to the left, touching the base line, closing, and retracing to the count of 8, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Now try that oval on your paper, and remember to start at the guideline. Ready? Right. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

In the last lesson, we practiced the double curve that connected some of the letters in this group, like the letter A and the letter O. See if you can find these double curves in the picture of the fish. Remember that you're looking for the double curve that begins with the under curve, and then ends with the over curve. And of course it was the top of the bodies of the fish. In the last lesson, we practiced this double curve starting at the base line with the under curve and coming around with the over curve coming up to touch the guideline. In today's lesson we're going to do it just a little bit differently. We're going to start at the guideline with the under curve, come down slightly, then come right back up to the guideline for the over curve.

Watch this again, under, over. And remember I'm doing these in the left hand position, under, over, and once more, under, over. Now I would like for you to try this on your paper, and remember to lift your pencil after each one. Ready? Under, over. Lift your pencil, under, over. Lift your pencil for the third one, under, over, and for the last one, under, over. Now watch as this double curve is used to connect the letters O and A. A round, close, under, over, around, close, slant, and finish.

Now try that letter combination on your paper. Ready? First the letter O. Right. A round, close, under, over. Now the letter A. A round, close, slant, and finish. This time, watch as the letter combination OC appears in the magic window, and again pay special attention to the double curve that connects these two letters. A round, close, under, over, around, and finish. Now try this letter combination on your paper. You can make the little slant for the letter C right after you make the double curve, and then go on and finish it. All right. Ready? Right. A round, close, under, over. Now the letter C, slant, around, and finish.

Now watch as the word cat appears using the double curve, but this time it's going to begin at the baseline and curve to the guideline as we learned in the last lesson. First the letter C, then the A, and then the letter T, remember that we crossed the T. Hold your pencil in the air, and write the word cat as it appears again in the magic window. Slant around, under, over, around, close, slant, under, curve, slant, finish, and cross the T. Now check your writing position, check your paper, and make sure that you're holding it correctly on your desk. Now let's write the word cat. Ready? First the letter C, right. Slant, around, under, over. Now the A, around, close, slant. Now the T, under, curve, slant, finish, and cross the T.

This time the word ours is going to appear, and I want you to notice the connecting stroke between the O and the U. Since the O ends with an under curve, and the U begins with an under curve, that will be the connecting stroke, but notice where it is on the paper. First the letter O, then the U, then the R, and then the letter S. Hold your pencil in the air, and write the word ours as it appears again in the magic window. Round, close, under, curve, slant, under, curve, slant, under, curve, check, slant, under, curve, handle, and finish.

Now try the word ours on your paper. Ready? First the letter O, right, around, close, under, curve, now the U, slant, under, curve, slant, now the R, under, curve, under, curve, check, slant, now the S, under, curve, handle, and finish. This time the letter G is going to appear in the word, and to connect the G with the O making the word go, we're going to have this over curve. As you remember, the letter G and the letter J both end with this stroke. Now watch as the word go appears, using the over curve to connect the letters G and O. First the letter G, and the over curve connecting it to the letter O. Hold your pencil in the air, and be ready to write the word go as it appears again.

A round, close, slant, over curve, a round, close, and finish. Remember that the letter G is coming up from the guideline, from the baseline, crossing over the slant, coming up to the guideline, then the O curves around, touching the baseline, and then back up to the guideline for the finish stroke. Now try the word go on your paper. Ready? First the letter G. Write a round, close, slant, over curve, now the O, a round, close, and under curve. This time we're going to use the letter D in place of the G making the word do. The connecting stroke between the D and the O will be under over.

Remember this time it's going to start at the baseline, and then over at the guideline. Watch as the word do appears in the magic window. First the letter D, then the letter O. Hold your pencil in the air, and write the word do as it appears again. A round, close, continue up, slant, under over, a round, close, and finish. Remember that the letter D comes back down to the baseline with the slant, so this makes this necessary for us to use this under over curve, coming up to the guideline, then back down to the baseline, circling around, and then finishing the letter O. Now try that on your paper. Ready? First the letter D. Write a round, close, continue up, slant, under over, now the letter O, a round, close, and finish.

Let's take one more look at the letter D and G. Remember that the letter G comes below the baseline, and curves around to the left with this over curve, before it continues to cross the slant line at the baseline and up for the ending stroke. The letter D, the top of it, comes halfway between the guideline and the top line, and then the letter slants back down to the baseline and up for the finish. This is the last lesson in which we'll be working with this series of letters, and remember we started with the letter A. Remember it came up to the baseline for the finish. Then we learned the letter D, which was almost like the A, only we continued up halfway between the guideline and the slant line before we came back for the finish.

Then we continued making the letter Q, which we did not mention today, but which is one of these letters, then the letter G, which came around to the left instead of to the right is the letter Q, then we had the letter O, and the letter C. Practice these letters and the connecting strokes that we have learned for the next lesson. I hope that after the television lesson you will find a time during the day to practice what we have done, and also practice every day when we don't have the television lesson, all of the things that we have done. Goodbye.

Thank you. Bye.