Week 5 – Individual Assignment
Fundamentals of Macroeconomics
Phillip Alfonso
ECO-372
August 5, 2013
Professor: Joshua Long
University of Phoenix – Online

PART 1 Gross domestic product (GDP)
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the total amount of goods and services that were produced in an economy and is represented in dollars. In the US, we record what the GDP was for the entire year, however, GDP does not always have to be in the span of one year
Real GDP
Real GDP is a way calculate the GDP without the inflation included so that it can be easily compared to previous years, and nominal GDP would be with the inflation included.
Nominal GDP
Nominal GDP is the GDP for any given year that has not been modified to reflect the inflation of the US dollar.
Unemployment rate
Unemployment rate is the amount of people who do not have a job but are looking for one.
Inflation rate
This is the speed of which prices increase or decrease over time. Generally it is calculated annually or monthly.
Interest rate
This is the percentage of a certain amount of money that is charged to a borrower of money. When someone borrows money, they have to pay it back plus the interest.

PART 2
Whenever goods or services are purchased or sold, the economy is impacted. Obviously if one person comes into a coffee shop and buys a cup of coffee, the US economy will not change, but what if one million people purchase a cup of coffee every day? Or what if those people who usually purchase coffee every day decide that they do not want coffee anymore? These types of events have a noticeable impact on the economy because there are so many people and businesses involved. In this essay we review the impact that certain day to day activities have on the US economy. Just about every household in the United States purchases groceries on a regular basis. Some families buy storable food