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Haydn W

BBC News - US and EU 'make progress' in free trade area talks - 2 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...business-29482892

BBC EU USA Free Trade

shared by Haydn W on 21 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • US and EU 'make progress' in free trade area talks
  • Officials from the United States and the European Union say they have made progress as they seek to sweep away trade barriers.
  • If successful an agreement would create the world's biggest free trade zone.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • They are trying to do that by eliminating tariffs (taxes on imported goods) and removing what Mr Mullaney called "non-tariff obstacles".
  • Mullaney said they have "progressed from discussing general approaches to the spadework of reviewing the many proposals that each side has put on the table."
  • The planned agreement is known as the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership or TTIP.
  • But while trade officials get on with detail, some of the general principles continue to generate vocal opposition.
  • Perhaps the most controversial area is the provision for foreign investors to go to an international tribunal for compensation if a government breaks the rules in a way that harms the company's interests.
  • he opposition to this idea has been taken up by the German government, so it remains uncertain whether it would appear in any final agreement.
  • Other critics are concerned that an agreement will drive down standards of consumer protection and food safety and will cost jobs.
  • They also complain that the texts that negotiators are working on are not made public.
  • Haydn W on 21 Oct 14
     
    Talks are taking place between the EU and the USA to create the worlds biggest free trade area. In many goods the US is seen to have an absolute advantage in producing many goods but they also rely on European countries to provide many components to US businesses. This trade deal, although opposed by Unions and other activitists is seen by many to be vastly beneficial to the two parties.
Yassine G

Yellen: Unemployment and Inflation Still Short of Fed's Goals - MarketPulse - 1 views

www.marketpulse.com/...flation-still-short-feds-goals

inflation unemployment fed goals monetary

shared by Yassine G on 10 May 14 - No Cached
  • Yassine G on 10 May 14
     
    This article talks about the inflation and unemployment rates in the United States. According to the Federal Reserve Chair, the economy is still unstable as unemployment rates exceed the Fed's goals, while inflation rates need a boost to achieve the target of 2%. The article suggests that monetary policies are going to be used in order to achieve the macroeconomics target of the USA. 
Daniel Soto Aggard

Gateway City: Weighing the impacts of free trade agreements - 2 views

www.miamiherald.com/...article2974070.html

Free Trade

shared by Daniel Soto Aggard on 21 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • Daniel Soto Aggard on 21 Oct 14
     
    The Impacts of Free Trade This article concerns the weight of the USA on their free trade agreements (such as: NAFTA). This article s specifically concerning the area of Southern Florida. It also mentions how the USA has been under performing in the trading field compared to all its trading partners.
Haydn W

Comcast-Time Warner Cable: How a monopoly can get even worse for you - latimes.com - 1 views

www.latimes.com/...nopoly-20140213,0,867041.story

Monopoly USA LA Times Market Cable

shared by Haydn W on 14 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Comcast's $45-billion offer for Time Warner Cable, a deal that will cement Comcast's position as the dominant cable operator in America.
  • The idea is that already the cable industry is a web of monopolies -- no neighborhood in the country has more than one cable operator to choose from.
  • the merger "will in effect turn two medium-size regional monopolists into a big sprawling monopolist.
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  • Comcast CEO Brian Roberts tried to finesse the issue Thursday by arguing that the deal "does not reduce competition in any market or in any way,"
  • But the ramifications of the cable monopoly go beyond mere access to channels on your set-top box. As we observed back in August, the more damaging consequence of the cable monopoly is in broadband Internet access, where the power of the cable firms' monopolies is magnified by the lack of practical alternatives to their Internet services.
  • n general, the U.S. has the lowest connection speeds and the highest prices in the developed world. The New America Foundation serveyed the world in 2012 to determine what customers could get for the equivalent of $35 a month. In Hong Kong, they could download from the Internet at 500 megabits per second (a half a gigabit); in Tokyo 200 Mbps; in Seoul, Paris, Bucharest (Romania) and Berlin 100. In Los Angeles, 10. Los Angeles is a Time Warner Cable monopoly.
  • The constraint here isn't technological, but commercial. Our fat and secure cable monopolies simply don't feel competitive pressure to provide customers with the fastest speeds at reasonable, affordable rates.
  • We need more competition, not less; and allowing Comcast and Time Warner Cable to merge means much, much less.
  • Haydn W on 14 Feb 14
     
    This article discusses the ramifications of the Comcast - Time Warner Cable merger in America. The two biggest internet and cable providers in the country are set to merge effectively creating one monopoly firm. The market has the charactersists of a monopoly in the fact that new firms can not really enter, even huge phone providers like Verizon and Sprint are having to stop rolling out fibre optic broadband, meaning internet speeds for there customers are set to remain slow. The cable industry is often a typical example of a monopolistic market and it looks set to stay this way. 
Sebastian G

Market to play 'decisive' role in allocating resources - 0 views

usa.chinadaily.com.cn/...content_17099940.htm

externalities of production.

shared by Sebastian G on 25 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Sebastian G on 25 Nov 13
     
    THis article discribes how the markets play a role in the allocation of resources.
Marenne M

True Costs of So-called Cheap Food | Ellen Gustafson - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...lled-cheap-food_b_4337423.html

'externalities of production'

shared by Marenne M on 26 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • when you look at the prices of so-called "conventional" junk food compared with local, organic fruits and veggies, on a calorie per dollar basis, the junk often wins.
  • Many people assume that it's the produce or organic foods that "cost more" than highly processed, shelf-stable ubiquitous and cheap junk food, but what if the price tags that we see don't tell the whole story?
  • hich requires acres of corn fields, seeds, gallons of water, gas for heavy machinery, pounds of fertilizer and sprays of pesticides, and government subsidies.
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  • give them antibiotics, deal with their waste, transport them to slaughter, power the slaughter facility, refrigerate the ground meat and then cook it
  • processed wheat bun and condiments.
  • so efficient that all of those costs amortize over tons of ground beef and fixings to make a really cheap burger, or are there parts of that whole list of "costs" that don't actually show up in the price of our fast food burgers?
  • Examples of costs not currently factored into our food supply include the environmental outcomes of chemically-intensive and petroleum-intensive agriculture, costs for soil erosion, real water and irrigation costs, pesticide and waste runoff that creates dead zones in our waterways (like the "New Jersey-sized dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico" that stems from nitrogen runoff from our Corn Belt) and then affects the livelihoods of fishermen and shrimp farmers in the Gulf region.
  • Hidden health costs like our global obesity epidemic and the food-related public health issues of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer are certainly not included in the cost of your fast food meal.
  • unpaid externalities like low wages for food workers that often mean government subsidies like food assistance, which is what over 50 percent of fast food worker families are getting
  • "value" and "low prices" of cheap food that we see at the cash register, are not the whole story
  • We are paying today in our health and our taxes and our children
  • will be paying tomorrow with a degraded environment, dirty water, decimated communities and jobs, and denigrated health.
  • Marenne M on 26 Nov 13
     
    This article describes how processed food and fast food have many negative externalities which in the end makes them cost more than organic foods which are more expensive in the stores. Processed foods may be cheaper than organic food, however the pollution during the process of producing the food, the health problems involved and the low wages which are unpaid for are all consequences which in the end will make these foods cost more.
Haydn W

Income distribution of New York City: What does it take to be rich? - 1 views

www.slate.com/...t_does_it_take_to_be_rich.html

Income Distribution USA New York Slate

shared by Haydn W on 28 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • So You’re Rich for an American. Does That Make You Rich for New York?
  • New Yorkers have a notoriously skewed sense of wealth—at least when they work in industries like finance or media and live in Manhattan or Brooklyn. It’s hard not to, seeing how we’re surrounded by expensive restaurants, expensive apartments, and expensively dressed people who seem able to afford it all.
  • If I mention that a six-figure salary counts as rich in much of the country—that just $250,000 gets you into the top 2 percent—the response is usually, “Sure, but that’s not New York rich.”
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  • The greater New York metro area may be home to an enormous share of the country’s 1 percenters, and it's certainly a magnet for exorbitant, plutocratic wealth. But in the city itself, the basic income curve isn’t that exceptional. In the entire U.S., according to the Census, about 22 percent of households earn six figures. In NYC, it’s about 25 percent.
  • Real estate here is expensive, and we don’t get much square footage for our buck. But as I wrote yesterday, the high rents in this city are balanced out somewhat by the low, low cost of commuting on the subway. (Not paying for a car, or gas, or car insurance is pretty financially sweet.)
  • Combine that with the fact that salaries are somewhat higher than average here, and New York is reasonably affordable compared with other large cities.
  • The upshot: If you’re rich by U.S. standards, you’re probably also rich by New York standards. Now, if you do want to see a city where incomes are crazily out of line with the national norm, check out San Francisco, where 39 percent of households make six figures—it really is becoming a city for the rich.
  • Haydn W on 28 Sep 14
     
    This article from Slate tackles the issue of income distribution in one of the most notoriously expensively cities on Earth - New York. The article relates the economic principles learned this week to real life and the cost of living in a bustling city, with an interesting conclusion that might surprise some.
Haydn W

Falling oil prices offer the west a great chance to refashion itself. Let's seize it | ... - 1 views

www.theguardian.com/...west-chance-refashion-policies

The Guardian USA Russia Oil Prices Balance of Payments

shared by Haydn W on 05 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Falling oil prices offer the west a great chance to refashion itself. Let’s seize it
  • For the past 18 months, the world’s biggest oil producer has been the US.
  • One first good result of this oil price shift, however, was witnessed at Opec’s meeting in Vienna last week. The once feared cartel of oil-exporting countries, with Saudi Arabia at its core, a cartel that at one time commanded more than half of global production, is now a shadow of its former self.
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  • the US will maintain this new standing for the foreseeable future, according to official projections.
  • It should be no surprise, then, that in the past rising oil prices were associated with recessions and falling oil prices with booms. If the oil price carries on falling back towards $50 a barrel, and if history is any guide, the western economy should respond – to the good.
  • But although particular companies may lose out, the first-round effect of this fall should provide good news. High oil prices depress economic activity. They suck money from consumer spending and redirect it to oil-exporting countries, which typically hoard it in elephantine foreign exchange reserves or unspent  bank deposits. It is a tax by the few on the many.
  • With the US needing to buy less oil on international markets and China’s growth sinking to its lowest mark for 40 years, there is now, amazingly, the prospect of an oil glut. The oil price instantly nosedived to its lowest level for four years, around $70 a barrel – down more than a third in three months.
  • Suddenly, the balance of economic advantage with Russia, no less dependent on oil and gas exports, will flip. Russia’s 2014 budget was based on an oil price of $100 a barrel. At $70 a barrel, the economy will contract by at least 3% in 2015, the country will run a balance of payments deficit and the government’s finances will spin out of control.
  • The chances of Russia sustaining a surrogate war in Ukraine have suddenly been reduced. All good news.
  • But western governments cannot hope that economic benefits will arrive automatically. These are new times.
  • Uncertainty and fear abound. Interest rates in Britain alone have been pegged at 0.5% for more than five years. But still business is reluctant to invest, not knowing what technologies to back or not knowing how much demand there will be for new products and services. We live in an era of stagnation, “secular stagnation”
  • So falling oil prices offer the world economy a great opportunity. But if it is not leapt upon purposefully by aggressively expansionary economic policy, secular stagnation might worsen.
  • Haydn W on 05 Dec 14
     
    The recent fall in oil prices, largely due to America's newfound dominance in the market, will cause Russia to experience a balance of payments deficit, according to this article from the Guardian. This is based on Russia's overestimate of the forecast for the global oil price and can be said to be an example of how global prices often influence balance of payments for countries, especially when it concerns national resources.
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