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The Minister of Education, Mr. David Laws, wants to reduce the national expenditure on school uniform. He believes that the inflated price of school uniform up to 52 million pounds per year is excessive. The schools in the UK have to reduce the opportunity cost of demanding overly priced uniform. This practice must be stopped. In implementing this policy, British families would be able to save 52 million pounds in one year, which is a sizeable proportion of many poor families budgets. In many lower income families in this period of recession, families who are depending on food banks will benefit from this opportunity cost of spending on uniform as they have a scarce budget. This will help them to shift their household expenditures to more essential items such as food. The opportunity cost of them budgeting a significant percentage of their limited income to an inelastic demand for uniforms may create problems of great scarcity to families with many school-going children. The guideline by the minister stated that the uniform must be purchase from the cheaper suppliers, which will reduce the opportunity costs. This will mean savings for the parents. The question is how do these new policies going to be effectively worked out because some rich parents with no scarcity problems will insist or prefer their children to wear higher quality and more expensive uniforms, some even tailoring them.

This is my article for this week's topic - Tragedy of the Commons/Public Access The article above relates to green economy and the government's actions pertain to sustaining the value of forests.  My write-up can be viewed here: https://pamojaeducation-com.campuspack.eu/Groups/13.Y2.ST.ODP.MAY.ECON.SL.A/Nattanopthorns_Economics_Blog/2014/01/15-2_-_Tragedy_of_the - Bee

Sinopec profit raises directly link to the relaxation of fuel price controls. Sinopec is a government control company, which controls a great deal of the lucrative oil market. When the government eased the fuel price control, it meant that the price could be increased by the oligopoly. This allowed greater margin of profits, which will benefit Sinopec and the government in terms of taxes. The problem is that when price of fuel which is an essential inelastic commodity increases, the inflation will increase for the average consumer. The consumer will have to pay more his daily consumption, which will affect the prices of the goods and services that he is selling.

This talks about Blackberry letting go of 40% of its workforce due to its anticipated $1 billion plunge in profits. Blackberry's share price has also dropped 17%. This was all mainly due to competition from others like Apple and Samsung, and also from its customers sticking to earlier phone models of the brand.

Thatcher-era supply-side policy had been used in UK for a number of decades. Mark Carney, the new governor of the Bank of England wants to reduce unemployment through the monetary policy goal rather than the supply-side policy. He is making efforts to change the emphasis on the supply-side policy, which has always aimed to reduce employment and to control inflation by implementing the increase in investments and the introduction of taxes towards the rich. Carney wants to shift the conditions of the markets towards driving up more investors and creating financial stability through the interest rate policy. This may be the solution to UK's economic problems, which had been lasting for a number of years since 2008 and the Euro crisis.

The demand for gadgets among the young people from 12 to 17 years old reflected the inelastic demand for iPhone. The most desire Christmas present is the Samsung Galaxy phone follows by the Apple. This shows that young people, most of them, who do not have their own income, are very interested in the technology in order to keep up the latest news updates and gossips with their peers or their families and friends. The advertising od these oligopolies are very successful by promoting the products as an essential tool for daily living. The incomes of the families that are able to afford these gadgets reflect that they are from middle income or the rich. The pricing of these products are reasonable affordable as the US dollars is stronger than the Korean Won. The close substitute, cross elasticity is the Apple, which is an American product, which may be compatible in price and functions, but Samsung seems to have greater inelasticity. Christmas is a period of seasonal demand where the inelasticity of new gadgets increases because adults want to please the teenagers with new technology. The businessmen are able to intelligently respond by increasing the supply because they are inelastic in their supply to increase their marginal revenue and to enjoy of scale.

In September 2000, 189 U.N. member states and more than 25 international organizations of public and private scope, committed themselves to the complex cause of extreme poverty reduction on a global scale. It was informally spoken of as the largest collective impact agreement at the time, marking history. Although this article is not about the HDI, it however about what affects the HDI, namely the MDG. The period for the MDG has expired and some progress seemed to have been made. The article mentions the reduction in gender inequality in primary education and politics but also notes almost no change in secondary and further education. The UN is currently compiling the new set of goals. The policy has proved succesful and will hopefully encourage success in the future.

This is my article for this week's topic - demand.  The article above relates to the demand of the iPhone5S and the public. The demand here connects with the sales of Apple products. My write-up can be viewed here: https://pamojaeducation-com.campuspack.eu/Groups/13.Y2.ST.ODP.MAY.ECON.SL.A/Nattanopthorns_Economics_Blog/2013/09/4-2_-_Demand_Newsstand_Article - Bee

your analysis of the article is interesting.

This is my article for this week's topic - price controls. The article above relates to Thailand's government's attempt to control prices of goods. My write-up can be viewed here: https://pamojaeducation-com.campuspack.eu/Groups/13.Y2.ST.ODP.MAY.ECON.SL.A/Nattanopthorns_Economics_Blog/2013/11/11-2_-_Price_Control_Newsstand - Bee

Smoking is a negative externality. Children who have exposure especially to relatives who smoke will have a greater chance of childhood asthma. The smoking ban is very healthful, as it has caused a decrease in the rate of children emitted to the hospital with severe asthma. The ban on smoking in the enclosed public places has helped the children to have less health problems. The government benefits because it reduces government expenditure in the NHS, which is a public good. The statistics reflect the decrease in admission of about 6800 is a positive benefit to the public especially the young children.

A negative externality hits the society as smokers affect children giving them asthma, according to this article. This effect does not affect the cigarette companies, however, but smoking restrictions came into force in attempts of decreasing the damage it does to society.

The Australia government is proposing a change in their confusing government subsidies for childcare to have one single payment which subsidizes up to 90% for low income families. This is a tool to reduce income inequality and to encourage young children from lower income groups to be able to have a strong foundation in their education. The problem of this subsidy is the question of the unhappiness of the taxes payers who may resist this proposal because of the higher government expenditure incurred on families which may have many social problems and are unable to have a stable employment.

This is my article for this week's topic - income elasticity/cross elasticity/elasticity of supply. The article above relates to the raise in minimum wages of the people in Washington D.C. My write-up can be viewed here: https://pamojaeducation-com.campuspack.eu/Groups/13.Y2.ST.ODP.MAY.ECON.SL.A/Nattanopthorns_Economics_Blog/2013/11/9-2_-_Income_ElasticityCross - Bee

This is my article for this week. It connects to one of this week's key concept of Economics, Opportunity Cost. The concept of opportunity cost are reflected in the choice companies makes in relation to technology. For my full write-up, please go to: https://pamojaeducation-com.campuspack.eu/Groups/13.Y2.ST.ODP.MAY.ECON.SL.A/Nattanopthorns_Economics_Blog/2013/09/2-4_-_ScarcityOpportunity_Cost - Bee

This article discusses about the income effect of rich millionaires in China. The demand for butlers for the superrich has created a special school of training for them. The butler is trained to be able to work as managers to have the proper attitudes and training to help their bosses to live more comfortably. The training includes how to handle foreign guests and important officials. This means that the butler must be well paid and the ability to handle various responsibilities increase their demand. There is a ready supply of young China graduates who desire to work because of the re-numeration and the opportunity to have occupational mobility.

The following article is about the high demand of the recently founded company Raspberry Pi which has begun creating single board computers, which is basically just the "heart" of the computer. They produce their computer chips at an incredibly low price of only 20 pounds per unit and have now sold over 1 million units do to large demand of the cheap processor. Due to its low and affordable cost it has become immensely popular and is predicted to grow even more over the next few years.

Naira down almost 4 percent this year as oil prices fall. Due to a recent fail of major Nigerian banks lending of US dollar his high. The Central bank is trying to ease the pressure on the Naira but putting tighter regulations in place when it comes to borrowing foreign funds. This may be an attempt to reduce demand for dollar and decrease supply of Naira.

this article relates to week 18 economics and politics. the governments influence to oppress communication has resulted Ethiopia for only 2.5% of the population of 90 million able to use the internet.