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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.

This article "Opening the flood gates" illustrates the opportunity cost in building a dam on the yangzi river. The yangzi river contains a rare fish reserve as well as farmers reaping good harvest, the dam on the river will affect the good harvest from the farmers as well threaten several endangered species.

my article

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.

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.

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 article discusses the global crude oil supply prices which have been increasing because of the various countries having political unrest causing disruptions. The strong demand for the oil has increases the prices as the supply decreases. The various countries that have a significant decease in supply include Libya, Nigeria, and Iraq. The estimated barrels daily of crude oil disruptions reflect that Syria has been having a decrease in supply since 2011. The other factors that affect the prices include the seasonal demand pattern, which shows a decrease in demand in September and decrease further in October. The increases by non-OPEC countries mean that there is an increase of production such as in the US, which will offset the decrease in supply in Syria. Saudi Arabia always has a sustained output because it will provide higher income.

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.

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 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.

This article is about the launching of iPhone 5C was highly anticipated to be very popular in China. The truth was that apple has decided to trimmed the iPhone production by significant 35 percent while increasing production of the more expensive iPhone 5S by 75 percent to meet the increase in demand. This implies that Apple is very responsive to the change in the demand curve by increasing the supply curve quickly. Apple is an oligopoly, which is highly responsive to the elasticity to the demand by shifting the elasticity of supply in China.

BRUSSELS-The European Union could drop controversial investor-protection rules from its free-trade talks with the U.S., it is unlikely they do the same for its trade deal with Canada, its designated trade commissioner said. The deal is an important agreement between the states and the EU because it allows for faster and simpler trading between the countries. However, the debate has been intense around a specific clause which provides investors with additional protection which, if exploited, could allow them to potentially sue governments. The question is how free should the trade agreement be and what is the right level of government control.

This article highlights the fact that in response to increasing demand, intel is investing $5bn in a new factory in Arizona which is considered to be "the most advanced high-volume semiconductor-manufacturing facility in the world." The factory will create about 1000 jobs, primarily in the higher-wage, higher-skill positions.

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

The following article summarizes Obama's speech, where he talks about how the economy is gradually recovering from the financial crisis. The President states how the housing, manufacturing and automotive markets are rebounding, and thus leading the US out of the financial crisis. Obama then explains how there still is a long road ahead for the financial crisis to be overcome, in order for nobody to be left behind without a job.

this article relates to our week 9, study because it tells us the the consumers demand for energy is inelastic and how the government decisions affects the price of company products.

The Thai government wants to increase the alcohol average tax by a significant percentage. The tax ceiling for the beer and wine will increase to 2000 baht per liter, which is very significant. This is aimed at increasing the government revenue, as the demand for alcohol is inelastic and increasing in consumption. Thailand has a significant percentage of foreign tourist and foreigners living in the country who enjoy alcoholic beverages. Locals are increasing in their income inelastic and consuming more alcohol. This will hopefully reduce the demand, as alcohol is extremely addictive and have negative externalities such as dream driving causing many innocent deaths.