Andy's PJE 2013-15 SL Economics class

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 is a very good example of how the idea of scarcity exists within Chinese banks.

leading indicators

Consumer confidence on rise

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 is my week's article regarding the domestic Ukrainian steel scarcity. 

This relates to scarcity. It talks about how the demand of water will probably grow larger within a few years and how the supply of water is scarce at the moment.

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 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 discusses how the local waters near Hong Kong have been depleted of fish since the 1980s. Therefore the suppliers are shifting their method of production to having fish farms located in industrial buildings to meet Hong Kong's demand for live fish.

This talks about how the supply of avocados is very short while the demand is big. This of course leads to a price increase since supply is short while demand being big.

New Zealand is "vulnerable" to a fall in house prices, which could be triggered by an overseas financial shock, Reserve Bank deputy governor Grant Spencer says. "If the growth in demand continues to exceed the growth in housing supply, house prices will become increasingly vulnerable to a sharp correction, which could be prompted by, say, a global financial shock," Spencer said.

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.

this article is about energy companies saving millions by avoiding tax bill by using legal loopholes. this article explains the impact on the economy of countries when this kind of unethical methods are used to avoid tax.