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This article mainly discusses about the government in India having a hike in DA by 10%, which allows the lakh employees and pensioners have a benefit. A hike in dearness allowance to 90% from existing 80%, this benefits around 50 lakh central employees and 30 lakh pensioners. The government caused this in order to give benefits to employees and pensioners. Which will show a effect of proportion of basic pay, and it will work out to be over 90% after factoring in the revised all India Consumer Price Index for the Industrial Workers. The impact of it will be that DA was hiked to 80% from 72%. The government uses Consumer Price Index for industrial workers to arrive at a number for the purpose of any DA hike. The retail inflation for the industrial workers (July 2012~ June 2013) needs to take a finial decision.

This article stresses the continue increase of the prices of goods and services in Singapore, causing the inflation in the country to keep growing further. Moreover, this article talks about that the consumer price index (CPI) has risen in August of this year 2% more in comparison with the last year, they also had calculated the CPI in July of this year, which was 1.9% meaning that the inflation kept increasing constantly. This article also strains that one of the main causes for the increase in inflation in Singapore is because of the government measures to slow the inflow of the cheap foreign workers into the city-state. If the inflation in Singapore continues to increase, in the long run this will cause the country's currency to have a value of almost nothing. The consequence of this will be that the people living in this country won't have enough money to live a normal life. Therefore, they will have to have an aid from the government.

Singapore has been dealing with high inflation, which has risen significantly. This is especially in relation to core inflation, that excludes house and car costs, which is higher than had been predicted. Their CPI has increased as well. The Monetary Authority of Singapore has tightened the monetary policy in response to decrease the rate of inflation.  The inflation has partially been caused by restrictive government policies, which attempted to reduce the amount of low-wage foreign workers. These actions were taken due to locals' requests as there is a limited amount of jobs in this small state. The effect was that firms had to increase prices because of increased wages (cost of production) once the cheaper workers were no longer available. Consequently inflation increased more quickly, as did the CPI. To solve the issue, governments are encouraging firms to hire Singaporean employees.   

1) Distinguish whether or not the article is talking about absolute or relative poverty. Absolute Poverty (people cannot afford basic necessities in India)  2) According to the article what are some possible causes of poverty. The lack of good education and work training do not allow workers to be very productive. In addition, the lack of capital such as modern energy resources contribute to poverty just as the extremely low income rates do.  3) According to the article what seem to be some of the consequences of poverty. Poverty appears to affect global sustainment, it does not offer future employment perspectives to the youth and impedes economic growth, given that the poor do not contribute to increase in national output due to lack of education and working skills.

1.The article, which reports an increase in poverty levels in Italy, discusses about both relative and absolute poverty. Relative poverty places the concept of poverty in a social context, people are defined poor when compared to those around them but still have money to survive, relative poverty is based on the cultural environment of the person. Absolute poverty, on the other hand, is when people don't have enough money to meet a basic threshold that is need by everyone to survive, and so cannot afford food, clothing, a house, heating etc. which is what is needed for survival.  2.The biggest causes of poverty in Italy are: unemployment and health/disability. According to the article Italy has been facing its greatest post-war recession, war can also be a huge cause of poverty in countries. Also, the article talks about how in the southern part of Italy people are poorer, when compared to the north, that is also because in Italy southern regions are less economically developed compared to north regions.  3.The article discusses about some consequences of poverty in Italy, by saying that poverty has risen unemployment and has declined purchasing power which have been caused by an increase in taxes which aimed at strengthening the public's finances. The article then discusses about more of personal consequences for Italians which have been considered poor, with poverty levels rising those Italians can no longer afford heating for their homes, holidays away from Italy and purchasing/eating meat. 

1. The article talks about both relative and absolute poverty. Depending on the conditions of the households, the level of poverty changes (mix of them in Italy).   2. Some of the possible causes of poverty are because there is high unemployment and higher lack of skills in the southern regions of Italy which are less developed and account for high amounts of poverty in the country. Another cause is that some families have many children, meaning there is less disposable income (they cannot work) and there are higher costs to pay for them. This is also true when the heads of the families are unemployed (unemployment benefits are not enough to support a family) or factory workers (below minimum wage, low wages, lots of hours, low skilled jobs, structural unemployment, firing because of recession). Another issue is when there are two or more elderly people (do not work, or retirement funds are lower with recession, retirement age has increased therefore with aging less productive and lower wages, less disposable income because they have to be sustained). The recession is the main cause of the unemployment and lack of disposable income, therefore purchasing power and consumption have decreased, especially because of a high increase in taxes.   3. The consequences are that people are going below the poverty line and cannot afford necessities (the amount of people in absolute poverty continues to increase, as well as the one in relative poverty). This means that people cannot afford certain key necessities; some mentioned in the article were heating, holidays and meat. 

1) Briefly summarize the article (3-4 sentences) The article is about the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's protectionist strategy in the purchase of Australian companies. This highlights the event where Archer Daniels Midland attempted to purchase Graincorp, as well as the example of George Bush's Protectionist policy for US steel workers. It is concluded it is better to maintain an open anti-protectionist policy to encourage trade to find the best comparative advantage. 2) Is your article arguing for or against free trade? Explain The Article is mainly for free trade, as it takes the stances of criticizing Abbott's actions as well as likening it to Bush's "Failure". It determines Australia needs more foreign investment to remain competitive. It does however mention Abbott's encouragement to give Quantas more foreign investments. 3) Explain how different stakeholders might be affected (foreign/domestic producers, consumers, gov't) It is stated domestic producers will suffer from the lack of investments, which will consequently affect consumers. Consumers will experience higher price levels and hence higher costs of living. Foreign producers may not experience as much difficulty as domestic producers, though the lack of any comparative advantage will make it less beneficial for the foreign producers. The government is the only stakeholder who will gain, as the higher tariffs may increase tax revenue.

1) Distinguish whether or not the article is talking about absolute or relative poverty. This article addresses absolute poverty. 2) According to the article what are some possible causes of poverty. According to the article the cause of poverty seems to be rising inequality, indicating that the benefits of recent economic gains were not distributed evenly. Additionally lack of decent and productive jobs kept most people in the region poor. Also economic growth is not generating sufficient, decent and productive employment. This is due to the nature of growth and the pattern of structural change in many countries in which workers move from agriculture into low-productivity services. 2) According to the article what are some possible causes of poverty. The major consequence or reality is that 1..64 billion people still live on less than two dollars a day. Apart from a huge part of the population starving everyday there are also problems concerning health and sanitary issues.