Group items tagged

Instead of soaring food and energy prices encouraging food and energy producers to export more, they may export less and divert more of their output to domestic markets. The reason is simple: to keep domestic prices from matching soaring world prices.

But when it is food and energy prices, the political pressures become immense. They are so immense you can toss your economics textbook out the window.

Instead, no less than 29 food-exporting countries responded by banning food exports and kept their crop production for a hungry domestic market.

Japan may face a shortage of green tea as radiation leaking from the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi power station tainted leaves, spurring the government to restrict shipments from four prefectures.

The government decided yesterday to curb shipments of dried tea leaves containing more than 500 becquerel per kilogram of radioactive cesium and ordered a halt in shipments from the eastern prefectures of Ibaraki, Chiba, Kanagawa and Tochigi where tainted produce was detected. Japan’s tea production, including fresh and dried leaves, was worth 102.1 billion yen ($1.3 billion) in 2009, according to the agriculture ministry.

The decision came after Shizuoka prefecture, Japan’s largest growing region representing about 40 percent of total output, declared its green tea was safe. Governor Heita Kawakatsu said last month tests on fresh leaves and drinks showed they contained cesium amounts well below the government levels. Still, cesium levels in dried leaves could be about five times higher than fresh leaves, said Yasuo Sasaki, senior press counselor at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

Weak business confidence coming out of the global credit crisis is playing a major part in keeping jobless rates at painful levels – U.S. unemployment is nine per cent while Canada is stuck above 7.5 per cent in large part because companies are wary of hiring long-term.

Canada’s employment-services industry is mostly temporary staffing along with permanent placements and contract staffing, according to Statscan. Revenue has climbed steadily in the past decade, and employment in the sector has jumped six per cent in the past year alone, to 158,000 people.

But as the industry grows around the world – staffing firms are expanding in Europe and in emerging markets such as India and China – there’s an intensifying debate over the merits of an increasingly fluid work force. Proponents say it helps both employers and workers be nimble in globally competitive markets; opponents argue it’s part of a shift toward precarious, lower-pay work.

income inequality is not a useful measure. Measures of inequality tell us nothing about the living conditions of the poor, their health and their access to economic opportunity.

one should think primarily about lifting developing countries out of poverty rather than about reducing income disparities in wealthy countries.

Focusing on income inequality rather than drivers of poverty, obstacles to economic opportunity and systematic injustice obscures what really works and what does not in the realm of economic policy

The average debt load per Canadian consumer rose 4.5% this quarter over last year, according to new figures compiled by TransUnion

That works out to $1,000 per person and excludes mortgage costs.

Credit card, line of credit and auto-loan debt jumped most in Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador with gains of 7.8% in both provinces. Quebec's total average debt load per consumer stood at $18,025 for the quarter. Newfoundland's was $23,372. The national average is now $25,597.