Group items tagged

It is interesting to receive a totally different perspective on the issue that China keeps its currency artificially low. In this article, it actually says that the benefits to the US of China manipulating its currency far outweighs the costs. The reason is that the consumers get cheaper goods, which are essential goods such as toys and clothes. The other reason is that when the Chinese government is constantly buying dollars to keep Chinese yuan low, it helps to stabilize the price level in the US because the imported goods do not become more expensive, and it also helps to keep the interest rate low. This is beneficial to the US economy.

This article discusses the current "Occupy" protests which are taking place worldwide, and how the effect which they are having. The protesters are pushing to government to expand the budget of the government so that more goods can become public goods, like health care, for example. The article also discusses how protesters stood outside malls pleading for consumers not to purchase goods however if that were to happen, the economy would obviously sink back into recession.

Street lights are an example of a public good - one person using a street light will not prevent others from using it, and it is impossible to stop other people from using a street light once one person is able to use it. Because they are public goods, they are provided by the government, but in this case it is costing the government too much to leave the street lights on all night, so they are considering shutting them off for a portion of the night to save money.

This article talks about India and its current account deficit. Import substitution is a good way to reduce current account deficit by reducing the import expenditure.

Schooling and education is a public good as it does not recieve a profit however, this article shows that at the moment it may be costing the government too much and they have decided that they have to cut back on what they are spending on it. No other companies would provide it as they will not get a profit out of it.

This article is about cuts for schools. There will be less money for public schools. Since schooling is a public good, this article applies to this weeks work.

This article discusses the issue in the state of California of poor road quality. It is causing citizens to pay extra money each year for car repairs...the money for car repairs in California exceeds every other state. So this article shows an example of poor quality public goods. Like I mentioned in my comment in the class discussion, government intervention eliminates competition, which can lead to a poor quality product...well this is an example of poor quality public good. No toll highway or road would ever be poor quality and have holes and bumps.

A big drop in business spending on machinery and equipment helped pushed orders for long-lasting manufacturing goods down in January by the largest amount in three years. The Commerce Department says orders for durable goods - products that are expected to last at least three years - fell 4 per cent last month. This directly relates to macroeconomic activity as it discusses the macroeconomic system in the US.

This article states the relationship between currencies, which links to prices, and the demand for goods and services. While the currencies are weakened worldwide, the manufacturing industries are highly impacted. Therefore, the supply is lowered.

This article reports that Ukraine is thinking to raise its tariffs on various imported goods. Since Ukraine joined the WTO, its trade deficit has been increasing. The increase in trade deficit suggests that the international market is too competitive for the Ukrainian goods and putting them at a disadvantage. To respond to this issue, the Ukrainian government is thinking to raise tariffs so as to protect the domestic goods from aggressive international competitions.

National defence is an important public good. It is non-rivalrous and non-excludable, as once it is provided, the whole nation will benefit. The government is in charge of the provision of national defence.

Hello, sorry for the delay. In this article it talks about public goods. The public good at question is the British military, and it talks about a regiment who's job it is to guard a checkpoint to make sure that the civilians are safe and to protect the local community. Also, as a secondary job they are training the local Afghan police and military to help them with the patrol of the checkpoints. It then goes on to talk about how the soldiers are staying there for Christmas and how the Taliban will think that they are celebrating Christmas however, the British military will be on guard. lastly, the video says the all the British and American forces will have left the region and Afghanistan by 2014. From Tim

This article outlines the consistent debate over nutrition, especially in schools. The beneficial externalities are obvious in an increase in health for the student, as well as the encouraged development of healthy eating. However, if junk-foods are so much easier to obtain and the number of un-educated consumers in terms of nutrition are so low, the public will be more inclined to just keep eating in their old habits. How on earth can the government effectively change this situation for the betterment of society?

Not only is there an opportunity cost for the designer, but the people spending this money on the jewelry have the opportunity cost for other large items - such as a vacation or new computer!

I commented on this article, and now on my screen above it says shared by Monique T... just to clarify, Lola posted the article, not me.

The National Broadband Network Company (NBN) wanted to slowly reduce their internet connection prices to benefit consumers. However, any price mechanism they try is just increasing the CPI (Consumer Price Index). The CPI measures change in price level of consumer goods and services purchased by households; in this situation specifically internet providers. We all obviously need the internet, but many companies are struggling with correct pricing, a key component of their business. They are beginning new projects that need more money, which in turn causes a price hike. The article uses a lot of technological 'lingo' with statistics to back up plans of price comparison.

This article describes the Czech current account balance. The current account is experiencing a widening deficit, as a result of "the outflow of dividends outweighing the foreign-trade surplus". This means that, although this country is experiencing good trade, too much investment in the country is leading to outflow of money to foreign investors.

This article suggests that export promotion might not always be beneficial for manufacturers that export their goods, even though this is often why it is implemented.

The aggregate demand in an economy is made up of the total spending on goods and services in a country, and one of the components of aggregate demand is consumption (consumer spending). This article outlines some reasons as to why consumer spending - consumption - is expected to increase in the US in the coming months.

This article is about how the falling prices may not be good news for everyone. It may mean that jobs are harder to get when businesses don't want to employ more people. It may symbolise the fact that a recession is about to happen or is happening.

because of the the high debts of europe, US export will mostly rise in 2012. In addition to this, the declining dollar index and rising wages of emerging economies has made U.S. goods cheaper abroad.

As many of us know, Canada has a great healthcare program that is provided by the government. The US, on the other hand, has opted in the past to keep healthcare a private good. The American goverment is now seeing negative repercussions of this decision, and this article outlines how they are thinking of modelling their healthcare system after Canada's by introducing government healthcare insurance. Although this may not completely eliminate private healthcare companies, it may discourage them for the reasons we learned in Week 12. This idea of reforming the current policies has stemmed from stories of families who have gone broke after needing emergency surgeries while not being able to afford insurance.