Group items tagged

This article discusses the potential of European and Asian nations collaboration to achieve economic growth and face the problems of various nations. "Dealing with these problems and overcoming them requires cooperation, strengthening convergence, and utilizing regional potential properly." 

This article discusses the problems of unemployment around the world - while unemployment is leveling off in the United States, it continues to increase in the Euro Zone, which is suffering from economic problems.

This demonstrates scarcity by showing that a shortage of drugs, caused by manufacturing problems, is causing high markups from secondary suppliers. 

I recently heard about a similar issue in Canada and I assume the same problem is occurring elsewhere... Drug companies have decided to switch their focus to more expensive drugs, such as cancer treatment drugs, because they can make so much more money on them. At the same time, they are reducing production of the cheaper drugs because of the low profit margin, even though these drugs may be essential in saving people's lives. The scarcity of the drugs for the people who need them could be easily fixed, but is being prevented due to the greed of large corporations.

It's really unfortunate how so many individual events, such as stolen goods or contaminated drugs, have lead to so much suffering. The market is the big, but (as the article says) there are only about a half-dozen companies that produce these drugs, and so when there is one little problem, it quickly becomes something much bigger. It isn't just one reason, this article otulines several, all of which are wreaking havoc on patients and the healthcare system as a whole. Clearly, pharmacists are scrambling to provide for their patients. Hopefully, this shortage doesn't lead to illegal imports or other bad things that can occur when people are desperate.

One topic we have discussed a lot in supply-side policy is the funding of education, and how increased funding can lead to more efficiency in the economy. However, after the Ontario budget, the government decided to freeze teacher wages to try to reduce funding in this education sector; which has created many problems in our province as teacher unions are now taking action, with the threat of a strike still being possible. Supply-side policy gone wrong.

The world economy is in a troubling situation right now, and leaders of the G-8 countries have often disagreed on how to deal with economic troubles. Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany) has pushed Europe into using austerity measures to attempt to solve its debt problems; but with this meeting the focus shifted rather to economic growth, and how the countries would work together to achieve this in the next few crucial months.

Sirius XM Radio was once saved the "January Effect" thanks to their merger several years ago. They experienced the benefits of economies of scale as a much larger organization, which brought the two previous companies back up in stock. However, they are still facing many challenges because economies of scale do not solve all problems. Some of the issues: "A low profit margin of 9.2 percent, and an astronomical Total/Debt to Equity of 492. Also, the rapid change in broadcasting technologies, and the Internet radio gaining ground, it is a matter of time before satellite-radio becomes obsolete. Satellite subscriptions are part of consumer spending that is usually negatively affected by a weak economy, consumers will not spend excessive money on this."

A government sponsored agency currently controls the prices for dairy products in Canada. This was implemented because the government wanted to regulate the prices paid to dairy farmers and the amount of milk they could produce, in order to protect the farmers. However, problems have begun to arise because of these price controls, mostly due to the fact that the market price is much higher than it should be (which hurts consumers) and it is costing billions of dollars each year.

This article demonstrates the scarcity facing the food supply of people in North Korea. Although we would normally expect food scarcity because of, for example, a natural disaster, the food scarcity experienced by the people in North Korea is not only because of a lack of food being made... It is scarce because the government is preventing the supply of food from getting to the people, creating a greater demand than supply. Food is a limited resource, but the problem of scarcity in this part of the world is because of political reasons in addition to natural.

It's really disturbing to read this. When we're working towards satisfying as many wants as we have, some people don't even get what they need.

This article outlines how dependent energy sources are on water. The wants and needs for water resources are increasing worldwide, and this could become a problem to power plants, hydroelectric facilities, and other major sources of global water supply.

Aha! Scarcity of water supply, and it's a need. It is really important for us, human beings to know the importance of preserving the environment!

This piece by The Globe and Mail outlines Canada's ongoing shortage of healthcare professionals, particularly family doctors. Although it doesn't address economics directly, this article applies to our topic because doctors are considered a 'service', and thus not having enough of them is a scarcity within Canada's economy. The author talks about how difficult it is to find a regular family doctor in her area. According to her, there are actual business dedicated to helping people locate doctors. At the end of the article, statistics reveal that this is a normal problem occuring in a large part of Canadians. There is actually also a major shortage of healthcare professionals in developing areas such as Africa, where there aren't even suitable medical locations in the case of an emergency. **By the way: I apologize for my lack of tags other than 'scarcity'... I accidentally posted the article before tagging anything else! **I fixed the tags... finally figured out how, woohoo!!

This is a great example of scarcity, and even opportunity cost. These doctors are somewhat of a luxury, and although they are a need, the scarcity makes them a reasonable want as well. Scarcity may have largely negative repercussions, yet there is an occasional positive outcome for some unit in an economy. It's certainly beneficial to the other businesses (helping to locate doctors) that have evolved from this problem, and those companies are profiting from a Nation's scarcity.

Unemployment is a huge issue that is coming from the eurozone economic challenges. There is a negative growth, and increasing unemployment rate. Changing the value of currency, and having difficulties stimulating economic growth are contributing to the problem. The economy is slowing down, which inevitably leads to higher unemployment.

This article talks about how inflation affects the economy and society. It mainly talks about how it affects unemployment. It later goes on to test the theory that (quote) "a short-term rise in unemployment can permanently damage an economy, by making it harder for those laid off to find work even when times recover". The government, however, is tackling the problem.

Hello, This article talks about problem and the negative externality an 5,000 gallon oil spill has caused in a local river, which covered over two miles. The article talks about the clean up act and how some fish are dying. The article does not talk about how the dying fish will affect local trade, however, I think it should not affect it that greatly due to the fact there are other rivers and seas from which to fish in and the river was quiet small. However, the oil could get into people's drinking supply and it could make people ill. From, Tim

This article concerns the problems that are being caused by a wagon-assembly factory in India. Not only does the factory cause air-pollution through fumes, but it also causes noise-pollution and vibrations that make living in the area very uncomfortable. This clearly illustrates how the MSC is much greater than the MPC of production, and is therefore is therefore a "Negative Externality of Production".

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?

This article talks about how British teens going to other European resorts are too unruly to be there. There only aim is to get drunk and party, so the article examines how this haoppens, why this happens, and the effect such actions have on local communtities in the areas where thiese problems are most prevalent.

Who likes cheese? In Canada we do, and it's not helpful that our dairy prices are so much higher than other countries. This article analyzes our situation compared to other countries, particularly the United States. It also brings up the idea of other countries imposing subsidies to pay out farmers to help the problem (ie. US farmers get 31 cents per litre of milk). As well, Canadian farmers get a quota to how much product they can produce, so that really restricts competition in this industry.

In this article, the fact that the Welsh government wants to put a subsidy on going to university, is being discussed. The problem is with this subsidy, it will cost the government £3.6 billion.

This article discusses the current issue in the United States when it comes to the price controls for sugar. Not only has it cost a lot of people their jobs, it is also eliminating the possibility for the growth of more jobs. And the problem isn't just with the jobs...the price control for sugar has caused an increase inprice in many goods that use to make their products...such as breakfast cereal....so even thought the price control is meant as a normative economic action...it may negatively impact the market.

This article talks about how supply-side policies are implemented and how it affects the price of gasoline. This is mainly because of the global crude oil prices decreasing. On top of that, there is an increase in supply from the Middle East supplemented by a decrease in demand. "If there are any problems on the supply side, as in Iran, Libya or Nigeria, then prices will be right back up," said Michael C. Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research.