Group items tagged

Although there are a lot of numbers in this short article, there are a few things to consider. For one, it draws the line between revenue and profits. It would be interesting to investigate how and why revenues increased, and how this affects the profit. As well, the article talks about the companies' strategies/aims to be successful... for example, community engagement. As we've discussed, it may mean that profit/revenue/volume aren't at their maximum, but it attempts to draw in revenue through ways other than price.

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 concerns the fact that "China's fiscal revenue soared 25% to record in 2011". This is related to our study of revenue. This means that its is an abnormal profit.

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."

This article describes the cell phone costs that one small business owner is experiencing. These cell phone costs could be both fixed and variable costs - she still has to pay her basic cell phone bill no matter how many clients she has, so that cost is fixed regardless of output, in that sense, because at a certain rate the costs are constant. However, if she has a larger number of customers, and needs to call to deal with more of these customers, therefore going over her monthly plan limits, than the cost will begin to vary, so in that sense it is a variable cost. Overall, she needs to attempt to reduce this production cost in order to gain a better profit for her business.

This article details how the large company Proctor & Gamble is attempting to cut variable costs by eliminating jobs, which leads to lower labour costs. This action results in a lower cost for their products, leading to more productive efficiency. This competitive behaviour is also partially reflective of perfect competition, where companies must decrease costs in order to increase profits; however the article also focuses a lot on the advertising done by Proctor & Gamble, which is not fitting with the assumptions of the perfect competition model.

This Financial Post article talks about the successes of Porter Airlines, a small Canadian company that founded about 5 years ago. The company is currently moving through the price mechanism, but hasn't reached its second equilibrium yet. Its demand has increased by a lot recently (due to holding a monopoly at their island airport in Toronto, and higher profit margins per plane compared to other airlines), therefore shifting the curve to the right. However, since the Price has yet to increase, they are stuck at the 'middle stage' of the price mechanism where the demand is higher, but the price is still the same. We can predict from this that the prices will soon increase to make a higher profit with the growing demand, as we've seen in the textbook graphs.

This articles talks about the retailers are managing to increase their prices and pass on higher costs onto their customers. Its talks about how people think that increasing the price will not change the demand or quantity because consumers would accept the price increase because all retailers have the same cost structure and would start to pass the higher prices through. It also talks about that they can increase their prices because their is no substitute for their product. In general there is a economic growth within the world. Average prices in the apparel market rose more than 5 percent from January to May.

On Wednesday, White House officials summoned dozens of leaders of nonprofit organizations that strongly back the health law to help them coordinate plans for a prayer vigil, press conferences and other events outside the court when justices hear arguments for three days beginning March 26. This article shows concern over the American Health care system which is *none profitable*. "For months, Democrats in Congress and progressive groups have urged the White House to make a more forceful defense of the health care law, which is denounced almost daily by Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates."

Hello, In this article it talks about how the shares for GE fell in response to a lower revenue than expected. The fall in revenue of General Electric was caused by a slower than expected growth in the European credit crisis. It says even though GE was making a profit, the slower European market causes them to have a decrease in revenue. They say that because if the credit crisis sales in Europe are not as high and even though people are still purchasing products, the growth at which sales in Europe should have increased are increasing less than what GE wants them to. GE claimed that they are going to change their market footprint through new products and technology in order to increase their revenue and thus increase their shares. From Tim

Google shares fall as costs surge and revenue falls as a result of lower prices.

This article concerns the oligopoly of Coca-Cola and Pepsi in the soft-drinks industry. It is a non-collusive oligopoly; and the two firms compete in order to gain consumers and maximize profits. Although this is usually apparent through non-price competition (as price competition can result in heavy losses for both firms), in this situation in India, Coca-Cola is reducing its prices in order to gain consumers. Pepsi will then follow suit, also reducing its prices, as if it doesn't it may lose many consumers to Coca-Cola.

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.

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.

This article shows how demand for Italian bonds are falling even though prices are falling. This is because they are becoming far too low and until the yield falls again there will be a decrease in demand.

This article is about Italian Bonds. For the demand curve (and also the supply curve), there are multiple equilibria. This can be dangerous, because when the yields rise, de Italian debt may be unsustainable.

Due to the unique shape of the demand curve there may be two or more places where the market is at equilibrium. This means that producers may be able to vary their prices more and still be able to get the highest possible profit from their products.