Group items tagged

Unemployment is one of the indicators used to look at a country's macro-economy. The low unemployment in Germany leads economists to believe that the economy is recovering, meaning it is going through the "recovery" stage of the business cycle - a positive thing for a country after a global recession.

"We need to have a much more honest conversation about the tradeoff between inflation and real growth." There is an ongoing conflict of how to manage inflation via increasing aggregate demand which is the classic trade off. The article indicates "liberals arguing for government intervention and conservatives often pushing for tax breaks and incentives to get the private sector moving again." This is not only a national economic conflict, but a political conflict as well.

"I think we've got something of an abnormal equilibrium in the market at the moment in that we've got high inflation and a weak economic recovery on one side but we've got very low interest rates on the other," explains Cook. This article, as said by Mr.Cook above, explores the current market, and how the equilibrium is "off" because of the high inflation, weak economic recovery, and low interest rates. It is almost as if although measures were taken to find that equilibrium, the market has not responded as it should.

The article talks about how India's switch of economic policy led to a recovery and is now in rapid economic growth. "Even if capital flows were to reduce to zero as they did in 2008, following the collapse of Leman Brothers, reserves would drop by only $40 billion over twelve months, still leaving a healthy $250 billion or so of cover." The article ends with advice on how India can further strengthen their current state by increasing foreign investments.

Basically what this article is trying to convey is the issue of the unstable price of palm oil in Malaysia and how it affects and is affected by the economy. The decease in demand of palm oil due to high stock and a festive season ending is assumed to increase due to other festive seasons starting therefore predictably showing a recovery trend.

This is an example of the non-price determinant of demand that we learned about earlier, seasonal change. As different festive seasons approach, different demands change. Another example would be as some cultures celebrate Halloween at the end of October, the demand for pumpkins (and candy!) increases.