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.

"There is no conspiracy between the major banks, smaller banks, building societies and the RBA" ... Steven Munchenberg. Photo: Justin McManus The Australian banking sector has hit back after an offshore analyst cast doubts on the arguments used by the local sector for justifying lifting mortgage rates independently of the Reserve Bank this month. Furthermore, this article goes onto explain, in much detail, the situation and context of an oligopoly in the Australian banking industry.

(No intended link to Monique's) This article talks about the Canadian Wheat Board, and the potentially detrimental affects of ending this monopoly in the prairie provinces. ending this monopoly would make the market more competitive, which would take away from the research and development of new methods and new tools.

This article discusses the declining revenues of Connecticut's Gaming industry. As the demand decreases, the revenue begins to drop. The state is looking at new ways to gain revenue, including through online gaming, which a few provinces in Canada have already done successfully.

This article discusses the option and possibility of Private Jails coming to Canada. This is because there are so many prisoners who need to be cared for that the cost has risen by extreme amounts! The possibility that jails could become a private enterprise is a very likely possibility.

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.

A market failure occurs when the transaction between a buyer and seller imposes costs on a third party and these costs are not included in the price paid. The third party impact is called an externality. When the externality is negative, like in this scenario, then we should try to limit the consumption, thus raise the price, however this has evidently not happened.

In this situation, The government has had milk price controls in place for over 70 years because during the time of the great depression, the government wanted to ensure that farmers stayed in business, while working class families were able to access milk at affordable prices. The actual issue that this article discusses is that of the still existent price controls, as they do not still have the same purpose as they used to.

This article discusses the excise taxes in Hawaii and how the revenues have risen over 8 percent in recent times! Although the article did not describe exactly why this has occurred, however the most accurate predictions would that the increase in revenue would be due to increased taxes on inelastic items, for example, gasoline, etc. This not only ensures that the demand is unchanged, but also ensures that all other factors stay the same. Another reason why the revenues have increased could be that the taxes did not increase, however the population grew.

"The study looked at 'demand elasticities' in Australia for 15 food categories and is the most comprehensive ever done in the field. The degree to which a product's demand or supply reacts to a change in price is known as its 'elasticity'" This article highlights that out of 15 food groups studied, milk, bread, fresh fruit and fresh vegetables all have an inelastic demand. This is the opposite as to what i personally would have predicted, because with varying prices and what i assumed was a varying demand for fruits and vegetables, i thought that this could be an elastic demand. Some of the products with an elastic PED are All meat types, rice, margarine and preserved vegetables. This is interesting as it seems as though consumers would rather pay more to have food that can spoil, compared to food which can be stored or freezed.

"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.

This article explains that food prices are increasing, and will continue to increase because of the increasing demand in third world countries especially.

As world worries grow about a crash in the system, this article looks at some of the current issues involving the depletion of food in North America. We have already seen the severe consequences of scarcity (in terms of food) in Eastern Africa with the current famine. Certain steps will need to be taken to make sure that the same this doesn't happen in North America