Economics HL - Jacob Solomon's group - Year 1

This article discusses how new technology (as well as government subsidies) are allowing the costs of production of wind turbines and wind-generated electricity to decrease.

This article starts by talking of how natural disasters in Thailand are increasing production costs for many different businesses. This may be because the organisations now have to try to make their buildings earthquake-proof and after natural disasters have to spend a lot of money on trying to repair whatever damage was done.

This article examines how the increase of production cost of cent and nickel affects the business. The total costs has been increasing and making the firm losing money.

This article highlights the redesign of solar manufacturing so that it is cost-efficient for the company, as well as energy-efficient for the consumers. The lower-cost manufacturing is simpler by a decision to minimize some production costs by combining the design into a "single silicon wafer processing line." Clearly, it's a variable cost, and a positive change for the firm.

People in Nigeria is protesting about the growing fuel price. Quote from article: "People are now advocating violence. The government has to tread carefully. More than 80% of the people don't support subsidy removal," the entrepreneur said. Many local businesses remains closed and people are walking out on the road to protest.

This is an article from the NY times on alternative energy, and the possibility that infact renewable energies also contain the theory of economies of scale, in large quantities.

This article talks about how the rainy season in Malaysia has affected the roads in Johor Bahru (JB). The potholes raises the risk of accidents and contributes to noise pollution. "There are already many of my friends poking fun that JB means (Jalan Berlubang)." ---- Jalan Berlubang is Malaysian for roads with holes!

This article talks about how negative externalities links to taxes and how it can affect a person. It compares taxing soda with other products like fuel, cigarettes etc. and how the government makes decisions on what to tax. Quote the article: "Even as adults, we sometimes wish for parents to be looking over our shoulders and guiding us to the right decisions. The question is, do you trust the government enough to appoint it your guardian?"

This article talks about how the cost of heating homes are impacting the people of Cardiff - how it has affected their budget and how suppliers are still continuing to raise prices. Therefore, price control needed to be implemented so the situation goes back to being under control. "People shouldn't have to choose between whether to eat or heat but many do."

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 is an article all about the externalities of cars and the new potential for alternative goods for cars and new technology. The article also discusses other ideas such as increasing toll bridge prices which leads to an increase in capital for the construction industry

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

The use of normal cars creates a negative externality of consumption; through the air pollution and noise pollution that is created. The intention to launch an electric car share program in Paris reduces this negative externality; as electric cars do not make any noise and do not (directly) cause air pollution.