Economics HL - Jacob Solomon's group - Year 1

This article talks about how as a result of Japan's horrific earthquake and tsunami, the supply of many products from Japan, has caused the growth of there economy to slow dramatically in comparison to recent years.

This article shows that the oil prices drops. This is hurting the demand for energy.With all the economic worries, yet the oil price is still dropping it is a concern for economic melt down. Because demand is the quantity of a good that consumers are willing and able to purchase at a given price in a given time period, Oil drops will increase the amount of people buying the oil and yet one day they will raise again.

This article is about the Canadian e-book company, Kobo, and their fight for sales against Amazon's product, Kindle. Kobo and Kindle are both very similar and have been competing against one another as 'substitutes' (as we've read about) for a long time. However, a new Kindle was just released that is priced even lower than the Kobo just in time for Christmas. Kobo's problem is that since Kindle has lowered their prices, they are sliding along their demand curve and thus increasing their demand. Kobo might not be able to afford lowering their prices much further, and so this might mean their whole demand curve will shift to the left because Kindle has better prices.

I've never even heard of the Kobo and I live in Canada. I guess it doesn't have very much of a chance, especially with the new price competition.

This article demonstrates opportunity cost by saying that by selling short term treasuries, which will lower their price, and buying long term treasuries, which will raise their price, there will be benefits for banks with mortgages on their balance sheets.

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.

Production costs have risen for farmers producing milk from their cows, which has resulted in a shortage of milk, but a still constant supply.

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 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.

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

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.

The prices for iron ore, an essential resource for the production of many goods, has been predicted to decrease during this upcoming year.

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 is about how the UK's recession is continuing and it talks about how even though the tax revenue has increased this year, the spending continues to rise.

"Facebook Inc.'s lineup of six major Wall Street banks to manage its initial public offering reflects the social network's determination to pursue a conventional IPO and avoid an exotic approach to the share sale, people familiar with the company said." This article approaches to the idea about the interaction between the banks and Facebook, these interactions can shown in a relation of the free markets. also, the article mentions the competition Facebook with other social sites.

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.

Hello, In this article it talks about how South Sudan has suspended its oil production due to a disagreement with the Republic of the Sudan. South Sudan says it will stop its oil production because it does not want to share its revenue with Sudan. Sudan has accused the south for not paying transport fees, because the south has all the oil fields however, it relays on the north because south Sudan does not have a port and uses Sudan's port to export their oil. South Sudan claims that Sudan has stolen $350,000,000 worth of crude oil as an exchange of their transport fees. The two countries are know in Ethiopia trying to settle an agreement in which the south can use the north in order to export their oil.