Economics HL - Jacob Solomon's group - Year 1

The article is mainly about the fuel oil price and it's relation with Malaysia's oil market. It questions the demand and supply aspect of the determinants of the price of oil and talks about suggestions through an indirect perspective.

The rationing function ( a specific aspect in price mechanism) Prices serve to ration scarce resources when demand in a market outstrips supply. When there is a shortage of a product, the price is bid up - leaving only those with sufficient willingness and ability to pay with the effective demand necessary to purchase the product. In this case this countries are finidng a suitable way to solve the issues regarding issues concerning gas...

This article concerns the industry of solar panels. Last year, demand for solar panels doubled in countries such as Germany and Italy. This was in response to the increase in supply. Last year, the average price of a solar panel halved due to advanced technology (a ceteris paribus factor of supply). This decreased the costs of production of solar panels, shifting the supply curve to the right. In response to the low prices, demand also increased. This demonstrates the price mechanism.

China will make job creation a more urgent priority in the face of slowed economic growth and weakened exports. Equilibrium is connected to this article because of the balance needed to keep the economic growth in china. The growth of China may be going too fast and it is needed to slow down and in order to keep the Economics i china, China had create jobs to counter the economics slowdown.

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.

"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 talks about the supply and demand equilibrium for oil. It says how the price of oil has changed in recent years, and perhaps what the true equilibrium price of oil should be, as well as making some future predictions about the possible price of oil.

This article talks about how forecasting demand influences the setting of prices. Producers use online tools to predict demand and hence set the prices. If generally consumers are confident with the products, the demand rises, and equilibrium prices will go up because the demand curve shifts to the right. When supply and demand are almost at equilibrium, the prices will tend to become more stable.

This article focuses on the equilibrium in the oil market, or in this case a "fragile" equilibrium. Recently, Europe as well as other parts of the world, have been trying to find alternatives for using oil. For everything, other than transportation, there is an alternative to burning oil. So in places where the population is steady, and not rising dramatically...the demand for oil is going down, therefore shifting the demand curve and the equilibrium price. However there are still many countries in which the demand for oil is growing. I the oil industry, the equilibrium is constatly wavering...but so far, it has stayed in a range and hasn't strayed too far from that range yet.

Due to the increase in different nationalities in the population of the US, there has been a huge increase in demand for translation services, especially in the medical field. Because of this non-price determinant of demand changing, the demand curve for translating services shifted to the right. As the curve shifted to the right, this means that the equilibrium price and quantity both increased. Since a market always moves toward equilibrium, in this case it meant supply had to increase as well. It is for these reasons that the company discussed in this article is looking to expand its services and acquire new companies - so the market will be back at equilibrium and the demand for translating services is met by the same supply.

The National Broadband Network Company (NBN) wanted to slowly reduce their internet connection prices to benefit consumers. However, any price mechanism they try is just increasing the CPI (Consumer Price Index). The CPI measures change in price level of consumer goods and services purchased by households; in this situation specifically internet providers. We all obviously need the internet, but many companies are struggling with correct pricing, a key component of their business. They are beginning new projects that need more money, which in turn causes a price hike. The article uses a lot of technological 'lingo' with statistics to back up plans of price comparison.

This article demonstrates the concept of equilibrium by pointing out that there is a shortage of sugar in Europe because the EU is trying to shrink the sugar industry. The shortage of sugar means there's excess demand; the supply is insufficient because of certain trade barriers and import duties. 

This article is about the fact that microsoft increased the price of their xbox live. This is a "subscription" so that you can play online, with friends and people all around the world, and the price has increased. I don't think that less people will buy it though. It was $50, now it's $60. People who really want to play online were willing to pay $50 so i don't think these $10 will make a change.

In a way this makes microsoft out to be a bad comapny. It talks about how they have almost conned people into the purchase of the console, and how they can then determine the price of the xbox live. But, the customers are buying the console, in the knowledge that the price of the live play is not constant and can rise dependent on what microsoft feel is correct. Microsoft have tried to counter the price rise, with a reduced price in the common, years to try and deflect from the annual incraese in price that they are putting in place.

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

I think that this is a very relevant article to the weeks topic. It covers in depth the potential issues that the world could face, in richer countries with a shortage of food, and poorer countries with farmers not being able to harvest in a way to supply enough food for the demand around the world. In the current world, starvation is a major issue, and the artcile illustartes this is a informative but serious manner.

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 predicts the demand for the new iPhone 4S, given the available resources. The main service providers are ALWAYS in competition over the latest smart phones, and now Sprint has joined the battle with AT&T and Verizon. The price has been significantly lowered for the older versions of the phone, and the newest version is pretty expensive. Many people will be willing to pay the higher price because of the features and higher level of technology.

By using the words "while supplies last", companies usually convince people that there is a bigger demand for their product than there is supply. This would actually influence demand, because people will think that everyone else wants this phone, and they won't be able to get it if they don't get it soon, so the demand may actually increase by saying this.

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.

This is an article from China earlier in the year, talking about how the demand for gold related items has grown rapidly over a short period of time. It is obviously very relevant to the topic this week as it talks about the markets demand for a scarce product, which will have a big impact on the product supply & demand curve.

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 adresses the issue of the increasing demand for water. In the readinig in Lesson 1 this week, we learnt about factors that affect demand, one of them was population. The world's population is increasing, therefore the demand for all resources is going up. This takes into account another factor that affects demand...the demand for other goods which are compliments, this article discusses agriculture. So with the growing population, not only will the demand for drinkng water increase, but also its demand will increase for agricultural purposes and many more.

The demand for water is very unique because it isn't just in demand for one purpose, as you alluded to. We use it for drinking, but also washing, agriculture, industrial uses, etc. On top of all that, the market consists of all living things... making it very in demand at all times. Good choice of article!