Economics HL - Jacob Solomon's group - Year 1

Although part of this article talks about the hypocrisy of staging Climate Change Comferences (due to the environmental implications of travelling to it), the middle of it talks about some economics. Instead of just harping on the envoronmental effects of climate change, people are suggesting that the negative externalities of creating pollution may begin to affect a country's GDP. This is interesting because now the social cost that the company should have paid is now being bounced back for everyone to pay.

This article is about the dominant electrical market brand of Microsoft and one of their forgotten monopolies which is their fonts. They have produced all the fonts we see used regullarly today, including Verdana and Arial, and this article beleives it is now time to break this monopoly

This article is about how the falling prices may not be good news for everyone. It may mean that jobs are harder to get when businesses don't want to employ more people. It may symbolise the fact that a recession is about to happen or is happening.

This article discusses whether or not it is a realistic or feasbale presumption to make that an aggregate supply curve can be vertical in the long run. The article discusses this is alot of detail and outline reasons why in fact the model may not work as it is yet to be truly tested.

This article talks about how the Aggregate Demand increases in that year.

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.

In this article, the fact that the Welsh government wants to put a subsidy on going to university, is being discussed. The problem is with this subsidy, it will cost the government £3.6 billion.

Gone are the days when cellphones were a luxury, or a tool for a few business elite. They are now a normal and essential part of life - both in business and personal affairs. Many families, like mine, have done away with fixed line phones completely, and this trend is growing.

This article concerns the fact that minimum wage for the UK will be raised by 11p; an increase of 1.8% from its current level. This change will affect aggregate supply in the short run (SRAS curve); as it will effectively increase the costs of production for all the firms in the industries of the economy. The result will be a shift to the left on the SRAS model.

This article talks about environmental sustainability, especially in the US, in terms of the carbon and oil situation. Hindering some paths of oil trade, may slow down the trade in the early stages, however there will be other paths since the international demand is so high right now. The price is steadily decreasing with the increased demand. The only ways to control this demand for oil that may be hurting our planet would be to tax the carbon (increasing the price), therefore decreasing demand.

Street lights are an example of a public good - one person using a street light will not prevent others from using it, and it is impossible to stop other people from using a street light once one person is able to use it. Because they are public goods, they are provided by the government, but in this case it is costing the government too much to leave the street lights on all night, so they are considering shutting them off for a portion of the night to save money.

Most of you all already know about RIM's decision to cut the selling price of their tablet, the Playbook, by more than half (presumably because they are discontinuing the product). This is an example of a large firm cutting costs and reducing its output (from their inventories). We can also relate it to the concept of economies of scale, since Blackberry was able to afford to lose the Playbook as their other products are more successful.

"Poet, which currently produces 1.5 billion gallons a year of ethanol from corn, said its 1-year-old pilot plant has reduced the cost of making ethanol from corncobs to $2.35 a gallon from $4.13 by cutting capital costs and using an improved "cocktail" of enzymes" - (picked from the article) The company also changed their source of fuel in order to produce a bigger amount of ethanol.

This article concerns the oligopoly of Coca-Cola and Pepsi in the soft-drinks industry. It is a non-collusive oligopoly; and the two firms compete in order to gain consumers and maximize profits. Although this is usually apparent through non-price competition (as price competition can result in heavy losses for both firms), in this situation in India, Coca-Cola is reducing its prices in order to gain consumers. Pepsi will then follow suit, also reducing its prices, as if it doesn't it may lose many consumers to Coca-Cola.

A sea change in the consumption of a resource that people take for granted may be in store: something cheap, plentiful, widely enjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn't oil. The two commodities have a great deal in common: Like oil, meat receives government subsidies in the U.S.

This article is about how a social networking site for scientists can become more efficient as the scientific community is still very fragmented.

(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.

Google shares fall as costs surge and revenue falls as a result of lower prices.

I thought this article about the state of the US economy was particularly interesting. The statistics of ratio large firm to small firms (3-1, small) is increasing. The article also states, "The market rewards and punishes with little regard to whom or what or how it impacts. Generally, it is large firms that enjoy these little gems of taxpayer munificence. They have become "too-big-to-fail."

This article describes how cheap it is to ship clothing from China to Europ becasue of bulk transportation...one ship carries loads of clothing, so much actually that it only ends up costing a couple cents a shirt to ship it.