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WE, as consumers have a lot of power. Businesses just want to maximize profits -- and we can make it profitable for them to be more sustainable. This article discusses this statement in more detail, suggesting that amongst the methods that can be used to counter market failures of consumption and production which accelerate environmental phenomenon such as global warming, is rethinking and prioritizing the choices of consumption that we make on a daily basis. Businesses respond to consumer demand. If we demand more environmentally oriented products... wouldn't that make a difference?

This articles talks about how there are some recently discovered petroleum reserves in Sudan and how they exploit this abundance by selling it to other countries where there's a lack of it, and, with the profit, the buy weapons and ammo and promote a war that lasts for 19 years.

The article states that Verizon's revenue dropped 2.9% in the third quarter of 2010 to $26.5 Bn. Although this surpassed analysts expectations, it was poor in comparison to AT&T's (Verizon's rival) earnings for the third quarter. The success of AT&T in this quarter was attributed to sales of the iPhone in the wireless mobile devices market. Verizon has therefore opted to shift supply to concentrate more on the growing smartphone market, investing heavily in 4G data transmission infrastructure to compete with AT&T. A new tiered pricing model is also being introduced to entice customers to purchase smart phones from Verizon. This aptly demonstrates the price mechanism as a signal to producers in a market economy - if competitors are supplying a profitable product/service, other firms in the industry will also shift supply to produce that product/service to attract high profits.

This Article highlights the problem of water scarcity in war-torn Iraq. The Scarcity of Water has caused the government to make it a priority in solving this problem along with UNESCO and the EU. Any story that involves Iraqi politicians cooperating to solve an issue must be a good sign weither they accomplish it or not. This Scarcity is a central and unifying issue and ironically may produce positive effects.

Nabil, I find this interesting since it associates scarcity with water. I recently read an article that talked about the implications of bottled water being treated as a luxury good in developed nations (branded water even!). And in your article water is being discussed as a scarce resource. Clearly, it would make more moral sense for less water to be sold as a luxury and more distributed to areas where it's scarce, but the profit motive steers the practice in another direction altogether!

Nabil, I also find this particularly interesting because I've always wondered about whether or not water availability will decrease as time progresses and the amount of human beings in the planet increases. I have always thought of water as being incredibly cheap if not completely free (go to a river and sip some water), and this makes it hard for me to think of water as being something that will be depleted any time soon.

The article discusses the price mechanism as a signal for allocation of resources in two markets - consumers goods and stock market. A rational perspective would assume that as demand rises, suppliers are attracted to the particular product as they see incentive for profit and thus supply extends and prices rise. This then has the opposite effect as since prices are high, demand contracts. This self-correcting mechanism is in place for the market of consumer goods, as the article discusses. Eventually, price will return to equilibrium. However, in the case of stocks, as prices of stocks rise, investors are more attracted to the stock as they see incentive for capital gain. Thus demand extends, contrary to the rational model observed in the market for consumer goods. Nevertheless, the article provides supports the notion that as demand rises, prices rise and more of that particular good/service is supplied to the market.

Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama has chosen to lower the price of food so as to allow the villagers of Fiji. Still the price was left high enough to let businesses a good profit. This is a perfect example of price roof that doesn't have negative ripercussions on the market

This article is about cigarettes and plastic bags being a public good and their consequences. There are issues in different countries with these goods and the author talks about what people do against that.

This article discusses why not-for-profit companies are having a hard time meeting their goals for this year. I have seen this impact of the recession on a nonprofit firsthand because I am on the board for the United Way of Central Indiana and we are having trouble meeting our yearly goal.