The article that I bookmarked for this week is about how exchange rates and bad climate are affecting Brazil's melon shipments. Brazil is a large exporter of melons and Europe is their biggest importer of melons. Because of the recent financial problems in Europe the exchange rates are not in Brazil's favor for exports. Due to these bad exchange rates for an exporting industry and the bad weather also hurting the melons, Brazil's melon farmers are facing some problems.

This article discusses an initiative by the head of states of several African countries to form a FTA between 26 African countries. The article discusses the advantages of this FTA such as very small countries working together to improve global trading but also the problems with creating it such as the political and social issues in Africa right now.

This article discusses the difficulties with achieving free trade between two countries. Despite the free trade agreement almost two years ago, the US and Mexico are still facing political issues which means that a mexican truck was allowed on U.S. soil for the first time recently.

This article discusses a tariff that the Bush administration in the US imposed on Roquefort cheese in retaliation to the ban on hormone-fed beef. The tariff is 300% which does not ban it however it puts such an increased cost on it that it practically prevents farmers in Roquefort from exporting it to the US.

This article is another one that describes the reasons for the controversial China currency bill that many US senators are trying to pass. While this bill has the right idea that the US needs to reduce the many imports from China, the reason being that China is undervaluing the yuan may just be an excuse.

This article discusses an example of protectionism where a country (the US) might be just giving an unfair excuse in order to prevent imports

This article discusses international trade between the US and China. This article talks about differences in currency value between the two countries and how the US is trying to solve these currency imbalances in order to lower unemployment in the US.

This article is interesting since it discusses the problem with deciding on who pays higher taxes. The tax described here is a progressive tax but it is hard to decide at which income to increase the income tax.

This article discusses how China's personal tax rate is too high and will be lowered in order to create incentives for work. Good example of supply-side policies.

This article talks about the long term affects of raising or lowering interest rates. This article talks about how the government can't react too much to inflation because the effects of raising or lowering interest rates may not be seen for two years.

This article discusses the different views of the Republicans and Democrats on setting the 2012 fiscal budget. The US government almost shutdown because the parties could not come to an agreement on how to spend money. This is a big topic in the US right now, especially with the increasing debt.

This article discusses different approaches to recovering from the recession and the different view points of the Republicans and Democrats. It also talks about who should be taxed different amounts and how much they should be taxed.

This article discusses the business cycles of the US. It talks about how these cycles are getting smaller and smaller for the US with fewer years in between crest and trough. This article also discusses how these shorter business cycles are affecting the value of the US dollar, inflation, etc.

This article discusses how the rise in oil prices will be one of the huge risk factors for another recession. High oil prices would be caused by a diminishing supply of oil. Higher prices of oil would cause inflation and since people would not be payed more, the economy would fall into another recession.

Interesting article about the recent stimulus package that the US government put into place. Discusses the Keynesian model, which says that government intervention is needed to get an economy back on track.

Interesting article about inflation and disagreements on how bad it is. Interesting topic is about how the NY Fed Chief's comment about commodity's, such as the iPad 2, prices are falling or staying the same but he said this as he is talking to a group who of people focused on just buying food which is experiencing rising prices.

Good article to talk about unemployment. Not only does it talk about the unemployment rates in the last few months in the US but it also talks about which job sectors are hiring (a good example of structural unemployment/employment)

Interesting article, as it shows how San Diego is using the building of a new baseball park as a way of boosting the economic development in a "run down urban area". It talks about how most professional sports stadium builders try and say that it will boost economic development but in the end it sits there for most of the year without much economic development. This article shows how this one is different. San Diego is forcing the owner, John Moores, to build many hotels and other buildings around the area to pay back the city for helping to finance the stadium. In return it should produce economic development for the area.

This article discusses Egypt's recent economic growth and the effects of the riots lately. It also predicts what its economic growth and GDP will be like in the near future. Interesting article considering how recent it is.

This article is interesting since it not only brings up the housing market failure in 2010 but also brings up the negative effects of all the foreclosures happening. With foreclosures comes a lot of crime, including people breaking into foreclosed homes to live in and use as shelter.