IB Economics B

While the economic definition of 'scarcity' may seem obscure to this particular scenario, on closer inspection we find that the definition of 'unlimited needs/wants but limited resources' can indeed be applied to the scarcity of jobs as a result of the recession. The 'want' in this case is labour seeking employment and the limited resource is the relative liquidity of business. While this article is generally about foreclosure and its effect on the economy, I feel it demonstrates a highly relevant application of economic scarcity in the current environment.

I totally agree with you and the website. Jobs are also a scarcity problem. Because resources cannot be limited (some maybe not), but jobs is definitively limited, due to the fact, there are not enough jobs for everyone. Day by day, people are suffering more to find jobs, due to the amount of people trying to get them. Popularity in the world is increasing greatly, jobs is not so much; therefore, jobs is a scarce "good".

Jobs are the main scarcity problem in my country and I think it's a huge problem for the world too. Like resources, there are limited amount of jobs for the people and sometimes adults stay jobless. As the world's population increases, number of unemplyed people increases too. When there was an economic crisis in the world, many poeple were fired from their jobs.

This article discusses how the prices of renting or buying condos, houses, apartments is determining the markets in different cities. It brings up the point of how prices are allocating capital goods; houses, apartments, condos, etc.

This article is about how water scarcity is affecting not only our economy but also how governments manage it.

Even though water is not a scarce resource, it is becoming scarce in various regions. These regions tend to be highly populated areas such as countries in Europe including Spain and France. In contrast, areas such as iceland, who have everlasting water, do not have a problem of scarcity because of there low population.

Many people believe water scarcity is a problem mainly related to areas such as Africa, Arab Saudi...etc However this problem is affecting Europe as well. Regions such as Spain or France, during summer suffer from lots of fire. This produces lands to become inert in other words, the land becomes unprodutive. This is a problem, but at the same time, the lack of water (rain) is great. This produces rivers, lakes...etc to decrease the amount of water. Finbally all these problems are causing some countries to start having scarce water problems.

Market Forces cause a rise in Oil prices, leveling off at $82 dollars a barrel. This high price for oil might make OPEC who meet later this month decide to pump more oil.

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.

In Indonesia, where the land was once seemed to be covered by endless dark waves of treetops, almost indiscriminate logging is taking place - both legal and illegal. The irony is, this deterioration of forests in the country is actually recorded as progress. This is because the land which is cleared is used for other purposes which are considered less 'scarce'. Logically, in a country with plenty trees, the scarcity of trees will not be very high. Thus, by reducing supply of something which they have an ostentatiously an 'infinite' supply of and acquiring more scarce means of economic production, this economic phenomenon is recorded as progress in Indonesia.

This article discusses the prices of crude oil and what makes them change. Kent also talks about the current stability of crude oil prices and something called the "Ratcheting Effect". This article is very interesting because it pertains to very recent events and also vaguely to the oil spill by BP in the Gulf. Although it does contain some bias in certain aspects, some of the statements are very general and unbiased.

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.

A study made by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and HSBC 's Climate Change Center of Excellence in Southeast Asia found out that the largest thermal and hydroelectric powerplants were located in areas greatly suffering from water scarcity. This poses a major problem since these power plants heavily rely on water.

This article descibes the simple way of life of the Maasai people. As the article states, since 1885 this people have fasinated the rich western world. What I found fasinating was that the very things that made them as a people so interesting are also the same things that we in the western world do not desire for ourselves. We want comfort and luxury. Given the scarcity of resources that our generation is having to deal with, the Maasai people may become our new model of society.

This article is telling us of how the scarcity in amount of resources, namely wheat, affects the price of the resource. related to it is: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/business/global/06wheat.html?ref=global

This article discusses the scarcity of fresh water as the population grows and the availability of fresh water decreases. This article focuses on the scarcity of our land resources as the population grows since everyone wants water and what Suez Environment is doing to slow down the process. This article relates to the topic of infinite wants that we discussed and how people will always want water.

Author: Dr. Sam Vaknin This article pertains to scarcity in resources now and how the "new economy" is self-destructive and will never function until we adapt.

This article narrates an example of how the scarcity in amount of resources, namely oil, affects the price of the resource.