Group items tagged

For production of some wooden goods, Amazon is in danger. I believe that it is a great example for scarcity. Thus the deforestation will stop when there will be no more forests. However, Brazil is in a significant process of decreasing the rate of deforestation hopefully.

This article does not directly relate to the topic "prices" but it does in the sense that people are spending a lot of money to create something that would be helpful to the world, but in the end, having little or no effect. In the end, I believe that people who spend money in some sort of a company, only aims for the marketing part to earn money regardless of the amount of resources they use.

The poverty gap is closing between suburbs and inner cities As I understood because of the needs of people and demands who are below the poverty line there are some storefront where those people can benefit from.

This article is saying how a land as barren as that of Nevada, can still make for good trade. Nevada has made itself a place where questionable events may be held. By doing this they give them self the comparative advantage in tourism. Tourism may not seem like a good but it is. Nevada, by hosting these events, give the tourist an incentive to come. Nevada has made itself more profitable than other tourist destinations by having things such as Boxing and Prostitution. In the interstate/international market for tourism, Nevada has made itself a top competitor.  In the economic terms, Nevada can produce certain services (prostitution, casinos, boxing,...etc) with less opportunity costs (prison, fines, fees,...etc) than the leading competitor. Also it is in a prime location. People from all over the states can fly or drive to Nevada to see the shows and events that would be illegal elsewhere.  This truly shows that with smart planning, any country/entity has the ability to trade successfully. 

This article is about how the Argentinian government is protecting the domestic production of BlackBerrys in order to "cut foreigners' share of Argentina's mobile-phone market". Even though this seems to be a valid case of protectionism, it will "cost $23m upfront, plus $4,500-5,000 a month per worker, some 15 times more than in Asia". This is because Asian laborers and factories have already perfected the production of cell phones. They have the 'factor endowment' in the production of cell phones. This is because to start a factory in Asia, the price is already low. Also the labor is cheap and skilled. The start up price for this endeavor is already going to be $23m, they will also have to train the workers and pay them more than they would if the Argentinian companies outsourced the production to Asia. Another problem with the domestic production of cell phones in Argentina is that Argentina, at this moment, is not known for their production of cell phones. They are not a place in which companies like Motorola or Nokia look for to manufacture their products.  Argentina could do this but it will take them a long time before they clean of their capital debt. In the short run, they will not make any money but nobody knows for sure what the long run has in store for this unorthodox market. In my opinion, Argentina should focus its money on something that will be profitable not only in the long run but also in the short run. This is possible. Argentina has a factor endowment, its tourism. It does not take that much money and effort to increase the amount of tourism in a country that is obviously beautiful and worth seeing. Even if they were not to invest in tourism, they could focus on, for instance, the exporting of more beef or fish. These are things that people already are accustomed to getting from Argentina. It all bundles down to this: when you think about Japanese production, you think cars and phones. When you think about Argentinian production, you

This article is about how consumers are paying more for fuel than they have before. The "Big Six" says that it is because of the "opacity" in the price system. This is due to tariffs. There is a "lack of competition" because consumers are unable to verify which prices are the lowest due to the tariffs. Consumers may be purchasing energy from the least efficient company and not know it due to the artificial prices due to tariffs. There are also two other problems. In a supply and demand graph with a tariff in place, one expects that when a tariff is set, the demand will decrease; this is not totally true for energy. Energy is a very price inelastic good and therefore the quantity demanded will not change by much when the price is artificially risen. The other problem with this scenario is that there are only six major energy producers, the "Big Six". This market is a very oligopolist market. There might be a decline in competition simply due to the "Big Six" working as a group to form an imperfect market. 

This is a very interesting article about how Chinese economists are going to raise the value of the yuan. It seems that there are outreaching effects in the United States - the exports from China will raise in price and therefore Americans' disposable income will start to decrease. 

This article discusses the current disequilibrium in the fibre market, stating that the price elasticity of fibre may reduce the harm of this disequilibrium to the industry.

Talia, the articles from The Economist are good for learning how to analyse, it is actually the best economics magazine on the market that gives great analysis of many things economics. But these articles leave little room for providing own analysis. More 'raw' articles which do not provide the analysis would be more useful in this course in the future.

This article talks about how the increase in oil prices could lead to a recession (or "trigger" a recession). This is possibly due to the fact that there is a decrease in quantity demanded (due to the increase in price), which would further lead to a decrease in output in the end.

The Economist reports on the possible negative effects of protectionist measures being considered by the US against China.

This article is based on a Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Mundell talking about how a single world currency is not likely to happen or be adopted by the world. He stated that in order for this to potentially happen, the US dollar and the Euro would have to merge and create a "eurodollar", as they are the "two most important currencies" in the world.

The article is discussing the effect on recent in events in Egypt on their exchange rate. The exchange rate has devalued drastically in the last year and economists say that a further devaluation will almost be inevitable, as it is likely to cause a very bad inflation as well as further social unrest. The reason for the devaluation in the currency is reduced demand for the currency, for example there are much fewer tourists in Egypt now that have been before.

Two economists view on Greece's financial crisis and the problems with allowing it to leave the EU or the Eurozone

Vikram Akula, the founder of SKS Microfinance, the for-profit company that is accused of aggressive collection tactics, made an unexpected observation Sunday night at the Social Enterprise Conference at Harvard University. "Professor Yunus was right," Mr. Akula said, referring to Muhammad Yunus, the Grameen Bank founder, economist and a frequent critic of Mr. Akula and others who tried to turn microfinance into a for-profit industry.

It is good to see that USA has increased rate of both exports and imports however trade deficid for oil is quite blockbuster

This article is based on the scarcity of the food. The article gives data about the poverty rates of the world. The article judges that who should be responsible for the poverty.

we should all be responsible as the resources is limited and it's close to impossible to full fill everybody's needs and wants.

Seeing people death because of the starvation make me really upset. But I am afraid, it does not make many people in the world. If it made, something would change. I agree with you Tiffany, we should be all responsible about that. But the countries which exploited the country of that poor people should be more responsible and should not act nothing happened. They cannot ignore the situation.

This article is about the water scarcity in China. The article also explains why the water pricing should be liberalize.

This article documents the rising demand for silver due to its many industrial applications, particularly its use in electronics and solar panels. This rising demand has cause the price of silver to drastically rise, even outpacing the price of gold.

This is a very nice article about the fall in British house prices. The article makes comments on the whole British economy. It even compares it with the US economy.

This article is about the supply of electricity in Nigeria. As we all know, people in Nigeria is facing with a lot of problems such as poverty. Now, they also need to deal with electricity, becuase they do not have enough electricity anymore.