Group items tagged

Zimbabwe has set extremely low price controls for many primary products, and this has caused many people to go out of business. People are losing a lot of money, but the government is refusing to let the prices go higher. The government is making up for the loss by printing more money, which is causing price inflation. The people are upset, but with the government making sure that the prices are low by threatening to close businesses, there is nothing the people can do about it.

Zimbabwe government is controlling food price by physically forcing merchants and shop keepers to low their price down, other wise will be beaten. It is actually not going to work and can not last for long time. Producers can not supply the goods at a price that allows retailers to make a profit. The inflation of this country also reached the world's highest level. This article showed that price control has to be realistic otherwise will harm the economy.

This article is interesting because it talks about the chain affect of low supply. The articles talks about how the global failure to harvest maize and soya is causing the supply of pig-feed to be low. This causes the price of pig feed to increase and makes it hard for farmers to continually purchase it. This isn't only affecting the farmers, but it is affecting the public. Farmers can't maintain healthy pigs so the supply of pork and ham decreases, which causes the price to increase. This means people aren't as willing to buy pork and ham. The competition between the large amounts of farmers also doesn't help the supply of pig-feed.

This article deals with the delicate balance between inflation that is too high or too low. The president of the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis, James Bullard, argues that the current inflation rate (1.3%) may be getting dangerously close to reaching deflation. Although the unemployment rate has remained higher than 7%, the inflation rate is well below the comfortable 2% goal kept by the Federal Reserve. If the issue becomes preventing deflation, the "Fed" should instead use policies to increase the money supply rather than adopt "tight" money supplies that slow inflation and economic growth.

As a result of constant low unemployment, people in France, Spain, etc. are beginning to question their political leaders. Their leaders happen to be millionaires which is also causing some political unrest.

This article talks about how wine is reaching a equilibrium between it's supply and demand. Global demand for wine is at a low right now, but the price of grapes is increasing. This means companies can't afford to supply the same amount of wine, which actually means they reach a balance with the decreased demand. This is a good representation of how a decrease in demand isn't always bad. 

This article talks about the organic milk shortages, that farmers can't buy enough food to feed their caws because the price for their food has been increased, as a result they give less nutrition to their caws and get less milk. But demand for organic milk is still high and in the article they will some suggestions how to solve that problem.

The demand for organic milk is greater than supply because the production cost of creating organic milk is greater than the revenue. The reason for the shortage is that the cost of organic grain and hay has gone up but the price farmers receive for milk has not. As a result farmers buy less grain and hay which lowers the production of milk. The low supply of organic milk than in turn increases the overall price. The solution for this issue would be to increase the price of income the farmers would receive for their milk. If the solution were applied, the farmers would pay more for organic grain and more milk would be produced and consumers would be satisfied.

This article reveals that as the cost of remaining Czech inflation rate in a low range, the consumer demand is weak and unemployment rise up. This article proved the trade-off relationship between inflation and unemployment.

This article discusses the merger of American Airlines and US Airways. It states that when this merger is completed, they will then have the control of 75% of the market, making the market an oligopoly. This decision is met with skepticism, with the constant question being asked "So I'll ask again, is there one, just one, example of deregulation working in consumers' favor?" It brings in the opinion of a Harvard professor who states that we have been enjoying low fares for years now.

This article is about how consumers are not willing to buy 3-D TVs because of its high cost. The cost of the TVs are not the only problem; the cable package, the 3-D Blu-ray player, the DVDs, and even the cost of the glasses all add up together.

This article is very fascinating, it is about miners protesting for larger wages and from this, the effect of their actions which have now made the cost for platinum higher.

This article talks about the oil price, how experts sets the oil price that there won't be a shortage problem in future. People they would prefer low prices but consumers firstly think of the benefit that they get from this business and also about the development of oil producing, for that they need more money that causes growth of prices. That's why they are trying to find an equilibrium price of oil, which will comply everyone's requirements.

Government price controls for groceries backfired in Venezuela. Although their aim was to make basic necessities available for everyone, the maximum price was so low that it prevented producers from collecting any revenue. As a result, producers began supplying less, causing widespread food shortages.

Due to it's low production rate, Chevron resolved to sell its stocks to save itself.

This article briefly goes over the possibility of Apple wanting to sell a lower priced iPhone (considerably lowered price) at the same time as it comes out with a new model. This is iterating as the mass consumer is no longer able to keep up with the $600 every 6months tat Apple cost them. Thus it has been rumored that they will do this in order to maintain the overall supply and demand of the cell phone.

The article is talking about the strengthening housing recovery and robust auto sales contributed to moderate growth across the United States.Employers added only 88,000 jobs in March, a sharp slowdown from average gains of 220,000 in November through February. And consumers cut back on their spending at retail stores and restaurants last month, a sign that higher Social Security taxes have made more Americans cautious about spending.Debate was about Fed policymakers about when to rein in the bond-buying program, which began last fall.The Fed is expected to stick with plans to keep short-term interest rates at record lows at least until unemployment falls to 6.5 percent. And it will likely continue purchasing $85 billion a month in Treasury and mortgage bonds to lower long-term rates and encouraging more borrowing.

The Japanese automobile maker Nissan announced a couple years ago its plans for a new completely electric car, the Nissan Leaf. However, sales in the United States have been fairly low, only selling 10,000 of the cars in 2012. The reason for the small amount of sales is believed to be caused by its high price, due to an expensive and large battery back in the car, and the fact that the car has a small 80 mile range. In hopes to increase sales, the company is beginning to start production here in the United States. Producing the product closer to where it will be purchased will reduce production costs for the company, allowing it to decrease the price of the car and leading, hopefully, to an increase in demand.

Nissan is opening up a production plant in the U.S. to produce their car, the Leaf electric car. This is the first production plant. The short term is the building of the plant, which should decrease unit costs because they will no longer need to transport the cars to the U.S. The long term is the plan to create new technology to improve the car (battery, charging, etc.) and hopefully increase the demand, which could reduce unit costs even further. 

The article is a really interesting article that explains an interesting fact about how the employment level change in developing and developed nations. It is interesting that in developed nations the unemployment level is more than developing nations. It should be the opposite because developed nations are developed in every way but developing countries are not fully developed yet they still have a lot of improvements they have to achieve as a country politically and especially economically. The average unemployment rate in OECD countries was 6.7%. During the nineties, the average unemployment rate was 7.7% in UK, 9.3% in Canada, 11.7% in Finland and 11.3% in Ireland.The countries such as UK, Finland and Ireland has lower employment rates when you compare with India which was 6-7%. But if developing countries have close to full employment why do they have greater economic misery and lower GDPs you may ask? The answer to this puzzle of full employment, yet low GDP and greater economic misery, is not quite straightforward. In developing countries is that most of them have few programmes to provide relief to the unemployed. the people in developing countries do not have the luxury to remain unemployed.They take whatever jobs they get. Most European countries are welfare states with generous unemployment insurance programmes. During recession, many people in European countries do not find it worthwhile to work at minimum wage. They accept jobs that pay less or they accept jobs in the informal market, with lower or no benefits and little protection.

This article highlights the complex relationship between inflation and unemployment by pointing out the effect that each has on the well-being of individuals. A recent study showed that a whole 4 percent increase in inflation leads to the same amount of unhappiness as an only one percent increase in unemployment. Inflation and unemployment have always been considered inverses, in other words as one increases the other decreases. However the author of the article points out that the goal of central banks should be to keep unemployment as low as possible, instead of inflation, because of its widespread "misery" effect.

Although inflation makes people unhappy, it turns out that unemployment makes people unhappier. The country's "misery index" is extremely high.

This article discusses the common trade-off between unemployment and inflation. In Europe, the Central Bank is expected to lower interest rates, a monetary policy strategy, in order to aid with the current issue of low inflation and high unemployment. Decreasing interest rates has the general effect of increasing Aggregate Demand in an economy, and according to the relationship between these two aspects of macroeconomics this increase is likely to increase inflation while also reduce unemployment as real output increases.

This article shows how the fastest rising jobs are receiving pay that is lower than the average salary. This is interesting because the aggregate supply talks about the decrease in wages and prices.