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This article illustrates two economic terms, the business cycle and consumer confidence. The UK economy is currently going through a boom phase, suggesting inflation is rising. This may seem good now, but higher inflation causes less competitiveness for exports, which will lead to a recession phase. It's the business cycle. The article also describes how job opportunities went up, which is likely to cause consumers to consume more, because they are expected to get a raise or promotion soon. This adds to the boom even further. Knowledge of this makes it easier to make economic decisions and explaining why events take place like they do.

In the final quarter of 2015, Britain's trade deficit worsened. The shortfall between exports and imports increased significantly between the first and third quarters of last year which added to concerns that Britain's worsening trade position will negatively impact GDP growth this year. Howard Archer, the chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said,"UK exports have clearly struggled in recent months, as they have been hampered by sterling's overall strength in 2015, particularly against the euro, and moderate global demand." While recent declines in the value of sterling may boost export sales, this could be mitigated due to the deteriorating global situation.

The rate of unemployment in the UK for the people of ages 35 to 49, who are considered as the older group of workers, was only 4.7%. Compared to them, the jobless rate of the people aging 18 to 24 years was around 18%. The rate of unemployment in these young people increased almost 30% between the first quarter of 2008 and the fourth quarter of 2011. According to ONS, "The burden of higher unemployment has therefore fallen most heavily on younger workers". The most significant cause of the significant rise in the rate of unemployment among all workers, especially targeting the youth age who are just out in the work force to find jobs, is the recent economic crisis.

Britain is experiencing a downfall in their economy due to less consumer spending. The GDP growth of the country has been slowing at a pace of .3% and according to economist Chris Williamson, this is due to the fact that consumers are being cautious with their spending and are pulling back and also that the manufacturing sector is struggling. The pound value has weakened compared to the euro and dollar. Also a poll done in the service sector shows growth at a slow pace since April 2013.

According to top Chinese officials, China's economy is showing signs of improvement while capital outflows from the country are moderating. Chinese leaders are trying to reassure major trading partners and jittery financial markets that the government is able to manage the slowing economy following a slide in the nation's stock market and depreciation of the yuan.

Americans are having shorter lives than most other developed countrys, this shows a slow negative downfall of American health. The US report identifies obesity and the lack of health insurance for some 47 million Americans as the most significant factors in premature death. This shows negative development in health and HDI.

I have found this article suprisingly amusing as I am a chocolate lover. The article talks about the fact that the world demand for chocolate is outgrowing the cocoa beans available. Therefore the prices are rising dramatically, especially in Asia. The author assumes that by 2020 the prices will be extremely high, because the demand is becoming unsustainable. I believe that this is a great article to illustrate what I have learnt in the past chapter because it illustrates a real world situation where the price rises with the supply.

The overall article states that China might increase its output and economists are predicting that by looking at the other four major East Asian economies. This relates to our topic because that means the firms and government are investing more and the the economy's exports are increasing

The left wing want to do "a Greece" to get back on track. They refuse to conform with the austrity demands of the EU, and want to get the country back on track by national measures, like reversing privatization. The political instability leads to lower investment and Portugal is warned that it might risk going the way Greece did.

Consumers are upbeat about the economy and their future income prospects, according to the University of Michigan's latest survey. The preliminary headline consumer sentiment index for November was 93.1. Economists had estimated a rise to 91.5 from 90, according to Bloomberg. This increase is likely to become evident in higher consumption, which will shift the AD curve right, thus increasing short term aggregate supply.

THE SWISS National Bank (SNB) has fixed its currency against the euro at a rate of 1.2 Swiss francs, after its value rose sharply due its status as a safe haven investment amid the troubled eurozone countries.

According to this article from the Deloitte University Press, the length of recovery has little to do with the probability that a recession might occur. Dr. Daniel Bachman claims that modern business cycle thought and recession data suggests that business decision makers should look elsewhere to gauge where the economy is headed. Since WWII, the average US business cycle expansion has lasted 56 months. The last three expansions have been exceptionally long and the current expansion is already longer than most of the expansions in the 1950s-70s. Therefore, it is possible that something such as a the role service in the economy has changed but the sample is small and the uncertainty is high. In fact, most economists who study business cycles do not view them as cycles. The world's first industrialized economy, the UK, suffered banking panics in 1825, 1847, 1866, and 1890 and the fact that a crisis appeared every 20-25 years suggest that there was some form of regular force at work in modern economies that lead to a cycle. However, as economists began to use statistical techniques, they discovered that the cycles in the data were probably illusions. As, a result, economists have mostly rejected the idea of business cycles repressing an inherent, regular feature of the economy. Instead, they view the economy as experiencing random shocks, both positive and negative.

This article discusses a topic the book made fun of in this week's chapters. When describing inflation, the book makes a snarky remark about how a fraction change in percentage of unemployment is considered "news". There are a lot of uncertainties concerning unemployment, because it is difficult to measure the amount of unemployed people, due to different definitions of unemployment and because of hidden unemployment, yet these news agencies give values with such high accuracy. The article does describe how unemployment has decreased in various parts of Europe, which can be linked with higher living standards for some.

Due to the bad weather in France, the quality of wheat used to make bread have been affected leading to an increase in the price of flour. Other factors that lead to the increase in prices include the Ukrainian crisis and the Russian ban on wheat exports. Because flour and wheat have many uses, the demand for these products will hardly be affected which makes them inelastic. Supply on the other hand will decrease because of the bad harvest faced by farmers.

Some key words "like determinants of price" of price which we learned in that week could have been used to explain why season affected the price of flour. With demand steadily increasing and supply diminishing Fonge could've talked about PED which she brought up but never used the term. In her comment she said wheat and flour being inelastic are not affected by any change in price so wheat has a low PED.

A thriving black market has cropped up after the NSW prisons smoking ban On the black market cigarettes can cost $300, up from $28 before the ban Prison sources claim that 'an inmate fight broke out over cigarette butts' The ban on smoking in NSW prisons has reportedly led to a thriving black market, where a packet of cigarettes can go for as much as $300, while matches and papers can fetch a staggering $90.

This article has to be about the negative externalities of consumption, as it involves smoking. It affects not only the ones smoking but the others as well. Banning it in a prison can help in bringing the MSC equal to MSB. This also wont affect the tobacco industry as there is still comsumption taking place outside the prison. Banning it has a negative step, which is the creation of the black market. Prisoners are even fighting for cigarrete butts. The government / the prison authority should take a step in taking the ban away and but also making it difficult to obtain cigarettes, to avoid such brawls.

I agree that the negative externality involves non-smokers in the prison getting affected. You suggest that the ban should be taken away, wouldn't this still lead to more people smoking and causing even more second hand smoke to affect the non-smokers? This wouldn't help the situation I believe it would make it worse instead.