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This article relates to the Topic of Opportunity Cost that I have been studying because it talks about how the opportunity cost affects the economic choices that we make in our daily lives. It also talks about how although we are aware of the direct costs in life, we don't actually think about all the things that we have to give up when buying something else. We are aware of our finance, and realize the direct cost of our actions, but we don't see the unseen costs, such as the opportunity cost.

This article focuses mainly on opportunity course. It's been established that opportunity cost is the cost of doing something rather than another. In this case the author focused on a student's decision to attend college and for how long. At least everyone has been through the phase where they looked at the price it costs to go to college but few go deep into things such as life, transport etc. There are others who decide to take a year off and travel; the opportunity cost in this is the education they could've been getting so they could stay on track and the money they wasted to travel which they could have used to further their studies or life needs. The author brought up a book by Laurence Kotlikoff in which he invented 4 kids and made them choose different life patterns. I felt this was smart because students can see how the choices they make now could impact their life later on. As expected the child who stayed in school to become a doctor made a lot of money, however, student loans and all other expenses leaves them with as much money as the next middle-poor man. Then again the other child who became a plumber and skipped college makes money but has no student debt. This is not to say that they are better off but it's just to clear the stereotype that the longer you stay in school the better off your life will be; there are many factors that play into it.

The article relates to opportunity cost and how each choice holds a negative and positive trait. In the article they spoke of soft money (paper money) and the use of species (such as gold and silver). The positive effects of soft money is that it is cheap to produce and doesn't require much material. However. The issue with soft money is that since it's so inexpensive people believe that it will cause inflation to soar. Species are valued because they are hard to find and require a lot of labor to get (more money). Taking a lot of time to retrieve and to mold into coins takes up more energy. A new idea that came to mind is digital currency. Depending on how it is used it can become a great asset or a hindrance. Overall, there are many opportunity costs all holding good and bad qualities, but the greatest is the one that benefits us overall.

Singapore is a robust economy with a sound political system and yet very fragile as it is very dependant upon global forces of wind. Politics in Singapore is almost like Board of Directors of Singapore Inc. The Scarcity of land, combined with high cost of living and ageing population & increasing the healthcare costs are real issues facing our country. The Economy is faced with tough global pressures, cheaper hubs of production in the neighbourhood. Singapore has to reinvent every few years. Value addition was the key in the past few years but now that is not enough. Value creation in the economy is the new need and our politicians know that and doing their best to drive strategic initatives to set up Innovation and Research hubs and also trying to become Startup Capital of the East.

This article, published in the New York Post on November 15, 2015, describes the ongoing debate in the United States about raising the minimum wage. Some believe that a raise in the minimum wage would result in greater aggregate demand, as consumers would have more money to spend. However, this article argues that raising the minimum wage would result in a loss of jobs, hurting production and overall consumption.

The article describes how the decrease in demand affects the macroeconomics, due to suppliers of coal and petroleum using the railroad to transport their goods. The decline in railroads has caused greater competition, raising the cost of production for these goods, as using the railroad service will be more expensive at times.

The exposure to second hand smoke during childhood destroyes their arteries and can lead to heart and lung damage . This smoking in parents causes lung cancer and premature death fron conditions such as heart strikes and high blood pressure. It is recommended that these parents stop smoking in order to help make the future of their children better. This consumption of cigarettes causes a negative externality as the children are affected in the near future from second hand smoke. These children whose parents smoke are more likely to smoke as well which continues the cycle of negative externalities of the co sumption of cigarettes.

This is a perfect example of negative externality of consumption. By smoking in public places, the consumer is creating negative externalities, in the form of passive smoking, for non-smokers especially children. When individuals smoke cigarettes, they are compromising their own health as well as the health of those around them who inhale the smoke. I agree with the point that another external cost can be younger children being influenced to smoke following the habits of their smoking parents. This is why cigarettes are considered as demerit goods as they cause significant negative externalities , and these are the goods that the government would like to limit consumption. Individuals may not be aware of the external costs arising from the consumption of the good because of lack of information or myopic behaviour. For the article mentioned above , it is crucial for the state to take on a paternalistic role and curtail consumption

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.

In the economy we see that the Milk is a need and it will be consumed by the people, no matter what the cost is. If this scenario, was based in the city then the increase of price would not matter, as it has many substitutes such as packaged milk and that too from different companies. This makes the PED elastic. But in the village, as the access to the packaged milk is less. They need the milk and therefore making the PED inelastic.

This article looks at the Elasticity of Demand and Supply for oil. The increased costs of the production and higher prices are not leading to a fall in demand, but instead a fall in the elasticity of demand.

This article fits in my opinion very well to the topic of elasticities. It deals with price elasticity of both supply and demand for oil. The author is concerned with the increasing inelasticity of supply: "reserves we're now exploiting are not only more expensive to develop, but they also take much longer between the time the first well is drilled and the when the first oil is produced". There's also a graph in the article which shows the constant fluctuations of both supply and demand for oil, and how the American oil supply struggles to adjust itself to American demand for oil.

This article addresses the changes that have occurred in the oil market over the past ten years. The author claims that changes in the demand of oil have increasingly been playing a role in maintaining the supply/demand balance. He argues that these changes will be burdensome to our economy unless the demand for oil is made more flexible. According to the article, there is not a shortage of oil. Today, due to rising oil prices, we are able to exploit oil reserves which were previously too expensive to exploit. Since these new oil reserves are more expensive to develop and take longer to access, the time it takes for oil supply to respond to changes in price is increasing as well. This means that "...the oil is becoming less elastic..." meaning that "a large change in price produces a small change in supply." In regards to the elasticity of demand, "the elasticity of oil reflects the options we have to using oil for our daily needs." Our ability to reduce oil consumption is fairly limited in the short term, but increases over the long term. However options for reducing oil consumption over any time period are often inconvenient. Reductions in demand due to high prices can be called demand destruction (a permanent move down the demand curve toward reduced demand) which can be detrimental to the economy. This is why people such as the media and politicians wish to have supply adapt to changes in demand instead. However, "there are also limits to the ability of oil supply to adjust." Oil is not easily accessible. Because oil supply has become less elastic, prices has had to become more volatile to force market adjustments. The author concludes by suggesting ways that the elasticity of oil demand can be increased and the pain of demand destruction decreased.

This article speaks about the increase in demand for oranges because weather conditions have damaged the harvest of other fruit, such as apples and bananas. These weather conditions have caused the fruits to increase in price because of the lack of supply available. As a result oranges became the number one choice because of its lower price, so people were able to get more for their money. However, the wealth of the company producing the oranges hasn't been shared with the people due to the cost of transportation. They will see if these result will change depending on the next harvest.

The biggest long-term factor in the oil price is the cost of replacing oil wells as they run out ("deplete" in industry parlance). Rising oil prices will not decrease demand , as oil is a necessity and it has a price inelastic demand.

An externality occurs when the production or consumption of a product has an effect on a third party. Although the externality that is generated can be positive, the externalities of consumption generated by smoking are all negative, and this is one of the biggest examples of a negative externality of consumption. Passive smoking poses external costs to third parties in this case children where no appropriate compensation is made.

This article discusses the sugar market in the U.S. On average, U.S. consumers pay twice as much for refined sugar as the rest of the world. This is largely due to sugar policies in the United States. In America, the federal government offers loans to sugar cane and beet processors who are to pay sugar growers a minimum price set by the USDA. The idea is that processors will obtain a market price for their sugar that is sufficient to pay back the loans. However, the loans are "non-recourse," meaning that if the market price of sugar declines, processors can forfeit to the USDA the sugar they put up as collateral. In order to prevent sugar processors from offloading sugar onto the USDA and to protect processors from lower-cost foreign competition, the federal government has imposed a two tier system of tariff rate quotas. It also restricts the total amount of sugar that domestic processors can sell by setting market allotments which are designed to drive up the price by creating artificial scarcity.

As prices for commodities have decreased, the value of the Canadian dollar has decreased as well. Two years ago the Canadian dollar was worth 93 American cents, yesterday to was worth only 69 American cents. This depreciation in value is because the Canadian economy is heavily dependent on oil and other resources and it has had many impacts on Canadians. Imports, like fresh American vegtables, are now more costly for Canadians. Currently, a single head of broccoli in Canada sells for around $4. Last winters, Canadians could buy 2 for only $1.50. However, in many ways a weaker currency is helpful to the Canadian economy. The US is overwhelmingly the largest market for Canadian exports, which are now less expensive across the border because of the currency's fall. In addition, almost all commodity exports are priced in American dollars so foreign exchange gains have helped cushion some of the blow to Canadian oil producers and mining companies.