Group items tagged

The article talks about the economic development in Tennessee

The article discusses caste-based quotas and how the state needs to realize that reservation has outlived its utility as a policy measure. The government needs to look at the policies again and consider replacing caste-based quotas.

It states how the "caste-based quotas in matters of promotion should not be allowed" due to the fact that it isn't doing what it's supposed to do. Therefor the name "Junk quotas".

The article was initiated by a series of event regarding a man, Mark Shuttleworth that transferred money to the South African Reserve Bank. Through powers granted under exchange controls legislation, the South African Reserve Bank imposed a levy of 10% to the money deposed. A big scandal started around the court cases which brought up several good points for the economy of South Africa. It was stated that controlling currency flows gives smaller economies more stability as well as independence. The free flow of capital would also cause account deterioration, inflation and currency devaluation. It was also mentioned that large institutions in South Africa (like its reserve bank) are not interested in red tape or levies, but some how imposed on on Shuttleworth. In addition, they stated that free trade comes as a cost that comes in a form of lost tax revenues and a loss of jobs in South Africa.

This article presents the increases in gas prices that are upsetting consumers all over the world. There is an "unconventional gas" boom going on ,which is affecting the market and supplies for gas in the States. The issues are global, though, and conserns politicians if this rise in price keeps up.

This article mainly focuses on China's economic growth and its fast approach to what could put it's economy in an equilibrium state."The rate, the spot rate and future rate, determined by the market supply and demand, basically are very close to the equilibrium rate," said Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China. He also warns that at this time China is trying to maintain low prices and if external governments begin to have inflation problems this could potentially create problems for China's economy. This comment was a directly linked with China's exchange rate against the US dollar, an issue that has yet to be addressed.

After Sandy hurricane devastated the Eastern Coast of the United States, gas became scarce. Due to this, authorities introduced so called odd-even gas rationing which limited the consumption the same as when governments introduce price ceilings and shift the demand curve to the last. With few major differences. Too many people needed fuel to power generators. Government gave subsidy to oil importers, so price slumped a bit (not significant) - so this was the maximum price. Simultaneously, also the demand grew bigger and there were only a few gas stations operating and those who were operating experienced inevitable chaos. So authorities shift the demand curve to the left until equilibrium is reached at maximum price to limit the consumption, so that queues were manageable. This rationing ends tomorrow as recovery is completed.

This article describes negative externalities in the oil business. This is a global problem and definitely one of the most debated topics in environmental contexts. 'The climate changes are harming the earth, a lot of it is claimed to be caused by burning of fossil fuels. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a great example of the creation of a negative externality. The goal of getting more oil to fuel our lifestyle and make a profit for BP trumped any recognition of the massive economic and environmental damage that flowed from their blown out well. Is the cost of this mess going to turn up in the price of gasoline in the US? Probably not. Will it turn up in our tax bills? Probably yes.'

I found this article quite interesting as it explains negative externalities very well and gives examples to better understand it. It also goes on to state that one of negative externality that is very relevant to the article is the negative effects a product may have on the environment. It shows the reader that many gas companies are able to cut corners to make the product cheap and more desirable, but in the process it makes a mess of the environment. A popular example that they use to prove their point was the Gulf of Mexico Oil spill.

I bumped into this article as I was searching for negative externalities.The article describes negative externalities as general and in terms of oil spilling. As for that it also described the environmental issues and gaves examples from the Gulf of Mexico.

This article suggests a few correlations between big cities and housing productivity and productivity in output of tradable goods. Besides that, also externalities are mentioned as justifications to those corollaries. To put negative externality stated in the article more like economics, MSC = MPC +- externality ("congestion, blocked views") so this is an inefficient allocation of society's resources and therefore increasing demand for government's regulation on housing. Although there already is a large gap between firms' input in housing and housing costs, this bolsters the whole situation. As a consequence, people in big cities actually pay higher cost for housing than it already is.

This article talks a lot about the recent "fiscal cliff" that congress or some government branch put together to ensure that the two United States parties, the democrats and the republicans, tried to come to some sort of agreement on where cuts can be made to try and fix the deficit. What's interesting about this article, more than the content itself, is the site it links to which talks a lot about how individual cities are doing their part to try and fix up the country. The fact is, the US has gotten some very bad grades lately (whatever that means), so mayors and representatives are getting citizens to invest in projects that will cost a lot of money but will go a long way toward a better future. Fixing up public resources, like water ways and levies, is crucial to trying to build a better community, even if the effects are long term. This is probably the closest we'll see to a sustainable economy.

This article discusses and reflects upon how the great BP oil spill in the Mexican Gulf relates to a typical tragedy of the commons situation. The writer states that the spill was due to overexploitation, which is quite an interesting and vital perspective when discussing the oil spill and its causes.

This article talks about how the government is aiming for a federal budget surplus this year, and how the government needs the states to ease fiscal policy to do so. The goal is more public spending.

US economies are still growing after thee great recession and according to economists the US should see an increase in economic growth by 2014. It is also mentioned that unemployment rate will continue to decline as economic growth becomes faster.

As the article states: "The world's largest economies took a step toward common global guidelines for exchange-rate policies with a pledge Saturday to refrain from targeting their currency policies to gain a competitive trading advantage." This is well-involved in this week's topic, which is aggregate demand. Particularly, this article refers to its component, net exports (export revenue minus import expenditure, or simply X-M) and then its subsidiary component, changes in exchange rates. If a country's exchange rate becomes stronger, then this makes the country's exports more expensive to foreigners and vice versa. Manipulating with exchange rates can bring a certain country substantial trading advantage and this is what G-20 wants to overcome and allow free-trade market as it should be.

The article states that less than 2% of the African forests are commonly accessible.The deforestation rate is 4 times higher than any other in the world. The resources of the land are not allocated very well. Most of the forests were privatized by big intercontinetal companies, and were cut down by them. Common access resources are becoming rare, especially forests.

Europe cut the channels that were made in Iran, therefore all of the people that were connected to the Eutelsat Communications won't be able to view channels made by the IRIB. The consequence of this will be an excess in demand, since all of the Iranian people that lived in Europe will demand channels broadcasted in Iran but there is not going to be supply for it. In addition to this, there is going to be less demand for the European satellite since the Iranians will search for other company that broadcast Iranian channels.

This article talks about the increase in demand of gold and the amount of price paid to get gold between 2010 and 2011. The demand of gold increased by 11% from the first quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2011 while the price increased by 40%. The increase in demand directly increases the supply of gold because if people want it, the rate of mining would increases so that gold is available at all time. Also, the amount of money spent on the gold would also increase because gold does not grow and one day gold would finish. The people who sell the gold would therefore put additional money on the price of the gold to get their own profit. This process would however continue because every time gold is found, the amount of gold left in the earth reduces. This allows the seller to always increase the price of the gold which means that there can never be a balance between the price and the demand. As the demand of gold increases, the price of gold decreases and the amount of gold left on earth decreases. Looking at the chart in the article, we can see that if the demand of gold increases the supply of gold would also increase but there was a slight decrease in the years 2007 to 2009. The article states that 'China's total annual gold demand topped 700 metric tons for the first time ever last year and is expected to keep rising over the next decade'.

This article describes how oil has become less elastic through the past years. It also discusses the balance between the scarcity of oil and the demand being supplied and the quantity demand. Oil is still in the ground, and it has been supplied frequently the past ten years, but there is some economical decisions to make to set the standard for the future of oil.

The demand of oil has been increasing over the past year which is playing a role on the demand and supply balance. Because the demand in oil is increasing, the price of the oil would also increase. It takes longer for oil to be drilled from the ground which causes the oil to take longer time and a change to the response in price. "In economic terms, the oil supply is becoming less elastic as new oil supplies come increasingly from unconventional oil." The demand for oil reflects on how much we need oil in our everyday life. Individual people can reduce the amount of oil they use by using public transportation, if where you want to go is close by. This saves gas and oil because you do not need your car and the bus would carry a lot of people.

This article describes the change in oil prices on the population. The article states that the supply of oil is becomming less elastic and therefore there is a increase in price. The way to win oil becomes harder, because deeper holes have to be made to extract it from the earth. The article furthermore looks into changes from an economical point of view. It looks at examples of what can be changed and where changes have been made.

This article talks about the risks of lowering prices in hope of increasing demand. It mentions the effects of price elasticity on this as well, it states, "If we assume the products' price elasticity is at the lower end of that range [...] then price promotions become even riskier". This is because it requires a big change in price to get even close to a substantial increase in demand. If the change is not huge, the effect on demand will be negligible.

This article for me was the perfect example to show how the human needs have trouble coexisting with the finite amount of resources present. Fred Neumann, co-head of Asian economic research at HSBC Holdings said, "Countries such as China have seen droughts over many years. Now we see other parts of the world facing some water shortages, which is starting to impact the global price of certain goods."In this article it basically states the fact that some areas are running low on water and simply cannot keep up with the growing demand for food. Thus instead of having a balance the price of food increased at an alarming rate.

This article talks about the protests of China against the Japanese goods. It states that both countries are economically independet, however China adores Japanese brands. It all started out with Japan having their factories in China, since theres a lower production cost. Now that China protests it will move the firms into other countries, such as Thailand.