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This article is essentially connected to aggregate demand (investments), but the following part can be perfectly analyzed with the this week's topic, aggregate supply: "The investment will also help U.K. energy security by reducing hydrocarbon imports at a time of higher international oil and gas prices. "Too often we've been seen as part of the problem, rather than part of the solution because production output had fallen. But we're stopping the decline and increasing output and that will have a more positive impact on the U.K. economy," Mr. Tholen told The Wall Street Journal. The higher investment in new projects and redevelopment of older fields will help bring another 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day onstream by 2017, taking output up to around 2 million barrels of oil and gas a day by 2017 or earlier. The higher investment in new projects and redevelopment of older fields will help bring another 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day onstream by 2017, taking output up to around 2 million barrels of oil and gas a day by 2017 or earlier." High international oil and gas prices mean higher average costs of production - change in the costs of raw materials, because oil and gas are widely used in most production processes. This is the reason for the shift of the SRAS inwards. However, higher price level means that the oil production and oil-transforming industries will increase their output. This is also great for the sake of price of imports, which are relatively too high, allowing domestic industries to decrease their average costs of production, meaning that SRAS will increase. So we should consider effects of both aspects and add them up in order to get a real picture (overall effect of current oil and gas prices). Investments are shifting the LRAS curve to the right, because there are likely to be improvements in the quality of the factors of production (technological advancements, discovery of new resources and re-establishing the past (oil) fields,

Basically, article is about Egypt's endeavor to find foreign investors for financing infrastructure projects and increasing its dwindling foreign currency reserves. Two of the most important terms derived from the week 2 are scarcity and opportunity cost. Turkish investments of $20 bn dollars and 500 mio euros from the EU (depending on Egypt securying the loan from IMF) in Egyptian infrastructure and foreign currency reserves deficit have an opportunity cost of spending that amount of money for other purposes. In this article, Egypt's foreign currency reserves and budget are scarce, so Egypt wants to get money to reduce unemployment rate via economic growth (4.5 %). Here we also have the factor of production - this is capital which comes from investments in physical capital (infrastructure) and in my opinion also human capital (reducing unemployment, improving education and healthcare perhaps ...). One thing that will be crucial for Egypt is the factor of entrepreneurship.

This article describes the new tax on various medical wares such as replacement hips and defibrillators. The new excise tax is within the US, and the prediction is that it will raise $20 billion by 2019. The tax will affect smaller companies the most, and as much as 10% of small companies earnings per share may be paid in tax.

This article talks of the excise tax placed on replacement hips, implantable defibrillators and other FDA-approved wares. This was originally done to help fund the health laws expansion of insurance coverage. However, this tax is starting to hurt companies producing these goods as they are having to introduce cost cutting plans. "Stryker Corp. said in a statement Thursday that the $130 to $150 million in will owe next year could consume one-third of of its research and development budget." The tax is becoming a burden on companies as they must give the money to the government instead of their research funds.

Ok, this one may be a bit of stretch this week but it flows more into "margin" than "negative externality", but stick with me. What I really like about this article was that it could have focused on the Chinese sweat shops or the lack of parking lot security, which, admittedly, are negative externalities, but it went in depth on the differences between the externalities of Costo's labor force as opposed to Wal-Mart's. You see, people really like Costco because it pays it's workers between $11-19 an hour while Wal-Mart only pays $11-12. Many would like to say this is because Wal-Mart is the child of Satan brought to Earth to annihilate humanity and do battle with the son of God... who is also God... And to that I say, "corporations aren't people", but that's besides the point. Wal-Mart doesn't just do this because they want more money and because Costco is socially conscious, it's because the margins are much different between both companies. You may not think about it, but all that organizing and "everything you need is here" costs a lot more than what twice as customers can suffice. A lot of that low paid wage goes towards menial tasks like waiting at a cash register for a half hour before the rush of customers arrive or going from aisle to aisle putting the cereal back on the correct shelf because you're just too lazy to do it yourself. What we don't realize is that, sometimes, the negative externalities that we see are a product of our own self-entitled sentiment.

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.

The article shows that that oil has a big influence on a lot of products. In this case it increased the price of sugar by 20%. This might seem a lot so you would expect the demand for sugar to decrease. However since sugar does not cost a lot, a 20% increase in the price will not make a big difference. An increase of a few cents of the consumers bill will also hardly be noticed. The price elasticity in this example is very low.

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.

I know this may be a very ridiculous selection, but it points out one very obvious and necessary resource that many rural and suburban Indians do not possess, namely, a toilet!! The fact the even toilets can be considered a scarce resource was interesting, and helped to cement the idea that literally everything can be thought of as a scarce resource. The opportunity cost can be thought of as the other public works that Indians won't get because the government has to spend money on toilets. This also shows an example of economic growth, as the basic livelihood and welfare of Indian citizens may now increase, thanks to improved public hygiene.

This is an example of scarcity in the Mexican government. It is scarcity of capital and of labor. The scarcity of capital is the limited quality security resources. The scarcity of labor is not just of people, but as well a scarcity of good people. Many prison guards are corrupt, and there aren't a lot of them. This is also a good example of what I'll call a gambling opportunity cost. The government decided to not invest enough in security with the gamble that there could be a prison break. It would have been a good gamble if there were no prison break, however, it turned for the worse. Not only, of course, did the prisoners escape, but now the government needs to pay the wages of all of the sudden security requirements. They most likely are having to pay as much for the mistake as they would have had to pay to do it right the first time.

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.

China is the biggest steel producer in the world. However the demand for steel decreases and therefore the price decreased by 25%.

the article is showing that the cheapest car in the market is sold for $8000 and nissan is now introducing a $3000 model. This is dangerous for the other car because it might take away many consumers. this article shows how the price of the car is lowered.

Gas prices increased in California about 0.39 cents between September 21 and October 7. To decrease prices Gov. Jerry brown ordered to make an early transition to winter-blend gasoline which evaporates more quickly. This move could increase supply by as much as 10% said Gov. Brown.

This article discusses how the car sales have been hurt in the past due to the recession. The article talks about how the private sector has become a bigger target for the car companies. The elasticity of supply has grown to fit this curve, causing the car companies to gain some more profit that they had in the past. The companies also began to target people that care more about the environment, selling many more low emission type cars. They had to adapt to what the demand was, causing their elasticity of supply to grow to fit many wants.

The article says that the number of cars sold in the past has decreased. However the market for cars has recovered. The articled shows how companies adapted to the changing needs of customers. Customers now want more fuel efficient cars and often buy them on the private market. This causes the elasticity of supply of these companies to increase because they quickly had to adapt to the new situation.

Last month, the White House and labor unions announced an agreement to tax high-cost, employer-sponsored health insurance plans. Labor leaders say the proposal is too high a price to pay for the limited health care package they expect to emerge from Congress, therefore, there is really no support for this agreement.

The article I chose deals with shortage of primary products in Venezuela. It first describes how the prices changed. Afterwards it shows that the government mada a maximum price on these products. It then describes the difficulties with inforcing a maximum price.

Punto Fijo, November 22nd, 2012 (Venezuelanalysis.com) - The Venezuelan government has announced new controls on the prices of housing rents, while prices of medicines are also currently under review. Many basic goods in Venezuela are subject to price controls, including some food items and domestic goods, and the government has now added housing rents to the list of products subject to regulated pricing. In taking some pointers from "The Rent Is Too D*** High" party, Venezuela has decided to set a case to case price ceiling for the housing rental market. Most landlords will set the price based on construction costs, which tends to put tenants in a tight situation when looking for a somewhat temporary residence. Because of this, the government of Venezuela has forced landlords into setting prices only as high as what the Housing Ministry determines to be the true value product. Venezuela has also started doing this with medication, since medicine should be made available to all who are in need of it, although there has been backlash from pharmaceutical companies. They argument is that the artificial lowering of prices in the pharmaceutical industry will cause suppliers to produce less of the medicine than what the population needs.

This article shows examples of price control because it talks about how the indian government has lowered prices on most major drug brands there. This hurts india because there are less investors.

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.

The article talks about how an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico exploded and caused 11 injuries and 2 people missing. This is an expample of a negative externality, because now the company will have to pay for any health treatment the workers will have to take, and they will also have to use their time trying to find the 2 people missing. The company will lose money.