Group items tagged

This article talks about the trade deficit in Japan due to imports of smartphones, the recent earthquake and the consequences of nuclear energy. The trade deficit happened due to numerous numbers of imports against exports. Since Japan's nuclear energy accident, Japan switched to thermal generators and needed/still need to import fossil fuels, which is taking a big part in the trade deficit. In addition, the gadget industry is focusing on smart phones, and this is causing the massive imports of iPhone's and Android's to Japan impacting the market and the people. Also, after the earthquake of 2010, there has been a recover, but not to the level Japan needs to overcome the trade deficit.

"Japan's trade deficit nearly doubled on-year to a bigger-than-expected $10.9 billion in October as the country's energy bill soared... " Japan's trade deficit was the biggest in the last 44 years and entered a 16-month trade deficit run. The reason behind this is because of the transfer from energy sources. Until 2010, Japan was the first in using nuclear energy in the world. When the accident in Fukushima happened, Japan had to start using fossil fuels and started importing it increasing their trade deficit.

I find this article thoroughly bizarre. Apparently, South African had this huge deficit calculated to be 116.9 billion rand. I don't what the exchange rate on their currency is, but that part isn't that surprising. What's surprising, at least to me and nobody else in this article, it seems, is that they reduced the deficit to about 34.6 billion by-- get this --redoing their calculations. They neglected to include trade with foreign neighbors, which just so happened to help out their balance of accounts. I can see why the recalculation helped to clear things up and, essentially, made South Africa's situation better, but it's weird how the article refers to it as if the deficit "decreased" because the numbers were run under differing conditions. Am I crazy?

The article discusses the story of the shrinking U.S. trade deficit is essentially the story of the U.S. oil boom. The last time the U.S. came close to balancing out the trade deficit, at least in terms of its share of GDP, was just after a recession ended in 1991. The big issue is whether the U.S. can continue to expand its economy while also shrinking its trade deficit-something it hasn't been able to do for a generation or more. The U.S. will start exporting natural gas at some point over the next few years.

This article talks about Britain and its problematic exports with subsequent trade deficit problems. Interestingly enough, university courses fees are considered exports as well (money inflow). Britain is a country which is immensely integrated in the global trade flows, but they have a problem of trade deficit. "Part of the reason is the slowdown in continental Europe and America, which take 54% and 17% respectively of British exports. Another is the gradual depletion of North Sea oil and gas. A third is that Britain's strength is in services rather than in the raw materials, machine tools and handbags that emerging markets crave." This running trade deficit can amass huge problems and according to the article [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10427783/Britain-to-have-worst-2014-trade-deficit-in-industrial-world-on-EU-forecasts.html] Britain will have to tackle it by using expenditure-reducing policies, expenditure-switching policies or supply-side policies.

This is about Zambia and how they have a trade deficit. It talks about how the deficit is leading to a rise in inflations.

The article discusses how the U.S. trade deficit shot up nearly 10% to $36.4 billion in November, hitting its highest point since last January, the Department of Commerce said Tuesday. But even as imports soared, exports also grew -- for the seventh straight month. And some cheered the greater trade activity.

The article talks about the improvement in the trade account. It also states that the current account deficit is going down. The reason for this is that India's exports grew.

The U.S. trade deficit widened slightly in August as exports slipped, suggesting trade will probably not be much of a boost to growth in the third quarter. The import growth is weak and consistent with sluggish domestic demand. So in fact this article is about the goods and services account under the current account. The possible reasons for such trade deficit may be a decrease of foreign demand for US exports, decreased domestic interest rates and speculators' anticipations for the US dollar to rise, which means that there will be a tendency for the price of US dollar to appreciate. This leads to even less competitive exports. If I look at this situation from another perspective, more currency flowed out for imports than it flowed in for exports, creating the debit item and exacerbating the current account.

Oil imports to the US increase which increased their trade deficit. Furthermore exports to Europe, Asia and South America. This meant that the trade deficit decreased as low as $513 billion in the first 11 months of 2011.

Japan's trade deficit nearly doubled in October, as growth in imports outpaced robust increases in exports to the U.S. and China, the Finance Ministry reported Wednesday. A weakening in the Japanese yen over the past year has helped exports, but it has also increased the cost in yen terms... This is the importance of looking at **how** payments balance. Though Japan has seen some significant increases in exports, most notably in the vehicle and chemical industries, too much money is still leaving Japan. Part of this may be due to the fact that many Japanese firms depend on foreign manufacturing. The government has plans to revitalize a large manufacturing sector of Japan, but the question now is how quickly and how much will it help?

This is a very small article, but it summarizes how the Italian budget deficit will be decreased as the EU will help the government. In fact, the EU will work with the Italian government to repay the debts, therefore decreasing the national debts and help the government reach a balanced budget.

"The U.S. trade deficit widened more than expected in September as imports rose to their highest level in almost a year. The Commerce Department said the trade gap increased 8.0 percent to $41.8 billion, the largest since May. August's shortfall on the trade balance was revised slightly to $38.7 billion from the previously reported $38.8 billion. Economists polled by Reuters had expected the trade deficit to widen a bit to $39.0 billion in September. When adjusted for inflation, the trade gap widened to $50.4 billion, the largest since May, from $47.4 billion the prior month. This measure goes into the calculation of gross domestic product. The increase in the so-called real trade deficit in September suggested the government will probably lower its initial third-quarter GDP estimate." This does not surprise me at all with their trade balance widening because of the debt they are in. Their debt are in the trillions and there isn't a lot the US are doing. Yes, their economy might be improving slightly but a lot of people are without jobs creating a sort of dilemma.

The article talks about the effects of the trade deficit in India

Japan posted its biggest October trade deficit on record, as a revival in exports to the U.S. and China was overwhelmed by the nation's soaring costs for imported fuel in the wake of the nuclear industry's shutdown.

The U.S. is working on fixing it's fiscal policy. Congress is workig for "a stopgap spending measure to keep the government running for the last six months of this fiscal year". The U.S. is cutting it's spending and creating a budget to lower the gap in the debt that the U.S. is in. In the month of February, the spending was down by 3% from the year before as well. The government also had a temporary tax cut that brought in more revenue for them as well.

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 shows how the trade deficit is increasing in the UK, which will disturb the equilibrium (Balance of payment).

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 is long but to sum it all up, it discusses "The idea: Reduce taxes, especially for the wealthy and corporations, and America's entrepreneurial fortunes will soar. The economy, unleashed from the drag of excess taxes, will grow. Government deficits will shrink."