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I found this article very interesting, as it is the first article I have seen that mentions the correlation between having more people with higher education, and having a higher level of economic growth.

Well, the title says it all. The governor calls for increased education to "leave a better Commonwealth for the next generation."

Governor Patrick discusses the importance of college and career readiness at the Future Ready Summit at the DCU Center in Worcester.

You don't have to read much of this article to understand the gist of what the author is saying. As we all know, the business cycle fluctuates like a sin graph, except, at the same time, the real GDP steadily increases as more innovations are made the things can be done for cheaper. Paying attention to those ups and downs are important for governments because, when the downs occur, the government needs to put in more spending to cover for private industries and to try and stimulate the economy. However, what the US government has failed to do now-a-days is lower spending when the economy has built its way back up and above where it was before. This isn't because US citizens will start mass protests in the streets against a higher sales tax or less funding for the public education system, but because officials want to ignore the fundamental concept that, just like the economy went down before, so shall it in the future times.

The article talks about the unemployment created not because there are no jobs, but because there are the wrong jobs. Teenagers want to apply for jobs where there are no spaces available, which causes them to be unemployed since they won't take other jobs.

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.

"At the heart of India's skewered development story lies the paradox between India's phenomenal GDP growth and its abysmal score on human development." And this is exactly what captures the idea of HDI as a composite indicator of economic development. India is the proof that despite enormous economic growth (GDP growth), there has been no economic development. Although HDI has its drawbacks and presents a skewed image of the reality, the educational and health perspective each correctly depicts the Indian situation, making India one of the countries with the least HDI.

This article is just one out of many which focus not on economic development but on economic growth. I have to admit that I am occasionally annoyed by the fact that most emphasis is always put on the pure increase in the real GDP or share of an industry relative to the country's economic performance. I think we should much more often apply a more expansive review of the economic growth, which is economic development. The latter tells you a lot more about the health, education, and income factors and can serve a very useful purpose in the context of what I call "holistic growth" that comprises different elements, not just purely economic performance as such. While I am happy to hear that Switzerland is doing great and its largely highly skilled workforce based economy is in the expanding phase, I am much more eager to hear how people have more disposable income, better healthcare system,... which is fortunately the case for Switzerland, however, also the perpetual growth in Switzerland has been faced with an increasing fear of possible rising unemployment rates.