Group items tagged

This article highlights cuts in government spending in the US, specifically on airports and airlines. We know that government spending is a major component of aggregate demand. If government spending goes down, it is likely we will see a shift left in the aggregate demand. This is the result of about 10% fewer workers at any given time in the air transportation industry around the country. The article specifically highlights that this includes air traffic controllers as the decrease in them most affects consumers.

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.

The government of Greece decided to put an old airport (twice as big as Central Park) for sale for 6 billion euros. In this way, the government would sell this old area to a private owner, therefore creating 9,000 jobs for Greece and helping the government and the country. We can say that this is price control, since the Greek government gave the price for the area, and is trying to stabilize/help the economy by creating a price for this area that could be used to help greatly Greece. In fact, not only jobs would be given but tourism would increase greatly (as well as the Greek income).

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.

While there was a lot of economic lingo in here that I didn't completely understand, what I did pick up was the use of price increases to help the government make more money. The government makes its money off the financial interactions between households and firms. This is done through income tax, sales tax, etc. Starting to sound familiar? So, by increasing the price on diesel, the government ensures that large transactions will be made between the household and the firm, meaning they get a bigger chunk of dough. But the political motive behind this is that the government can now use the extras cash-money to fund public programs and what not for social benefit.

The article relates more to monetary policies and demand-side policies but I believe that it can be connected to supply side policies. In fact, the government is spending a lot of money meaning that those money could be invested for supply-side policies. It doesn't say how much money the government will spend, but the increase in government spending could be related to supply side policies and an increase in the supply of products/goods and services.

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.

Fiscal policy is the set of policies relating to government's spending and taxation rates. Military spending is a part of government spending and is closely related to domestic industries, particularly in the U.S. The U.S. government is lowering the military budget, therefore decreasing aggregate demand both through government spending and through implications to other industries interwoven with military. So this is deflationary fiscal policy, which is reducing U.S. military power on a global scale.

This article addresses the point of how politicians play a very important role in the model of circular flow of income model. They represent government sector in it and banning the use of lights under certain conditions conferred by the decree of French government is a way how to shrink leakages which belong to government spending and to move national economy more towards equilibrium where leakages equal to injections.

The article is a good example of how the government funds firms and different projects. The government expenditures are very important in order to keep a stable economy. When the the governmet realises that the economic growth slows down it has to react and invest in order to bring the economy back up.

The article talks about corruption in China, and how the government spends the money of the people to buy 4 or 5 houses, and some even to pass driving tests. When I read the article, I thought of the circular flow with three sectors open. The firms get the government expenditure that should go for hospitals and schools, and with the corruption a lot of money are given illegally from the government to the firms.

We started macroeconomics and I thought finding an article about unemployment would hit the target! So this article discusses how the government keeps track of how many unemployed citizens there are. It's called the Current Population Survey which is conducted monthly by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you've ever heard of the Census, it's kind of like that. The article also looks at how the unemployment rates have increased or decreased throughout the years and how there are some citizens that do not fit either category "These people are not employed, but they also don't fit the government's definition of the unemployed." The government is searching for ways to improve unemployment.

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.

OTTAWA - The Harper government is set to propose a number of new measures to close the U.S.-Canada consumer price gap, including the possibility of extending the tariff relief offered on sports equipment in the last budget to consumer electronics and other products. Put pretty simply, it seems that global corporations are using different prices on sports equipment and what not between US and Canada. In order to combat this, the countries are lowering their tariffs in an attempt to allow businesses to pass the savings onto consumers. The article doesn't give much details on the situation, but this is definitely a good example of how the manipulation of protectionist import controls can be used to affect the market.

In the article the US government accuses Germany of causing economical instability. The US government thinks that Germany relies too much on their exports and does not focus on domestic economy. Furthermore the german government keeps the value of the euro low in order to insure high exports.

This article is a good example of how tax can be imposed for a reason. In this case the reason is to boost revenue of the government. Though, it is debated by the people in L.A, since this is a tax made for consumers to pay so that the market can thrive but on the same time provide the government with money in their time of crisis.

This article talks about the crisis in the UK, and how the stores keep on closing and will keep on closing if the government doesn't freeze rates by 2013. Therefore, this article is not about something that the government has done (putting taxes) but something it needs to do to help the market in the UK.

In this article it is about "how the excise tax on gasoline and diesel fuel has been the main source of funds for building and maintaining the nation's roadways. It has paid for most of the four million road miles currently in service" By imposing taxes, governments obtain certain tax revenue which is used for supporting national infrastructure (roads), public services and subsidies for other things. But gas tax is not sufficient anymore. So, there are myriad discussions across political fields how to alter current tax policy. There are several options: taxing the miles (the question is how to tax the miles) toll roads (but they would hardly replace the gasoline tax), adjusting tax to inflation, taxing oil instead of gasoline or taxing cars. It seems resolving this issue is a hard nut to crack for the U.S. government.

The article deals with the different wants of russian people. A lot of them prefer to drink beer rather than vodka. This means that more beer is sold. This influences the health of a lot of people. To stop this trend the government implemented a huge tax on beer. The tax rose by 200%. This shows that the government always tries to find a balance.

A policy for the price control of certain medicines was approved by India's cabinet this week. The goal is to make medicine more affordable than it already is to the poor (producers argue that there is already sufficient competition in the market to keep prices low).

This article talks about how the Indian government is imposing price control on certain drugs to. The government claims that its is doing this to make it more affordable for the poor. They say this will also help patients become aware of less costly alternatives to some drugs.