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 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 article talks about the increasing need for oil to be imported by China. We learned that imports are leakages from the Circular Flow of Income, and that if leakages outweigh interjections, then income will fail. However, this being China, I believe the income for China will not be greatly affected because China is one of the biggest exporters in the world.

This article is about the reluctance to increase quotas for low-price sugar imports, due to the increased domestic production. Therefore from our IB Economic Theory, arguments against trade protection are used, specifically because it breeds inefficiency and leads to higher prices for consumers.Favorable weather in major sugar cane- and sugarbeet-growing areas are expected to lift production this season, as well as those in Mexico, which will be of benefit to the US since they are in the North American Free Trade Agreement and the US can import as much as it wants without any trade barriers to satisfy the domestic demand, although it is said that supplies presently outpace demand.

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 article talks about an import substitution on building materials in the Ukraine. Companies increased their used of domestic building materials by 10% resulting in a total use of 80% of domestic building materials.

A South African Politician has raised the tariff on chicken imports in South Africa. This is a pretty textbook example of tariff implementation as its goal is to support the country's "bleeding" chicken market. Since the tax has been raised by 8.75%, it is an ad valorem tariff.

The article discusses how, in the past, the US government's response to foreign imports competing with the domestic steel industry has been to create trade barriers. However, as David Phelps, president of American Institute for International Steel, explains in the article, this practice takes away from the competition that should exist within a market, such as when two domestic steel industries are competing. On the other hand, what differentiates domestic competition and international competition is that US will lose output if it can't support its domestic industries.

The part which I believe is most important about this article is its demonstration of a business strategizing around macroeconomic change and not just microeconomic change. We mostly only think of this stuff on the small scale, pretending like we live in a global community in which a company can survive purely by being better than its competitors and not by having a stronger sub economy. The fact is, even in our growingly international market, that just isn't the case. Countries are like microeconomic ecosystems inside of one big habitat. Just because one has food in it and the other doesn't won't mean that the inhabitants of second ecosystem can just move to the first.

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,

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 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.

Japan's exports have been rising at an extremely fast rate for the last 3 years although the trade balance seems to remain mired with the Japanese imports expected to increase due to the shuttering of its nuclear power industry.

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.

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.

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.

What I like about this article is not just that it's related to inflation (which is definitely a plus) but that it also discuss one of the factors of an economy affected by inflation, interest rates. This is very important because many articles will talk about how inflation has increased or decreased and how this is good or bad for the economy, but they don't explain in what way. You all get a sense for how the government of Nigeria intends to react to this inflationary event and what role the control of interest rates plays in the reaction.

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.

Everybody has an opinion and I for one understand this debt crisis very little. It's not that I don't think it's important, it's that I'm very vague on who exactly we owe money to, what the current plan is to pay it off, and why everyone else is up in arms about this. The econ modules in the textbook section this week said that, sometimes, the government *wants* the budget to be at a deficit. I still don't understand why but, my guess is, the US's current situation is not a good demonstration.

The article talks about the importance of budget planning and spending.