Group items tagged

This article describes Sony, and its struggle to maintain their forecasted profits this year as their new releasings didn't live up to their expectations. The demand for their new products was miscalculated, and their profits decreased as a result of that. A 36 per cent decrease of profit was the result, and this article describes the results of miscalcuating demand in detail with real life results.

This article talks about how the FCA plans to make the competition a little more intense. By doing this, they plan to have companies sell more of the products in demand and less of the ones that are less likely to sell, thus creating more profit for a company. This causes other companies to try to challenge them, growing the market/economy. The FCA is also not allowing companies to hurt a person financial, trying to grow the market.

This article talks about how a few larger electricity and gas companies have increased their prices after the news about a cold and bitter winter in the UK. If we apply this to what we have read about this week, they know that the demand for fuel in houses will increase, but with a increased price they can avoid shortage during this period of time, hopefully. At leas this is what they try to do. They also know it is profitable for them, since people will still need the fuel due to the cold, so the income for the company gets higher.

The oil company ExxonMobil announced profits of 36 biollion us dollars, however according to the tax foundation the government had a income on this by 54 billion.

tax 'dodging' has been happening withing big companies in the UK due to the low economy progress. However, Cable says that the UK's tax claimers should be more strict about this as medium and small companies are paying their taxes and loosing profit to paying tax as their demand is low and therefore it cannot be only payed by the costumers but mostly by the companies themselves.

This article talks about the fire in a fire station in Scotland. The roof collapsed and there was a lot of smoke. The fire fighter are working to stop the fire that keeps on going on. This article is an example of negative externality since not only the place got destroyed, but the train station had to be closed since it was close by. Therefore, there is going to be problems with trains, and people won't be able to travel (less demand for trains, less profit for the society). In addition, the smoke is very bad for the environment, causing a negative externality for the environment that will be more polluted and people have to stay at home, therefore there is a loss of profit for the population, which won't be able to go to work.

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.

Quarrying and aggregate supply firm Breedon believes profits will "significantly exceed expectations" after margins continued to improve in the final few weeks of last year. The company, which has its Scottish headquarters at Ethiebeaton in Angus, said market forecasts for the year look set to be significantly surpassed during a finish which escaped the disruptive influence of winter weather. We don't often think about how macro- and micro-economics can come together, but, for big companies, one is no more important than the other. Not only do you have to think about the margins and competition of your own market, but how your market is doing in general. It doesn't matter if your beating the other guys with a better price and more demand if that price is barely enough to cover what your supplying. On the flipside, your countries economy could be doing great and your factors of production most favorable but, if everyone's getting more benefit from those advantages than you are, it's only a matter of time before get too far a head. This article is a perfect example of where a European company has become enthusiastic about future profit predictions based not only on competition and margin but just on the welfare of the whole country in general

The profit of the Microsoft decreased as people started buying more smart phones and tablets. This is related to elasticity as people will buy more tablets since they are cheaper than PCs. Therefore, the demand of the PCs and Microsoft is elastic since it is not a necessity and people are buying substitute products

The strong dollar and increasing competition present a barrier for McDonald's effort to increase its profit. McDonald's used to have inelastic demand, since it did not have much competition and changes in price would not affect total revenue. If they wanted to increase total revenue, they just raised the prices. However, nowadays, as competition takes place, their demand is becoming more and more elastic, because of the more substitutes offered by competition.

This article talks about how the oil prices are very elastic. Due to Venezuela having a "shortfall"in their production, OPEC decided to take advantage of this. They saw this as a "a legitimate excuse to increase output". Therefore, this allowed them to increase the prices a little more and still be able to sell more oil, causing a greater profit for OPEC. In other words, because Venezuela had a shortage in their oil production, other countries were able to take advantage of this and allow the elasticity of their product to create the greatest profit possible.

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.

The article I chose for this week talks about how organic foods are increasing in quantity and the industry is increasing in profit as well. Many people have started consuming only 'organic foods' and this is causing distress for the industry because they need to be able to supply more. However, some consumers consider the idea of 'organic foods' as just healthier foods but they aren't receiving the extra health they're paying for.

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 the economic growth in the UK. It says that the economic growth increased because of the Olympics. It is a huge events and a lot of tourists came to the UK. There was an increase in revenue of hotels and restaurants.

Who doesn't love the Olympic Games?! So this article discusses how the Olympic games helped the UK regain economic growth. "The UK economy emerged from recession in the three months from July to September, helped by the Olympic Games. The economy grew by 1.0%, according to official gross domestic product figures (GDP), which measure the value of everything produced in the country." Due to the Olympic Games the UK had a lot of tourists come in from all around the world, therefore, creating more profit for the hotels, restaurants and touristic attractions.

The article discusses the total sale of houses (a good) is rising in the economy in the UK. Due to this rise by 5%, the economy was able to grow and increase. The real estate businesses and bank of England are able to work together to get maximum profit from the rise in sales from houses.

There has been an increase in how the amount of houses sold, which created an improvement in the economy of the UK. The increase was created by the increase of supply of mortgage, which increase the possibility for the population to buy a house.

Well, the Saudis are going green, and GE's heading the project. Not only does this show the greater demand across the world for cleaner energy and better health coverage, but this is also a big PR move for GE. There's a lot of politics that go into selling your product, constantly trying to make as many people as possible feel like you're on their side, like you agree with them. Whether it's for the sake of increasing profits or if GE really does care we may never know, but a decision like this helps brand loyalty and will bring in more customers than it loses.

This article talks about the increase in demand of gold and the amount of price paid to get gold between 2010 and 2011. The demand of gold increased by 11% from the first quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2011 while the price increased by 40%. The increase in demand directly increases the supply of gold because if people want it, the rate of mining would increases so that gold is available at all time. Also, the amount of money spent on the gold would also increase because gold does not grow and one day gold would finish. The people who sell the gold would therefore put additional money on the price of the gold to get their own profit. This process would however continue because every time gold is found, the amount of gold left in the earth reduces. This allows the seller to always increase the price of the gold which means that there can never be a balance between the price and the demand. As the demand of gold increases, the price of gold decreases and the amount of gold left on earth decreases. Looking at the chart in the article, we can see that if the demand of gold increases the supply of gold would also increase but there was a slight decrease in the years 2007 to 2009. The article states that 'China's total annual gold demand topped 700 metric tons for the first time ever last year and is expected to keep rising over the next decade'.

The article talks about the increasing investment in African countries due to falling interest rates and lackuster growth. Investing in African bonds gives off a high profit.

Because of the people's declining trust in the safety of China made products there is an increasing demand for products made else where. Everyday people cart bulk packages of coffee, diapers, and ramen, onto Hong Kong's trains to get them into china. Their destination is the shelve's of corner shops, who make a bigger profit selling "imported" goods. This is an example of scarcity of resources.