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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.

The article discusses caste-based quotas and how the state needs to realize that reservation has outlived its utility as a policy measure. The government needs to look at the policies again and consider replacing caste-based quotas.

It states how the "caste-based quotas in matters of promotion should not be allowed" due to the fact that it isn't doing what it's supposed to do. Therefor the name "Junk quotas".

The article was initiated by a series of event regarding a man, Mark Shuttleworth that transferred money to the South African Reserve Bank. Through powers granted under exchange controls legislation, the South African Reserve Bank imposed a levy of 10% to the money deposed. A big scandal started around the court cases which brought up several good points for the economy of South Africa. It was stated that controlling currency flows gives smaller economies more stability as well as independence. The free flow of capital would also cause account deterioration, inflation and currency devaluation. It was also mentioned that large institutions in South Africa (like its reserve bank) are not interested in red tape or levies, but some how imposed on on Shuttleworth. In addition, they stated that free trade comes as a cost that comes in a form of lost tax revenues and a loss of jobs in South Africa.

The article talks about the reasons why countries keep foreign currencies. The main reason why the keep the reserves are to meet the international payment obligations in the long term and in the short term. Furthermore countries keep foreign currencies in order to pay imports or for commercial debts.

Abbott confused on A$ - and that gift to the RBA Did Prime Minister Tony Abbott's confusion over economics and the strength of the Australian dollar lead him to mislead Parliament last week, and suggest the Reserve Bank had done a deal with the government to lower the value of the dollar?

This article doesn't have as much economic terminology as I would have liked but it proves a very important point using a topic I really enjoy, chemistry. Helium is not thought to be a very useful nor uncommon element and while the former is completely untrue, the latter is just a bit misleading. It is the second most abundant element in the universe, the first being hydrogen, but it's not as easy for us to get. As most people know, helium is lighter than air, so every time we find helium we have to catch it before it escapes into the atmosphere. Once it makes it out of our grasp, whether via a balloon or from careless mining of natural gas reserves, it might as well be gone. In the late 20th century, the US government had a huge reserve of helium gas and so, to get rid of a lot of it, they artificially set the price so that it costed less than it really should have. Even though we now recognize the value that this noble gas has, the price still hasn't been increased properly and it is still being sold off by the tank full for birthday parties and other celebrations. Helium is used for a lot more than sounding like a chipmunk. Without it, technology such as rockets, lasers, and the Hadron Collider wouldn't work. What this all goes to show is that the scarcity of a product isn't just about how much of it exists, but how much of it we can get to.

The article talks about the USA economic growth in 2013, which is surprisingly improving after 2012. However, Bernanke is expressing that the cut the Congress wants to make (like budget costs cuts) would stop and even decrease the slow economic growth the USA is facing.

The Russian Economy is facing a decrease in economic growth, largely in part due to its inflation, and dependence on oil production (which accounted for 50% of revenue last year). In the future, with oil reserves depleted, the oil production will not be able to produce as much, and aggregate supply will be down. This poses a problem for Russia as the supply curve will shift left.

This article talks about the increase of oil prices due to the price of the dollar being down. This article supports the topic of this week because as the demand of oil increases so do the prices. As the demand for the consumption of a product increases, the price for the product either increases or decreases. Changes in the relative prices of goods (such as oil) occur because of technological change or shifts in supply or demand. Based on this article "The price of oil and gasoline are up because the Federal Reserve has driven the value of the dollar down." - Charles Kadlec

The country was forced to take 67.5bn euros (£57.4bn) after its biggest banks almost collapsed in November 2010. A further 16.5bn euros (£14bn) was drawn out of the state's National Pensions Reserve Fund. The country is now in foreign debt.

This article offers a glimpse of recent fluctuations in foreign exchange market. I will narrow my focus down to the USD. If the U.S. Federal Reserve decides to keep up the spending on Treasuries or mortgage-backed securities, this means that the supply of USD on foreign exchange market will be sustained or perhaps even increase. This means that should the demand for USD stay constant, its value will depreciate. However in the end, the expectations of investors concerning the future growth/future path of the exchange make up arguably one the most important share of a currency's movement.