Group items tagged

This article is about the European Central Bank finally deciding to cut interest rates, to provide as much liquidity of stocks as possible. They also plan on enabling smaller companies to get credit which was relatively difficult before. The bank believes that smaller companies are very important in Europe and they should have the opportunity to get credit as well. Annual inflation plunged to 1.2% in April, pressuring the ECB to cut rates and induce inflation. However economists believe that this decision will not have much of an effect. The sudden slump in price pressure also is making the ECB look into other policy changes to counter any further slide in inflation.

In this article author considers the food accident that happened in Europe. Because of the recession a lot of food companies try to keep their prices as low as possible to be able to compete with others. But prices for raw materials keep growing. Have low prices with expensive raw material is impossible, but not for Europe producers. Appearance of horsemeat saved producers from rising prices, but only for a while.

This is an excellent article from The Telegraph that sheds some light on the possible creation of the world's largest trading bloc. This bloc would include the removal of trade barriers between the U.S., Great Britain, and all of the E.U., and would be of incredible importance and power given that this new trade relationship could strengthen all nations involved in order to rival the growth of nations like China and India. 

EU and US economies account for nearly half of the world's economic output and a third of global trade, meaning that a transatlantic free-trade bloc would hold great sway over emerging economic superpowers China, Brazil and India.

This article talks about the negotiations between China and the EU. The concern of the two countries is about the Chinese exports of solar panels to the EU. The representatives of the EU consider the Chinese exports of solar panels as dumping, because of the lowered costs.To prevent the uncompetitiveness of other producers, the EU had to set tariffs of nearly 50 percent on Chinese solar panel shipments. That caused a discontentment from Chinese side, because the exports of solar panels is one of the largest categories of Chinese exports and worth about $27 billion a year.

This article talks about an increase in the excise duty on soft drinks which are already subject to a 23pc VAT rate. With this measure the government is trying to reduce the obesity and to increase the revenues of the government. I think that this is a good idea because the problem of obesity is very concerning. Also the costs of treating the obesity are very high (in Spain the government is paying 37 million each for treating the obesity) Many doctors says that the obesity is the epidemic of the XXI century. The fat tax has been introduced in some countries in Europe. The problem is that these taxes are very unpopular because the food is a necessity product. The biggest impact of a tax increase would be felt by the young and lower income groups who are the biggest consumers of soft drinks.

This article relates directly to the concept of income elasticity of demand and cross elasticity of demand . McDonald's monthly sales fall for the first time in almost 10 years. Its revenue fell by 1.8% last month. This happens because of the various reasons. One results from the unstable economy. People are more cautious about spending their money. A lot of people choose to "eat in", simply because they cannot afford it. This applies a lot to the younger consumers, who have been facing unemployment. The company has also been affected by Europe's economy since the market of Europe counts for 40% of the company's revenue. European economy has been facing recession. There has been a tremendous amount of unemployment, which means a decrease in the general population's income. This directly relates to income elasticity of demand. As income falls, the quantity demanded for products fall as well. In this case, people choose to eat at home to be more frugal. I believe this contradicts a little to the idea of inferior goods. McDonald's may be considered as "inferior goods" to the majority. It is often said that as income decreases, inferior goods will likely benefit from it. However, in this case, McDonald's do not. People choose other alternatives instead, which is eating in. So it is just not McDonald's that has been affected, but a lot of other restaurants and fast food chains too. Furthermore, fierce rivals have also came up with strategies to out compete its competitors. For example, Wendy's Co. has decided to upgrade their menus and offer discounts. This relates to cross elasticity of demand. Obviously, as other rivals offer discounts and as well as an upgrade on their menus, consumers will shift to consuming those products that are slightly cheaper.

This article talks about Ireland having the highest tobacco pricesses in Europe. The european commision is stating that the Irish government "is against EU law, distorts competition and keeps tobacco company profits high." The Irish government says that by keeping the prices high on tobacco its a good way to control smoking in the country and that its policy of high prices is with the World Wide Health Organisations regulation policy. what the European comission is trying to do acoording to this article is to encourage Ireland to take off the price controls. but they refused and are going to court against the EU regulations in Luxemburg.

This article talks about how other countries, but in this case Spain, are sufferig from a very profound economic crises where its unemployment rate is 24.3%. It explains that with this rate of unemployment no foreign countryis going to invest in the country and that most young spaniards are going to travel abroad, further worsening the spanish situation, stating that its partly due to bad macroeconomic managemeent. It states that Spain should learn from Argentina, a country very similar from an economic point of view. It advises that Spain should leave the Euro zone because its constructed around a German macroeconomic policy that doesnt work for some countries, in this case Spain. So what is it says is that spain has a better chance of going by its own macroeconomic rules than piggybacking on Germanies

The most recent searches by Rabobank say that commercial wine are at their lowest prices in over a decade. Many wine companies globally have had to tighten their supply. The tighter supply situation has eliminated much of the unsustainable competition that had been undercutting pricing. Markets that do not pay much for bulk wine will be outbid by markets that will pay higher prices. Europe will see decline in imports, and therefore also consumption of wine. I found this article interesting because there are quite a few non-price determinants shifting the supply curve and therefore changing the market price equilibrium. This article sums up many concepts that we have learned over the past 6 weeks.

American car sales are declining, which can be at the cause of the falling economic situation in America. They need more people to develop the products and the quality of the car somehow decrease, which cause of the fall of demand. I think it's relate to scarcity because the existing oil on earth is about to run out, so the price of oil rise in recent years. Then more and more people would like to take public transportation instead of car. In a word, the decrease of demand is the main cause of the sales falling of the car. Moreover, I believe Ford should think about why the Europeans are not interested in Ford now? Ford do need to do something for keeping their products stand in the European market.

I have chosen this article because I think the situation it reports is a bit ironic. Russia's Foreign Ministry is criticizing the human rights situation in Europe without presenting any facts, while in the human development ranking; they occupy the 55th position in the world, behind every EU country except for Romania (56th) and Bulgaria (57th). The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income indices used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. I disagree with the opinion expressed by the article because since the establishment of UE there has been made a huge step towards the increase of equality in the member countries. For example, the highest scores in gender equality are achieved by European countries like Finland or Iceland.

Here we have an article about the current value of the Euro. It is a perfect example of a situation when a country (in this case a group of countries) would like to have a weaker currency. Why the euro zone wants a weak currency? Because the country within UE are trying to increase employment and a low exchange rate means more exports and more domestically produced goods. The bad side of the weak currency is an increase in inflation however the rate of inflation in Europe is very low and unemployment is very high, so the European central bank will try to balance both values.