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In this Article, Canada (the country that I am from) has its currency exchange rate compared to other nations and other currencies. The Canadian dollar to British Sterling did not change much recently as it remained at .6037 to the British Sterling. This means that 1 Canadian dollar would get you 60 pence. Also, the CAD - USD exchange rate continues to fluctuate. Right now the CAD is at .96 cents USD.

The British Pound and European Euro Exchange Rate has rallied to a one month high. The Euro to Pound exchange rate has dropped 0.7 percent on the day to 84.03 pence against its lowest since early October. The Euro has also lost ground to the American Dollar, which has done well recently. The Pound has also rallied to a 5 year high versus a much weaker South African Rand.

I found this article interesting as it shows two sides of the same coin. On the one side the pound where its estimated that the british economy has passed the recession and that the pound is going to rise in value, as it has rallied to a 1month high. On the other it states how the euro is still struggling against the dollar and the rand and that the central bank of eurpope is going to decrease the interest rates in order to spur the growth of the economy.

Canada's economy seems to have taken a hit as housing, jobs and exports fell. First there was a 21,900 jobs loss in January plus a 58,000 decrease in Canadians looking for work. In addition, exports fell 2.1%, exports to the US alone dropped, 4 points and imports fell as well. Furthermore a 19% reduction in the housing industry topped Canada's misfortune these past 2 months. Many Canadians are questioning the actions of the conservative government as economic growth is slowing to a crawl.

I think that you have chosen a very nice and interesting article because it's related to our actual topics. Is a good example about the importance of the exchange rates in the exports. If a country's exchange rate becomes stronger, then this makes the country's exports relatively more expensive to foreigners. According to the law of demand, this will cause the quantity of exports to fall. Another think to highlight is the increase of the unemployment rate, this will probably decrease the consumption because However, if people expect economic conditions to worsen then they are likely to reduce their consumption today in order to save for the future. In brief i think that it's a great article to talk about the aggregated demand, macroeconomic and the monetary policies.

I find this article particularly interesting because i never knew that Canada was suffering so much from the recession. Since it states in the article that 21,900 jobs were lost means that the household cinsumption must be very low a resulting in a low agregate demand, and since the agregate demand is low firms gain less proffit and therefore have to cut costs which in this case would be workers.

Japan's trade deficit increases in October as increase in imports exceed increase in exports to the US and China. Over the past years, weakening yen has helped promote exports, but also increases the cost for imports. The increase in cost for imports, such as crude oil, helped widen trade deficit. This shows the relationship between the current account and the exchange rate. Japan is currently going through a balance trade of goods and services deficit. This results in downward pressure on the exchange rate of the currency as there is an increase in the supply of yen due to increase in imports.

This article focuses on the trade deficit of Japan. 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. There are several factors that led to trade deficit. Firstly, the weakening of the yen over the past year had its significant impact on imports and exports. After meltdown of the nuclear power plant in 2011, Japan has faced loss of the generation capacity, therefore forcing Japan to import natural gas and oil. Overall, weakening in the Japanese yen over the past year has helped exports, but it has also increased the cost of imports.However, the exports are not as stable as they could be. Slowdown in economic growth of China has led to decrease in demand for Japanese exports.Overall the article talks about the details of the trade deficit of Japan.

This article tells that the Euopean Central Bank executive board member is not that much concerned with the euro exchange rate in specific, but rather the effects it has on the inflation.

In this article you can learn something about the copper, for example the market of copper was growing during the last years because the demand for copper was constantly growing but this year the situation has changed. The main reason is the depression of the market and the public deficit. Indeed, although exchange inventory is down by some 100,000 tons this year, much of this has simply shifted to higher inventories in China. HSBC estimates this year to show a 200,000-ton surplus, although this is down from an early estimate of 340,000, but is in stark contrast to the World Bureau of Metal Statistics which recently reported the January-to-August-2012 deficit as 299,000 tons. However the future situation of the copper seems to be good because the market of copper will grow across 2013.The bank believes the market is likely to remain in surplus through the middle of the decade, with a peak of some 600,000 tons reached by 2015.

In this article author talks about the economical influence of immigrant, the burden they bring to the taxpayers and the way one of the leading economists Gordon Haston proposes to solve that problem. So the Haston's idea is to impose taxes on employer for hiring immigrants, thus burden would be on employers and it would ease up the political opposition for immigration, and regular people's taxes will be lower. But in this way the employment of low-skilled immigrants is generating an externality, and that the employer who make up one side of these exchanges are not internalizing the cost of this externality. So the question is who's supposed to pay for immigrants? That question causes the huge discussions in political life of countries, especially this year during the election in US. A lot of people were arguing whether they choose Barack Obama who helps poor people, or to decrease the amount of money they get and choose Romney. It's an important question for any family that pays tax, so I choose that article.

Barack Obama promised to his voters to shake up a medical care system, i.e. his new law will no longer let insurance companies to refuse to cover an individual because he is not healthy, or to charge him an exorbitant fee. That new policy will lead to a great change in the decision-making of the employers. Firstful, today it is more benificial for employers to not provide medical care, and just to increase wages. If during the days of the WW II it was easier to provide health care instead of incresing the wages, because of the lower prices for insurance, but during last decade it became totally oppostie. But, Mr. Obama definitely doesn't want staff of the companies be dumped on his healthcare exchanges, so there is a fine of $2000 for each employe if there is more than 50 employees.

The article does not talk about the whole aggregate demand, but rather focus on one component that contributes to aggregate demand. The article talks mainly about exports in Spain, contributing to its nation's economic growth. Spain's exports figures have increased despite the recession phase. The exports have broke a record of the least trade deficit since 1998. Exports increase to 222.6 billion euros in 2012 from 215.2 billion euros in 2011, which is the highest exports since 1971. Spain's trade deficit decreased 34% as imports fell 2.8%. This is due to changes in exchange rate and improvements in competitiveness. Apart from that, measures like labor law changes have improved investors' confidence.

Here we have a great article about protectionism and export subsidies in China. Export subsidies are often used by governments to increase exports. Export subsidies have the opposite effect of export tariffs because exporters get payment, which is a percentage or proportion of the value of exported. Export subsidies increase the amount of trade, and in a country with floating exchange rates, have effects similar to import subsidies. If China continues with high export subsidies they will probably invite retaliatory actions by foreign governments what reduces the benefits that can be gained from international trade by all consumers and producers in all countries

This article states that the Euro has experienced a 8.5 month high due to a weaker dollar. The depreciation of the dollar was due to the government shutdown and the impending economic concerns. In addition, due to increases in China's growth, investors have ventured to take risks with the Euro.

This article gives an example of how the value of the currency may benefit the economy but also affect the economy in the short and long run. Venezuela has faced food shortages in the past years, so the government decided to devalue its currency, in order to ease this shortages that are progressively increasing. However, it is expected that this measure will increase inflation and eventually weaken the economy more than it already is. As bolivars are worth less, then less American dollars can be exchanged, affecting the economy and the shortages becauseless imports can be purchased, and some of these imports are really essential (e.g. cornmeal, chicken, sugar, etc), and as it is stated Venezuela is really dependant on imports. This is a perfect example of how a weak currency may be positive yet really negative at the same time.

Asian markets have been hit with news of a liquidity squeeze in China's markets, but the South Korean won has hit a two year high. The country's current account surplus and the popularity of its bonds is strengthening the currency. However, because Korea is a heavily dependent export country, the government is intervening to stymie the growth of the won. In fact, the central bank has bought 2 billion dollars worth of the won to reduce the growth.

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.