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PARIS - President François Hollande of France has begun a major charm offensive to convince the world that France is open for business in a bid to lure back investments, which have slumped since he took office. In this article author talks about the measures taken by the president of France François Hollande. Recently he has gathered chiefs of the largest multinational companies and investment funds to speak about the needs of France in the investments. He has admitted that France may appear as a country with some complexity in the process of investment, however, France is ready to open itself up. Article also talks about some other aspects one of them is the measures taken by the government related to government spending and taxation.

I chose this as my article for this week because I am very interested in France as a nation, as I am in French A language and literature HL, and I have to follow french media outlets for a unit in this class. French fiscal policy is a common subject of discussion, so as a result I spend a lot of time reading about similar topics. This particular article discusses the impact a country's fiscal policy can have on firms in that nation. 

Negative externality happens when firms or individuals do not have to pay the whole cost when making decisions. The costs are passed on to society. This article talks about an Italian's ILVA steel plant plans to suspend its operations as it has received several warrants as a result of the pollution it has produced over the years. Some parts have been closed due to damaged environmental reports which show high cancer rates. The suspension has affect 7,000 ILYA jobs and thousands more in the steel sector. This relates to negative externality as firms choose to pump pollutants into the air, affecting people's health and environmental problems. Although the firm needs to pay for electricity, resources, etc., but the people living around the area needs to pay for health expenses and causing them poorer quality of life. Firms choose to pump pollutants into the air since it's obviously much cheaper than finding an advanced machin. This is also the cost the the firms do not have to pay.

This article talks about the trade surplus of Germany. According to one German worker's statement, Germans work hard to make all their exports. However, the data shows that Germany makes as much exports as the US, but it imports much less. Therefore, Germany has faced a surplus, while the US has a trade deficit. It has been suggested that Germany should decrease their surplus, not through decrease of the exports, but through increase in imports. Increase in exports from other countries would lead to improvement of the economies of other countries like Spain, France, etc.

This article deals with the new resolution that has been passed by the EU government demanding that the free trade pact with the US be under discussion. This is to safeguard the movie industries and online media of countries like France against foreign competition. With the influence of American culture and Hollywood films in every country around the world, the EU is determined to maintain its own culture and industries. This is a good example of how countries set up trade barriers to protect their own local industries against powerful international competition.

This article is of particular interest to us because it would be a great article to analyze for one of our blogs. It provides a great deal of quantitative data with regards to the different powerhouse currencies, like China's and the Dollar.