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It is a nice article about the central bank in my country Poland. The central bank in poland uses changes in interest rates to keep the inflation rate within the targeted range of 2.5% plus or minus 1%. This week the central bank has reduced the key rate by 25 basis points to 3 percent. As we know, a decrease in inflation will lead to the increase in consumption and investment. The consumption is the total spending of consumers in domestic products. With lower interest rates, consumers will borrow more money from the bank and they will spend more, so the AD curve will shift to the right. Investment is defined as the addition of capital stock to the economy. Lower interest rates will encourage the producers to spend more on investment. Another thing to take into consideration is that the decrease in inflation will make the exports from Poland more competitive in foreign countries where the inflation rate is much higher. Targeting inflation, whether explicitly or implicitly, is said to be beneficial as it results in a reduction in inflationary expectations. If the workers do not expect higher inflation then they will not make demands for increases in wages any higher than the expected rate of inflation and this will keep the costs of labour from rising excessively. Poland has enjoyed uninterrupted annual growth for the past two decades, and for a while after the financial crisis of 2008/9 the economy continued to defy the global downturn. However last year gross domestic product growth slowed to about two percent, less than half the pace in 2011, as infrastructure spending tailed off and the gloom from the euro zone started to filter through to previously bullish Polish consumers.

UK expects an increase in the Consumer Price Index to 3pc by June 2013 and to remain above 2pc until early 2016. In comparison, wages are only expected to rise at an average of 1.5pc. This will put more pressure on household as they have already seen a higher cost of living, which has risen four times more than wages. The recent increase is a result from petrol prices and energy bills. The bank's aim has been at 2pc, but the Chancellor may change the mandate. Another interesting point is the Chancellor may change the target inflation measures to CPIH- includes housing costs- and RPIJ, which is an alternative way of calculating retail prices. This article obviously relates to inflation rate. We can see the use of CPI as a measure for inflation rate. We can see that inflation rate does affect people with high cost of living and also people which has fixed income. Here, although many people does not have fixed income, they are still affected by the inflation due to the slower increase in the wages. We can also see that in order to reduce inflation, it does not only involve the government, but also the banks of those countries.

Article basically discusses whether unemployment or inflation is worse. The overall message i get is that unmeployment is worse for many more reasons that inflation. one of them would be that if parents have no money to spend on the colleges of their children then they wont get a very good education, and as those children are the future of their economy then the work force would be lower than usual which has no upside to it. Where as inflation has positive sides like housing prices raise, debt becomes more manageable, wages increase etc, so since unemployment has no upside it would be more economical to prevent unemployment than prevent inflation.

It's a nice article about the consumption in India. The consumption do durable and non-durable goods in India is decreasing at the same time as the inflation is increasing. The value of money is not the same as it was before, so the consumer can't buy the same quantity of products and this reduce the output of the consumers. The interest rates are relatively high so the households prefer to save money at a higher interest rate than loan money from the bank. The decrease of the consumption is real problem for the industrial production, according to the author I think that lower interest rates and reform measures may be able to revive the consumption. Also in my opinion the government should think about new monetary policies to reduce the inflation because the inflation at 10.8% is a serious problem.

This article talks about how Indias consumption is straining. Since the inflation is so high at a level of 10.8% the money has begun to lose its value and therefore the consumption of durable and non-durable goods has decreased as we can see in the article by 8.2% and 1.4%. Causingg the production to decrease by 0.6% further more making the economy suffer more. Although in the article it states that low interest rates and reform measure might be able to increase the consumption of the economy and therefore decrease the already hight inflation rate.

Inflation in indonesia nearly reached a two-year high. It rose from 5.30 to 5.91 in only 1 month. This jump in inflation is due to climbing prices in staple foods. Analysts are warning that indonesia could see capital outflows if the central bank maintains its benchmark policy. This will provide an interesting test to indonesias economy.

In the article, the author discusses about US government fiscal policy, which has been carrying might be very dangerous because it would cause inflation increasing, even though it did make the unemployment rate fall. The author also talks about Paul Ryan and Irwin arguments. However, if we had runaway inflation, we'd have political pressure in the opposite direction and overcorrection and deflation should be some things that bother governors as well.

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.

Price controls on many staple food items ordered by Ethiopia's government early this month have reduced grocery bills for many low-income families. But now shopkeepers are upset and some basic items are disappearing from store shelves. Economists are concerned about the long-term effect of the government's price-fixing strategy. The consumers responded by going to local retail shops on the first day of the new low prices to stock up on much needed basic good. how ever chaos has broken out between shop keepers and consumers as the shelves aare being cleaned of basic and even normal goods. The shopkeepers responded complaining that the weeks of low prices were unbaraible because of consumers being unhappy of even the lowest prices. The Ethiopian government defended it self that the price caps were needed to help the economic crises but 4 independant economist say that it would help the economy recover, but the government ignored them saying it would. Critcs warn that it will only help in the short term and only worsen the economy in the long term.

Price controls on many staple food items ordered by Ethiopia's government early this month have reduced grocery bills for many low-income families. However, shopkeepers are now upset and many basic items are disappearing from store shelves. Economists are concerned about the long-term effect of the government's price-fixing strategy as the price controls have triggered chaos and tension in the local marketplace. 'Ceiling price have been put on items such as meat, bread, rice, sugar, powdered milk and cooking oil due to merchants taking advantage of global price hikes. The consumers have greatly benefitted yet storekeepers are unhappy, some products they bought before the price controls must now be sold below cost. In a free market economy, the preferred way of doing this is to increase the supply and increase competition. The Ethiopian government has been heavily criticized. Despite the upheaval, government officials are hoping their experiment in price-fixing will help to curb inflation. Recently released figures show the inflation rate jumped from 10.2 percent in November to 14.5 percent last month.

UK unemployment has risen to 1.2million, resulting in a youth unemployment rate of 21.9%. The british government, which insists the deterioration in the jobs market are due to the eurozone debt crisis, have been criticised for ignoring domestic problems . "Overall, the rise in unemployment and weakness of earnings growth relative to inflation continue to place substantial pressures on household finances - squeezing real incomes, suppressing confidence and leading to increased precaution among consumers. This can only be bad news for economic growth in the short-term." said Scott Corfe, senior economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research. Government's work programme and work experience schemes have been created in attempt to is get a significant number of young people off benefits and find exmployment.

China's growth has slowed to its lowest rate since the financial crisis in 2009 with second-quarter growth of 7.6% - down from 8.1%. The Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, warned last week that the economy "still faces relatively huge downward pressure". Consumer inflation had been lower than expected and import growth, in addition to producer price deflation, has also worried investors. The government has already cut interest rates twice in a month and lowered the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves three times since November. Several economists continue to remain optimistic and suspect China's economy will progress in the third-quarter.

In the article author describes the world trade between the countries - exports. Exports are one of the four components of GDP. In comparison to the 2011, the exports in 12 largest countries declined in 2012. Only US, China and Canada had an insignificant growth last year. Declining incomes are the main reason for low consumption, consumers keep purchasing less imports. Author also considers difference between exports in 2008 and 2012. German exports fell by three percent, while Indian exports were 50 percent higher. It is a huge difference, but if one remembers the reasons for changes in net exports from the chapter 14, it is not that serious. The last reason was the difference in inflation, i.e. "if inflation in the US were relatively higher than in Canada then US goods would be less competitive in Canada and may reduce the export revenues which the US earns from its exports to Canada. " Thus, looking at India and Germany this difference in growth is justified.

The author of the article talks about Indonesia. It focuses on the attempts of central bank of Indonesia to defend the rupiah, "which has slid some 12 percent so far this year amid a global emerging markets rout." The currency has fallen to its weakest levels since April 2009, as worries about the country's current account deficit and high inflation rate have sparked a sell-off of Indonesian assets. Sudden declines in rupiah and local stocks over the last week, necessitated central bank to take part. Emergency fiscal and monetary policies that were announced last week, had done little to improve the current situation. Therefore, currently to protect its currency, Indonesian central bank attempts to raise the rates.

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.

Hong Kong government has decided to impose 15% excise tax on property in Hong Kong that is bought by foreigners. This is a difficult measure for many foreigners wishing to purchase houses in Hong Kong. Some foreigners that has been around for several years are also not feeling as happy as before. Some clients are also thinking about leaving. The government primary reason is to protect its economy from inflating property resulting from foreign investments, low interest rates, and limited supply of housing in the market. Clearly, this situation is related to the topic of excise tax, or specifically, ad valorem tax- fixed percentage is charged on a particular good. This has led to an increase in price, which leads to a fall in demand from foreign investors that wish to invest in Hong Kong properties. This shows that properties are in fact elastic products, but government is able to impose tax since it does not affect the producers dramatically and it does not affect the majority of the consumers. Only foreign investors are affected. Realtor can still generate sales from local investors.

The Venezuelan Government has announced price controls on housing rents and with prices of medicines also underway. Many basic goods have already been under price controls as a result of inflation. The government has decided to put rent prices under control in order to protect consumers from high prices from landlords. Furthermore, with price controls on medicines, the government hopes to ensure that medicines will be accessible to all. Many producers have claimed that the price controls create a lack of supply. On the other hand, small and medium businesses seem to benefit from this through economies of scale. Lower prices allow producers to producer more for a cheaper price. However, government assured that the price control was throughly evaluated, so that it does not affect the supply. This relates directly to our topic of price control. In this case, government puts price controls in order to protect consumers from being exploited by producers. We can also notice that government intervention through price control does not always receive positive feedbacks from all parties.

Last month, governor Joko Widodo has taken over the top job in Jakarta, as he has agreed to raise minimum wage. From the previous amount of 1.53 million rupiah, the new governor has agreed to increase the wage to 2.2 million rupiah. Suppliers are grumbling as one shoe owners states that "that large an increase is irrational" and is not sure if "buyers will be willing to pay more." In addition, high wages may prompt inflation, and discourage investment as suppliers are detrimentally affected. There is a critical balance that must be struck between the impacts of the people and the cost of the suppliers.

This article is about the ongoing European Economic Crisis. A decrease in number of jobs and increase in population has led to higher rates of unemployment than ever before. Due to the high unemployment, lesser people are paying taxes as well. So the tax revenues for the country is falling too. Hence they cannot extricate themselves from the debt either. Two of the worst affected countries are Spain and Greece. However countries like Germany and Austria were not affected that badly. Initially in Germany retails sales went down, but since unemployment didn't increase tax revenue wasn't affected. For example the state of Baden- Württemberg pays 49% of the income for taxes.

Like you said one of the most affected countries is Spain where the situation is really bad and the unemployment is really high. There are a lot of things that contributed to this situation, the people spend more than gain, the banks didn´t work properly, the government didn´t intervened… The reasons that many people don´t pay the taxes is because they don´t have nothing and the inequality in Spain is a big problem now. The standards of live of a lot of persons are bad; there are families that live on the grandfather's pension. The people are angry and blame for everything the government.

This article talks about how the euro crisis is effecting the unemployment level severly. It states that due to the record new high level of unemployment since 1975 at 11.6%, at a rate of 11.7% now, less people are paying there taxes. This causes the governmnet to have less of a budget nad therefore it cant subsidize as many companies as it originally wanted to further increasing the crisis. What the governmnet needs to do in this case in lower the taxes so a larger amount of people can afford it and therefore more people would pay tax increasing the governments budget and therefore increasing subsidies

The article talks about Japan's monetary problem in bond markets, which has threatened to undermine the country's battle to end deflation and stimulate growth in the giant economy. This causes the banks to expand the monetary base. However, Japan is still in debt and now it has more money struggles. Governor Haruhiko Kuroda is looking for a way to combat falling price and he declares that he will even double Japan's monetary base. But again, the debts of Japan is "twice as much as the size of the country", thus Japan is vulnerable to rising borrowing costs. Fortunately, the government uses pushing government spending, boosting asset prices by raising asset price inflation expectation, and increasing the country's GDP as solutions; and they do work.

Central Bank of Russia will continue to cut interest rates to 8% at which central bank lends to commercial banks. This target is to be completed in early May. This action is done in the hope to boost Russia's economy after a slow down. In addition, inflation rates are beginning to decline. Lower interest rates will lower costs of saving and thus encourage people to invest or get a loan to consume goods such as houses. This will move aggregate demand outwards and as well ad economy's potential output. This, in turn, will encourage economic growth. As such, this method can be classified as a part of an expansionary monetary policy or reflationary policy.

This article talks about the economic growth that is occuring in many African countries, this is probably the region with the highest growth of the world. In the past and still now Africa has been the region with the highest inequalities and the one with the highest poverty rates, however, due to its productivity more and more people are becoming weathier and even a middle class is starting to emerge. Furthermore, economic growth doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is being benefitted, the majority of this continent lives below poverty levels, and live under disease and hunger. The Economist had labelled Africa "the hopeless continent" a decade ago, a profound change has taken hold. Labour productivity has been rising. It is now growing by, on average, 2.7% a year. Trade between Africa and the rest of the world has increased by 200% since 2000. Inflation dropped from 22% in the 1990s to 8% in the past decade.