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Matthew R

Twenty more "Niles" needed to feed growing population leaders - 0 views

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    As all of us know, our world's population is increasing at a rapid rate. They predict that in 2025, there will be 1 more billion people on earth than their are today. So on average, they are predicting that there will be an increase in population of about 80 million people a year. Our resources that we have right now are already scarce, so it will only get tougher. Reporters say the 3 nations that will be most in need of more water will be China, India, and USA due to population growth, increasing irrigation and economic growth. Reporters also say that the amount of extra water needed is equivalent to 20 Nile Rivers. Failure to find the needed extra water could result in great conflicts over water. Also, with climate change (global warming) this will decrease the amount of available freshwater. Furthermore, the water needs to be sanitized to avoid diseases and sickness being spread. The report said that this could cost up to an extra 11 billion dollars a year. I chose this article because it is clearly related to scarcity and is growing concern in our world that needs to be looked at. 2025 is not very far away, and we need to come up with ideas for producing extra, clean water.
Jina K

Price of over-fishing: one tuna sells for £1m - 3 views

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    The ocean is one example of a common access ground. It's not exactly owned by anyone. The ocean is being explored more and more everyday. One way is through fisheries. The rapid increase in demand for fishes has led to the sudden decline of the fish populations. Take Bluefin tuna as an example. The increase in demand for tuna sushi has led to a huge depletion worldwide for the past 15 years. This has also led to an increase in price as the populations are becoming more rare. A Bluefin tuna once sold for more than £1m at a Tokyo auction. It is said that most of the tuna caught are shipped to Japan for consumption. Since the ocean has international access, coming up with regulations need to be communicated among many countries. 48 member nations of International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic came out and voted to maintain strict catch quotas. This relates to the tragedy of the common. Anyone can access the ocean and catch as much fishes as they like. They only take into account the money they can gain from catching more tunas. This shows a lack of consideration of the generation where some are only concerned about themselves. Without strict regulations, the population of tunas may become extinct in the near future.
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    It is a very interesting article because many people doesn´t know about the problem with the fish population. We are depleting all the oceans and we don´t think about the consequence of our acts. The problem is that we are really selfish because no one care about the future generation. We will leave them a completely depleted world (this idea is very present in the film Avatar) However it is very difficult to control the people from capturing too many or too small fishes or other animals. It is a tragedy of commons because it is the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, despite their understanding that depleting the common resource is contrary to the group's long-term best interests.
Kyuhwan L

iPhone 5 preorders top 2M in first 24 hours, shattering record - 0 views

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    It is no surprise that Apple products are in high demand, and the new iPhone 5 is no exception. Demand is defined as the willingness and ability of a consumer to purchase a product. The demand curve is also sloped downwards, opposite that of a supply graph. However, in the case of Apple, the demand curve does not follow the norm. The New iPhone 5 reached a pre order sale of 2 million in the first 24 hours, while the iPhone 4S reached one million. The demand has gotten higher, yet the price has risen from $179 to $199. The course companion states that demand increases as a result of a price fall and the graph shifts to the right with an income increase, yet the iPhone manages to be not only the best selling iPhone, but the most expensive. I think the size of the population and the change in the age structure played a big role in the massive pre-order sales. The whole population did not necessarily increase, yet the population of smartphone users has increased. It was exciting and interesting to see how these regular news articles relate to what we have learned throughout the week.
Jean Eric

Tuna: The Hidden Cost of the World's Priciest Fish - 0 views

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    The tuna stocks around the world are being fish out an alarming rate, to fast for the tuna to reproduce and keep there numbers constant. This constant battle between the supply of the fish and the demand for them in Japan (75% of the tuna market) is devastating the tuna populations. The U.E. and other organzations have been trying to put quatos on the catcing of tuna but are being ignored by the fisheries and the tuna stocks are being continually fished. In a matter of years there will be no tuna to fish. As you can see this a problem of supply(where there aren't enought tuna) and demand(which is greater than the supply).
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    This article describes how the tuna stocks, around the world, are being fished out at an alarming rate. Too fast for them to recover naturally. Demand for tuna far exceeds the supply (what the sea can produce) without disturbing the natural order. So the WWF & ISSF have tried putting quotas but no one is obiding and the overall catch of tuna each year is increasing...
Tisha D

Kids go Hungry due to Political Unrest - 0 views

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    Following the recent government unrest in Yemen, the presence of terrorist groups in the country and the ongoing economic crisis the country is facing serious issues with food and hunger. The country depends solely on imported food due to the unavailability of arable land, but due to the lack of funds the government is not able to do so. The country is already in a weak state due to the fall of the government and presence of Al- Qaeda occupied regions in the country. The country has also been hitten hard by the global increase in fuel and food prices Due to the excessively high prices 5 million people or 22% of the population that mainly consists of the poor economic section cannot feed themselves enough or go hungry to bed on most nights. Yemen is the third country in the world to have the largest number of malnourished children. Most of these kid's parents are landless labours, so they cannot grow their own food and because of the high prices, they cannot afford to buy it either.
Caitlyn S

In This Recovery, the Rich Get Richer - 2 views

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    The article discusses how during recessions, the rich become richer and how the businesses cycles still disadvantage the poor and benefit the rich. During recessions, income inequality increases and favors those who are wealthy. As unemployment rises, many people see a significant decline in their income and saving abilities. They are no longer able to afford common resources. For example, people will need to sell their business, houses… This leaves the rich buy up such resources for a cheaper price. This is what keeps the rich constantly "on top" and the poor even poorer. There is a chart which really illustrates this statement put forth by the author.
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    I think it's funny to see how rich people can get even richer during recession.
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    This article talks about how the top 1% doesn't get affected by recessions and actually gets richer while the poorer get poor. This came as a surprise to me as I thought recession always had a negative effect on the incomes of the population, but obviously this isn't true. The article states since the recovery period of 2009, the bottom 99% of workers incomes decreased by 0.4% while the top 1% workers income raised by 11.2%, an enormous amount during a recession. In my opinion I think this might be because of the increase in black market activity during a recession, due to the fact that the richest people in the world have earned their income, one way or another, through illegal activity.
Tisha D

Euro Crisis - 2 views

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    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.
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    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.
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    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
Patrick vD

Overuse of farmland - 1 views

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    In this article, the overuse of farmland is described due to the massive world population growth. It explains how the overuse of farmland is caused by different factors such as the food production and the use of biofuel. These two consumers experience a clash since they both need and want the farmland. This will most likely cause a overconsumption of the commons of farmland and result in a market failure.
Caitlyn S

Ending the Oceans' 'Tragedy of the Commons' - 0 views

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    Oceans are one of the Commons, and as any other commons, it becomes overconsumed. Fishers all around the world keep devastating populations of the fish. To prevent overfishing, pollution and other human impacts, leading international marine scientists are proposing radical changes in the governance of the world's oceans. They carried an experiment in Chilie, and based on it, scientists state that they would be able to help to reverse "the tragedy of the commons". Problems in Chilie made people be open to new arrangements, scientists and fishers began working together to improve the situation with fish. By working together for some years, scientists became able to reveal about fish stocks and and the surrounding marine ecosystem. The new laws gave exclusive ocean territories to local 'artisanal' fishers, and excluded the big industrial fishing fleets, which had their own exclusive fishing zone. Scientists and small fishers then worked together to understand and rebuild the shattered fish stocks in their zone, leading to a shared vision and voluntary agreements on how to manage them.
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    This article talks about an experiment made in Chile. The use given to our oceans are no good, the article encourages huge changes in the governance of world's ocean to save them from pollution, over-fishing and other impacts made by the humans. All of these factors affect the marine ecosystem in a drastic way, now the levels of fish are decreasing as it says in the article "There was a general recognition that Chile's fish stocks were in trouble," says Professor Carl Folke. This has led to some fisheries to collapse leading the Chilean government for being responsible to take actions.This serves as an example of what's happening in the world today and for facin this problem he suggests that "You need a shared recognition that something has to be done, you need a good understanding of the marine ecosystem and how to regenerate it, you need a strong rapport between scientists and fishers, and you need a political moment when sweeping changes can be brought in." This problem needs to be faced responsibly otherwise there will be almost no fish stocks in the future, treating our commons well is important for us humans as this affects goods that are importand for living.
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    Leading international marine scientists are proposing radical changes in the governance of the world's oceans to save them from overfishing, pollution and other human impacts. "Marine ecosystems are in decline around the world. New transformational changes in governance are urgently required to cope with overfishing, pollution, global changes, and other drivers of degradation. Fishers and scientists had been working together on the problem for some years, trialling new co-operative models for fishery management, based on that science can reveal about the state of the fish stock and the surrounding marine ecosystem." The result is a national system of marine tenure that allocates user rights and responsibilities to collectives of fishers. The research indicates the key to managing fisheries depend on creating agreements that are both voluntary and flexible enough to cope with changes in the ocean environment, leading to fisheries that are both ecologically and socially sustainable.
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    I find this article particularl interesting because due to a political change in Chile, it has now effected the common resource tradegy of the Oceans. It has reduced the over fishing in Chile, which has let the fish start to regenerate. The research has found out that the key to managing the fisheries depends on making decisions flexible enough to cope with the changes that the ocean goes through.
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    I find this article particularl interesting because due to a political change in Chile, it has now effected the common resource tradegy of the Oceans. It has reduced the over fishing in Chile, which has let the fish start to regenerate. The research has found out that the key to managing the fisheries depends on making decisions flexible enough to cope with the changes that the ocean goes through.
JaJa C

Tackling diminishing returns in food production - 0 views

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    Because of the world's population is keep increasing, and absolutely everyone needs food. That means we have increased on demand, but we might don't have enough food. That led to increasing the price of food, and the result might increases the price of everything because when the price of food increased, everyone who bought foods would want to increase their own product.
Mariya L

Coke Applies Supply-Chain Expertise to Deliver AIDS Drugs in Africa - 1 views

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    It is hard to supply products to the countries that doesn't have a good infrastucture. Most of the countries in Africa have a problems with that, as well as a problem with mortality of population. So few years ago one of the philanthropist asked: "If the Coca-Cola company can deliver a bottle of soda to a village deep in the African countryside on a daily basis, why can't governments and nonprofits figure out how to do the same with life-saving pharmaceuticals?" It used to take 30 days to deliever mediciens or vaccines to the patients, but in 2009 the Global Fund asked Coca-Cola for that support. In two years we can see a good results: in 80% of cases patient can find the right vaccination, it's 30% more than it was two years ago; it takes only 5 days to deliver them. But there is a huge difference between that two products - Coke and medicines: expensive drugs need to be refrigerated, and they expire, compare to Coca-Cola. That's why logistics takes a huge part in the planning of supply and it's excellently presented in that article.
Jean Eric

Soaring Food Prices - 1 views

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    This article comments on why there is a rise in food prices due to the lack of harvesting and the growing population. Due to this if there is a short fall of 5% for example the prices will double (China). But in the USA the USDA says it would take a 25% increase in price for a fall of 1% in consuption. Food is inelastic.
Matthew R

Ahsan vows to invest in human resources for economic development - 0 views

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    In this article, Pakistan's Federal Minister, Ahsan, vows to invest in Human Resources for Economic Development. A skilled population and knowledge based society would be the "solution" Ahsan believes. He also believes that economic development may be achieved through community volunteering in Masses.
Jina K

High crime rate hampering Caribbean economic development - UN Read more: http://www.ca... - 0 views

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    High crime rate has hindered Caribbean economic development, report the United Nations Development Program. 8.5 percent of human population resides in Latin America and the Caribbean, but 27 percent of crimes occur in that region. Corruption in the policies is one of the difficulties in trying to combat crime. Although insecurity and violence are not directly a part of the high development index, these situations may effect health indicators and may reflect the standard of living of the people in the countries. High rates of crime may reflect poor standard of living, such as people not having enough to feed themselves. This could be reflected in low human development index of Caribbean countries. Insecurity and violence certain affect the well-being of the people, both mentally and physically.
Andrzej Z

Russia-led bloc set to expand borders - 0 views

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    It is an article about the trade bloc created between Byelorussia, Russia and Kazakhstan. This Customs Union in its three-member format of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan still appears tiny beside the European Union, however countries like Kyrgyzstan and Armenia have declared interest in joining this group due to the energetic privileges that Russia offers to the countries members. One of the strongest points of this Custom Union is its large population that creates a big consumer market. On the other side the countries members of this block will have to accept the high interest rates of the Russian government. This article has a very good conclusion that I Would like to write down: ''The market is global but there is no global regulation,'' Valovaya says. The response has been a rush to recruit nations into regional trade blocs. It is a rivalry recalling the Cold War, but these new trade groups are mostly creedless structures, able to espouse little if any distinguishing ideology.
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