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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.

Due to big events like the Olympics, the country receives a lot of overall income due to all the visitors of the such events. It will boost up the GDP since it measures all the assets produced in the economy and due to the event more assets are produced than normally.

It's a great article about the relationship between the consumption, the investments, the government spending and the economic growth. The investments of the firms in the UK and the government spending of the UK government related to the Olympics have brought important benefits to the consumers. The consumption (Consumption is the total spending by consumers on domestic goods and services) in the UK have increased and this have produced an economic growth in the country. Also we can't forget that it have brought other benefits like tourists, fame, sponsors, new companies, new stadiums...

This article talks about what should be the equilibrium price for a barrel of oil that benefits both the consumer and producer. The OPEC (Organization of petroleum exporting countries) talk about how high prices help the petroleum organization make investments in renewable fuels, but high priceces would hinder consumers as they now have less to spend on other products. The OPEC also talks about the effects of low prices where it would benefit the consumer but disadvantage the producer investing in renewable fuels. Therefore they have come to the conclusion that the price of a barrel of oil should be between 70-80 Dollars a barrel where bothe the producer and the consumer are happy. Saud Arabia ( the biggest exporter of oil) has agreed to the price of 75 dollars a barrel.

This article talks about how members of the WTO have a possitive view towards Japan because they didnt apply protectionism policies even though their situation was critical at a certain point. Japan would have not been able to go through all the issues that have affected the country in the past few years if it wasn't for taking the right decissions. In order to boost up the economy, and local producers the government did not intervene so there would still be competition from international producers thus encouraging local producers to work hard to improve the quality of their goods and recover as quick as possible from the natural and economical catastrophes the country has gone through.

The recent drought in the pass summer in the Midwest has resulted in a decrease in crops. As a result, not only that restaurants have to struggle with high fuel costs and inactive economy, they also have to struggle with higher food costs with poorer quality. For example, a restaurant used to offer a bowl of pasta at $8.95. However, in the late August, the price jumped to $9.95. Eggs cost 18% more than they did a year earlier. Restaurants need to adjust menus, reduce portion sizes, even consider staff cuts, and also increase prices of their food in order to sustain their businesses.Experts predict that the overall food costs could possibly rise at 5% to 20%. In consequence, customers are less seen out in restaurants. This relates to price mechanism and equilibrium. Lower supply of food shifts the supply curve to the left. This means that the amount being supplied and demanded is different. Producers then must have to raise prices to adjust to higher costs of production. In consequence, amount being demanded at a new price is decreased, setting a new equilibrium price and quantity. This is a downside for the producers since they must increase price to adjust to higher food costs, but because of that, less is being demanded. The restaurants can either choose to lower their price to the original in order to attract customers or remain at the increased price. Either way, restaurants are still affected.

Corn and Soybean prices fell as buyers are moving away from American producers to suppliers in South America such as Brazil and Argentina. Due to the declining demand, there will be allocative inefficiency and supplier's surplus with American corn and soybean. The equilibrium is not achieved, however the price mechanism could perhaps self-right the graph by lowering price and allow the supply to be harmonious with demand.

This article presents a very good explanation what is income elasticity and how it may affect producers choices and sales. The article includes four main parts: types of products, types of customers, product life cycle and determing income elasticity. In the section "Types of products" author points how small businessses and luxury items' producers are affected by people's income, and how can they improve sales. Second section talks about targeting of the customers, for example some companies may focus on people with high-income, so consumers are not sensitive to the changes in price. Product Life Cycle section talks about aging of the product and appearing of the substitutes, and the ways of overcoming that problems, attracting consumers. And the last part of an article describes how to determine an income elasticity of demand. It is a good article that helps to increase understanding.

Danish government aims to reduce corporate tax to 22% by 2016. It also aims to increase international competitiveness by offering tax credits, reducing energy tax and public investments. This amendments is implemented in the hope of stimulating growth and make it more attractive for foreigners to run a business in Denmark. Reducing corporate taxes allow companies to have more capital for investments. This could potentially increase factors of production. This wil give corporate incentives to produce more efficiently. In all, this policy can produce a shift in the supply curve to the right, giving positive supply-side benefits.

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.

It is an article about fish trade between South Korea and Japan. The korean government want to ban the import of fish from Japan because they are afraid of the radioactive water leaks from the Fukushima reactor. This ban on the the fish import from Japan will have an important effect on consumers from Korea because Korean consumers will have a smaller choice of fish to buy and the prices from the local producers may be higher. It will also have effect on the Japanese market because the demand for fishes will decrease and Japanese producers will be probably forced to reduce the production.

There is a lot of articles about the problems with the harvest of corn. It is a big problem because it affect everybody. USA produce 40 % of the corn production. The the had bad crop it will affect everybody because the price will increase and the supply will decreasy, it will cause huge problemes to the poor people, because the won´t be able to afford it. I think that this is one of the bigest problem of the world because each day more and more people die of hunger. We must increase the food supply.

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).

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...

House prices in the UK have fallen for the third month in a row. Although the government has supported in mortgage borrowing, but the consumer's uncertainty surrounding the economy and their ability to afford the houses still causes the decrease in price in the market. The increase in demand is believed to be driven by seasonal factors compounded by the Olympics. It is believed that the house prices will continue to decrease slowly over the remainder of the year. There is also the first decline in supply in September after seven months of growth. I think this article fits perfectly under the topic of demand. The basic law states that as price falls, the quantity demanded of the product will usually increase. However, this does not fall under the basic law behind the demand curve, but it indicates that price of houses have fallen as a result of an increase in demand. The Europe's economy isn't doing very well at the moment and it causes more hesitant in how they consumers choose to spend their money. Price may be low, but they may choose to spend their money elsewhere. This does, however, support the supply law. As price falls, the quantity supplied is dropped. Suppliers wouldn't want to produce or supply to any products that isn't very well demanded.

The government in Manila is taking advantage of taxing Tobacco. Franklin M. Drilon, acting chairman of the senate, is trying to make this tax a done deal. He thinks it should be taxed because it is a "sin" product. It would see the government raise 40-45 billion Peso's in tax revenue. Senator Ferdinand R. Marcos is concerned about this and is doing his best to prevent this tax. He knows the affects it could have on the tobacco farmers. There are about 18,000 tobacco farmers who are concerned about this tax. I think this is unfair of the Government. I don't think tobacco is a "sin" good, as it is many peoples alternative to drugs. This tax could put many producers out of jobs seeing as the demand will not be as high, and also this tax could force poor people to go back to cheaper alternatives that are very unhealthy and addictive.

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 new health care effective 2013 will introduce an excise tax on all medical devices such as bed pans and stents. Being one of the main states with companies that produce medical devices, Minnesota will take about 25% hit of the newly levied tax. So there have been a lot protests in the state. However others parts of the medical sector such as hospitals and pharmaceutical companies are said to benefit from this tax since more people will have insurance to pay for medical facilities and drugs. The tax is also going to lead to a large of people being fired from the companies. The CEO of Medtronic, a large and prominent company in Minnesota said it will have to 1000 people go in the next year. Smaller companies are likely to be affected even worse by the tax.

Samsung and Apple are the most popular companies producing highly desired products, but it seems that Samsung has took the lead. The cross elasticity value of each respective smartphone is high and positive, making them close substitutes for one another. With the high cross elasticity value, the sales for each product is sensitive to one another, making the market fierce.

This article is very interesting, Andy. I find it amazing how blackberry has almost completely dropped off the face of this planet! Its all about samsung and apple now. Since the Iphone 5 came out, I am guessing that the demand for Samsung phones has dropped!

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 talk about the maximum price in New York and New Jersey after the sandy huracane. The government has set new laws in order to reduce the price for the neccessity products. However those laws are causing shortages in New York and New Jersey. Government-imposed price controls are making the disaster worse a week after Sandy hit shore. The producers can´t increase the prices for goods considered neccesarie for the consumers.The businesses aren´t allowed to raise their prices more than 10 percent within 30 days of a declared state of emergency. If the businesses increase above the maximum prices they will have to pay penalties. When there is a situation of scarcity (shortage) the people will try to buy the products in the black for a higher price. When high prices are prohibited from serving their function the result is a shortage where there are more buyers than sellers. Buyers still compete with other buyers to try to get the scarce gas, but because price competition is illegal their competition takes less beneficial forms.

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.