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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.

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.

United States proposed a Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) with a goal of reaching a deal by year-end. The U.S. aims to discuss the trade deal with other nations during the World Trade Organization meeting. The TPP talks aim to establish a free-trade bloc that covers 800 million people, a third of world trade and accounting for 40 percent of the global economy. The goal is to promote remove trade protectionisms and also set standard for workers' rights, environmental protection and intellectual property rights. This article can be related to our topic this week as it involves trade protectionism. This TTP deal argues against protectionism measures as they believe the removal of protectionism will promote growth. For instance, Obama believes that more export will provide more U.S. jobs. On the other hand, opponents against the deal state that the deal will only provide multinational corporations powers against national policies in the name of free trade.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has decided to impose protectionist policies to protect domestic markets. This decision came as a retaliatory tactic against other members of the WTO who Putin claims to be making international trade "hidden and subtle." In fact, the Russian president used the EU as an example as he claims that the EU's decision to split the gas companies and gas distribution companies are an attack on Russia's domestic suppliers.

Here we see a very recent announcement made by President Putin which has many other members of the WTO concerned, although it is stated explicitly that all the policies they plan to implement will be in line with WTO regulations.

Although this article focuses on protectionism, in my opinion trade barriers come along. The WTO has lately noticed of an economic and trade slowdown because ofprotectionism, the global trade growth is estimated to decline from 5% to 4.5% next year which is alarming due to the fact the world's economy needs to recover. The article also talks about how trade protectionism is becoming more difficult to fight because it is difficult to fight because of the complexity and because its coming in different ways that we are not used to (for example:tariffs and export subsidies), and more and more regulations are being imposed each day.

As my fellow peer said this article is a perfect example of why protection policies shouldnt be used in some cases. The article states that due to trade protectionism policies the estimated anual growth will decrease from 5% do 4.5%! What should really happen is that countries should decrease their protectionism policies, let the economy gain a bit a stamina,in order to recover from the recesion, and only then increase protectionism once the economy has recovered and is growing.

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.

Nowadays, people just keep ruining the environment, that cause a damage for us in the future, if we won't make a rules and limits about this. For example, every people have the right to fish without any limits. If we keep doing that, the fish will decrease and it might become extinct. So the government should make rules for every action that will harm the environment as mush as they could to protect them.

Scientists in Alberta have found evidence that oilsand operations have been sending toxins into the atmosphere for decades. Also, levels of toxins in Namur Lake have tripled since 1960. Critics have raised serious concern over the rising pollution in our atmosphere and lakes. This relates to our lesson for the week because the atmospher and lakes are common access resources. They are open to the common. These resources are becoming depleted because of the overuse of these resources.

It is a very interesting article because it is a very recent theme. In the last week I read that the soot is three times more polluting than the scientist though. It is a very good example of negative externality of production. The toxins in the atmosphere are negative externalities for third parties. The company will produce at q1 concerned in their own cost. The MSC is higher than the MPC and there is a welfare lost from Q1 to the equilibrium point. I think that commons must be protected and to achieve it the government must intervene to save the atmosphere and the lakes because it is our planet and we must save it.

This is a perfect example of how protectionism policies are put to effect. This article talks about how protectionism policies in the EU have to increase in order to protect the fragile recovering economies. It states that there were about 150 new protectionism policies introduced last year nad 18 measures have been dismantilled. "All of us need to stick to our pledge to fight back against protectionism. It is worrisome to see so many restrictive measures still being adopted and virtually none abolished," said EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht. Trade protectionism was also an important point raised in the G20 Summit taking place in Saint Petersburg on 5 and 6 September 2013.

South Korea has been accused of dumping its washing machines by the United States. This is in response to a complaint by an American manufacturer "Whirlpool" who has voiced for a tariff to protect its products. South Korea is to appeal to the World Trade Organization. the chief aim of Korea's complaint is in the way in which the US calculates dumping.

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

The japanese government has started to consider removing tariffs from imported wine. This would mean other negotiatiors in the Trans-Pacific Partnership would also have to consider scrapping the tariffs on wine. The government believes that removing tariffs would greatly benefit the domestic consumers while also increasing sale exports from Japan. It will be interesting to see what Japan decides to do as it will have a great effect on the Japanese economy.

This article talks about the negotiations between China and the EU. The concern of the two countries is about the Chinese exports of solar panels to the EU. The representatives of the EU consider the Chinese exports of solar panels as dumping, because of the lowered costs.To prevent the uncompetitiveness of other producers, the EU had to set tariffs of nearly 50 percent on Chinese solar panel shipments. That caused a discontentment from Chinese side, because the exports of solar panels is one of the largest categories of Chinese exports and worth about $27 billion a year.

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.

It is an article about the Nigerian government that has banned the importation of foreign currency in order to protect the Nigerian currency. It is worth to point out that there were indications that the latest move was sequel to the bank's withdrawal of the operating licenses of 20 Bureaux de Change found to have purchased and sold huge sums of dollars with no documentation to show details of the transactions. The low value of the Nigerian currency has affecting negatively the society because more domestic producers are only accepting the dollar as a means of payment. The government reports that the continued import of dollars would have a devastated effect on the Nigerian economy because it would gradually become dorallized.